Good news is, I have managed to locate a pool company in Cyprus (and not too far from where we live) that stocks the LaMotte test kits. Will give them a call to check on prices soon.
Excellent news, if I looked harder I may have found one in Spain but my Spanish isn't great which makes the whole process 10 times harder. Let me know what prices they are going for as it's likely to cost me the same from the UK as it is from Cyprus for reagents.
Whilst I'm here, a quick update.....Someone please shoot me! After the drain I tested the CYA and was seeing the same results, black spot disappearing around the 80 mark. I then doubled this number because that's what I did before.......doh!
Eventually the penny dropped and I realised my CYA was now 80 and not 160 and after a week of power washing the tiles and draining to waste it fell to 70 and now 60 (albeit with a note from the council to tell me my water consumption has been exceedingly high of late....oops)
I decided to SLAM but unfortunately, it didn't go to plan. Despite reading that I should make sure my PH was in the 7.2 to 7.6 range, I forgot and only remembered after I had poured the bleach in. To cut a long story short, The PH was very high so I panicked and put some PH- in. Next morning my PH was too low so put some PH+ in which I'm guessing contributed to a large drop in FC to below shock level (was expecting 30 but only got 21) although my CC was 0.5 so thought I'd got away with it. 24 hours later the FC dropped to 13 and the CC was now 0.0 and I was about to get the party poppers out but that evening my FC was 12 (which was unbelievable, it had been a very sunny day, how had it maintained that level?) but 0.5 CC had crept back in from somewhere. The next morning the FC was 10 and the CC was still holding at 0.5 which was dissapointing as I knew that meant I was losing the battle. This evenings test confirmed my fears as the FC was now 6.5 and the CC has gone up to 1.0 so I guess I didn't get away with it after all.
Staring into the deep end of the pool with the pump off it looks like the pool is empty, the water is that clear but I know what I have to do, another trolley load of bleach will be on it's way tomorrow.
I didn't find the time to have a look at the lights and I can't see anywhere else the pesky little blighter's can be hiding so I'll have to make a concerted effort at getting them out and blast the green vermin.
To be continued...