WARNING 1st time poster...I hope I've followed your rules well enough. This seems like a great forum.
Last year was a mess, this year I hope to make owning a pool enjoyable to to have water that my friends won't hesitate to get into.
Last week I opened the pool and dumped 10 gallons of bleach in at the advisement of the pool guy. It turned my swamp water (pool cover had major holes) into a teal colored pool that I can see about 1' down. I found you guys and promptly bought a Taylor K2006 kit and used it for the first time this morning. I need to do a bit more work on figuring out the FC and CC levels so I just used my cheapo tester which said I have no chlorine now. My last visit to the pool store said that i have a low level of nitrates which from briefly reviewing this site sounds like a BS kind of thing. I still need some more review of how to use the tester on reviewing the color changes but I think I got pretty accurate numbers for a first time tester.
Taylor tester
FC not tested (I know...my cheap tester said none)
CC not tested
pH 8+ (it was more red than the scale on the tester)
TA 90-120 (I'm not sure how red it's supposed to get)
CH 150
CYA 30 (the solution wasn't cloudy and the black dot didn't disappear)
Cheap and easy tester
FC 0
CC N/A
pH 8.4
TA 120
CH N/A
CYA 30-50
Last year was a mess, this year I hope to make owning a pool enjoyable to to have water that my friends won't hesitate to get into.
Last week I opened the pool and dumped 10 gallons of bleach in at the advisement of the pool guy. It turned my swamp water (pool cover had major holes) into a teal colored pool that I can see about 1' down. I found you guys and promptly bought a Taylor K2006 kit and used it for the first time this morning. I need to do a bit more work on figuring out the FC and CC levels so I just used my cheapo tester which said I have no chlorine now. My last visit to the pool store said that i have a low level of nitrates which from briefly reviewing this site sounds like a BS kind of thing. I still need some more review of how to use the tester on reviewing the color changes but I think I got pretty accurate numbers for a first time tester.
Taylor tester
FC not tested (I know...my cheap tester said none)
CC not tested
pH 8+ (it was more red than the scale on the tester)
TA 90-120 (I'm not sure how red it's supposed to get)
CH 150
CYA 30 (the solution wasn't cloudy and the black dot didn't disappear)
Cheap and easy tester
FC 0
CC N/A
pH 8.4
TA 120
CH N/A
CYA 30-50