New to TFP, what do I do while I wait for my new test kit

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I put the CYA in a sock in the skimmer and it is almost all dissolved after a day and a half.

Here are my readings at the moment, K1000 test kit Chlorine was =>5 and the pH was at 7.2. Doing the CPD, the FC was 9.5 and CC was 1.0. 2 days ago my pH was 8.2, but it has come down.

Should I continue to add a half gallon of bleach daily? I know I should wait longer before I test CYA. If my pH goes down, should I add more Borax?

Thanks everyone for your help. I really appreciate it.
 
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Welcome.

Leave your pH alone. If your CC is still 1, you need to SLAM your pool.
 
You need to test your pool for FC every day using the powder test only for now. This will help you learn your pool and what it needs daily.

Do your FC test, put the results in Pool Math (link below) and add what pool math tells you to add. You will need to add different amounts each day depending on MANY factors-weather, bather load, ect.

http://www.troublefreepool.com/calc.html

I would also like for you to do a OCLT (link below) to see what is going on with your water. Like Casey I do not like the cc of 1. Something is going on. I also think you will need to do a SLAM (link below).

Pool School - Perform the Overnight FC Loss Test (OCLT)

Pool School - SLAM - Shock Level And Maintain

Let us know if you have any questions no matter how little they are. I want you to have a clear pool!

Kim
 
Ok, I am a bit confused. I do not have a FAS-DPD test kit, I just bought the TF-100 thinking that would cover everything. So, do I have to order a FAS-DPD test kit before I can slam (which means another 5-7 business days of waiting)?

Also, in rereading the info on the slam, it says that I have to know my CYA to determine how much bleach to add. As I understand it, I just added my CYA, so I have to wait for a week total before testing for CYA again (its only been 3 days now). So I don't know how to determine what to add.

I just want to add that the pool looks great, very clear, even though I know looks aren't everything. :)

If I have to wait for the test kit to slam, what levels do I want my FC during that time? As of right now, it is 9.5, probably because I added a half gallon of chlorine Friday night (going by the old instructions I had from here), and was nervous because my chlorine was so low (I was gone for a day and didn't add any). I know, never best to overreact!

I just tested my pool water right now (with CPD) and it is 10.
 
The TF100 does have the FAS-DPD chlorine test. Instructions are on the card, first section I think.

If you knew what your CYA was before adding and you know how many PPM you added then you can use that number as your CYA number. Set chlorine level based on the Chlorine CYA Chart
 
So I did have a loss of 2.5 in the OCLT test so I brought the FC up today, adding enough bleach for it to reach 12. My reading tonight is 13.

I tried to test for CC but the water just kept getting pinker and pinker. I tried to move through the FC test quickly. When I put the 5 drops of reagent R-0003 into the sample after the FC test, the sample was just barely pink, the more drops I added the pinker it got. I quit adding drops at 30 drops. Did I take too long with testing for the FC? The pool is still clear, so having really high CC doesn't make any sense to me. There hasn't been much dirt or leaves in the pool either. No little kids have been in for a couple of days either!
 
You only add 5 drops of R-0003 no matter if it stays colorless or is a very faint pink. You do not keep adding R-0003. What you do after the 5 drops of R-0003 is add the FAS R-0871 drops until the sample turns colorless. My guess is that one drop of R-0871 would have made it go from faint pink to colorless. For a 10 ml sample size, that would mean the CC is <= 0.5 ppm which is good.
 

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After years of never getting the pool water really balanced, I was astonished when today when all of my readings were in the range I wanted them to be.

Yesterday, my pH was down, TA was down, and CYA was down. So I carefully figured out what to add (thank you so much for PoolMath!). Today FC is 4.5, CC is .5, pH is 7.5, TA is 80 and I added stabilizer last night, so won't check that for another week. I am very happy! Thanks for all your help.

So I plan on keeping the pump running until the stabilizer is dissolved, then, how often should I run it?
 
Thanks Kim. Yes the Pool run time article in pool school did help. My pool is a beautiful sparkly blue right now!

I am using the CYA/Chlorine chart to determine how much chlorine to keep in my pool. Even though my pool is fairly balanced right now, it really smelled like chlorine yesterday (when it was at 5 FC) but today at 4 FC, it smelled less like chlorine and I liked having a bit lower level (I am sensitive to chlorine). Going by the chart, with CYA at 40, my target should be 5 for FC. The complicating factor right now is that it is very hot here, for where I live :) (in the 90's for days on end, though looks to cool this week).

So what I am thinking is that I should keep the FC at 5. With the heat, might be good to have it at a higher level anyway. Later when my CYA lowers over time, I could keep FC at a lower level (30 CYA and FC target of 4). Does that sound right?
 
RobynA said:
So what I am thinking is that I should keep the FC at 5. With the heat, might be good to have it at a higher level anyway. Later when my CYA lowers over time, I could keep FC at a lower level (30 CYA and FC target of 4). Does that sound right?
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That's not quite right because the smell or any other effects of chlorine you might notice such as oxidation of swimsuits, skin, and hair are (at least while you are in the water) proportional to the FC/CYA ratio and not to FC alone. If you have a lower CYA level, then you will lose more absolute chlorine to sunlight even with a lower FC target. There is a CYA shielding effect that you want to take advantage of if your pool is exposed to sunlight. So you might consider raising your CYA level to 50 ppm so that you can more easily stay closer to your minimum FC which would then be 4 ppm. So if you lose 2 ppm FC per day at that CYA level, you'd raise the FC to 6 ppm and then it would drop to 4 ppm when you'd then add chlorine again.

If chlorine really bothers you even when it's near the minimum FC level, then there are supplemental products you can use to prevent algae at extra cost to operate at an even lower FC/CYA ratio. However, if it's only smell that you notice and if it's not a clean bleach smell then it may be chlorine reacting with your sweat on your skin. If you rinse off before getting into the water, that can help, but of course if you swim and sweat then chlorine will produce monochloramine which you may smell when you get out, though rinsing again will wash that off. In the pools managed with the Chlorine / CYA chart most people don't notice this or it's not an issue, but since you are sensitive I wanted to give you some further options.
 
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