Apologies for the long post
A little background as my signature shows in 2021 we had renovations done to our pool and fresh filled with pre balanced water from a local supplier. The following two seasons I admit I wasn’t the best at staying on top of testing, and added chemicals more in a reactionary way than a preventative way. More often than not I feel like I was lucky was we rarely had much issues with the pool water being clear and inviting. Towards the end of last season however I had a battle on my hands with a green pool that was so murky I couldn’t see very far down. Again I attacked it in a reactive way with treatments of Algicide, Liquid Chlorine, and granular pool shock. I’ll admit that in the past seasons my hit and miss testing of the water lead to a lot of guessing, frustration, and waste. I did use one of those pool closing kits from Doheny’s along with a winterizing pill.
This past winter I decided to research and educate myself on pool chemistry both the testing end and treating end. So that this coming season I could be more proactive in my approach. This site has been beyond helpful in that regard. Lurking in the forums, and reading the articles I felt more equipped this spring to keep our pool balanced and in good shape. When I opened the pool this spring the water was in fact clear, and old habits die hard sometimes I got lulled into a casual approach as the water looked great for about a month or so. Then came a serious heat wave in June (95-100+ heat index and heat advisory for more than a week). I got a text from my wife saying the pool is getting cloudy and green. The water felt like bath water it was so warm. We had kept it covered when not in use. Pretty much created a breeding ground for Algae.
Here’s where I turned past failures into success. This time rather than panicking and just dumping chemicals in. I did a full battery of tests on the water with my 2006C kit. CYA was less than 30 (could still see the dot with the comparator full, FC was basically at 0, The other numbers were in the good range. So armed with real numbers I knew our pool needed two things, Chlorine and CYA. And I needed to slam. I stared by adding some pucks to the skimmer basket, and some granular Chlorine, I knew this would add both Chlorine and CYA. I tested both often till my CYA was in the 30-50 range. Once the CYA was in a good range, I cut off the pucks and granular and switched over to liquid Chlorine for the slam process. As the water started to clear up I saw yellow deposits on the floor and some on the walls, it looked like mustard algae. I continued to super chlorinate with liquid Chlorine, brush, and vacuumed the deposits to waste and added water as needed along with regular testing to keep an eye on my FC and CYA levels. The water eventually became crystal clear like glass. I continued to test regularly. I think this was the kick in the butt I needed to keep on top of it. To this day the water is still crystal clear. And the satisfaction of doing the various tests and knowing my water is balanced is priceless.
Now I want to get even more precise and consistent in my testing. So here is where I have some questions. I have the Taylor 2006C kit, and the 1004 6way kit. I don’t know when but at some point I mixed the contents of the two kits. Basically I have both comparators, the glass tube from the 1004 kit along with the R-0001 and R-0002 reagents in my 2006C box. Somewhere along the way I lost the booklet with the dosing charts, but not too worried about that as I plan to start using the Pool Math app to record and guide that process. I know that Taylor recommends replacing the reagents once a year. The K-1004 DPD kit I bought end of June 2020, and the 2006C kit I bought in July of 2020. Obviously beyond the 1 year lol. Today I ordered a replacement set of reagents for the 2006C kit. Most of the reagents had only sparingly been used prior to this season and they’ve always been stored in a cool dry place out of direct sunlight, but, still roughly 4 years old.
So now finally my questions. I want to be sure I’m understanding the directions for the 2006c kit correctly.
Chlorine tests. The instructions inside the lid for the 2006c kit has two options for testing the Chlorine: DPD or FAS-DPD. One involves reagents that are not included in the 2006 kit (R-0001 & R-0002) which is probably why I combined the kits. The DPD one says to fill the small tube to 9ml mark. However none of my tubes have a 9ml mark. The powder is grey and dried out so I’ve been using the comparator and the reagents that came with the 1004 kit to test for FC. So one question is once my refill kit arrives which is better the powder test, or the DPD liquid tests? Also when I’m calculating the combined chlorine (TC-FC=CC) every once in a while my TC number is lower than my FC resulting in a negative CC number which doesn’t seem right. When this happens is there something I did wrong that could cause this or is it actually possible? Also, when I did my chlorine test while slamming I was trying to figure out how to read that high of FC levels using my existing equipment, let’s just say it was some fuzzy math, I errored on the side of caution, and made sure I was regularly adding LC to keep it high.
The reagents themselves. What is the reasoning or science behind the recommendation to replace annually? Do the solutions degrade over time? I ask this knowing mine are 4 years old and due to that my numbers are likely not as accurate as they could be. So I look forward to the refill and using pool math with more concrete results.
Last full set of tests that I ran this past weekend.
FC - 3
TC - 3
CC - 0
PH - 7.4
TA - 180. (This is the only one that’s been high ranging from 180 all the way up to 200) But my PH has been stable)
CYA - 50
CH - 350
What is the best procedure for lowering my TA without tanking my PH? Is my best course of action to use Muratic Acid till my TA is in range, and then try to increase just the PH? I haven't been too worried about it because my PH has stayed in the good range. This is the kind of thing I'm still trying to wrap my mind around.
A little background as my signature shows in 2021 we had renovations done to our pool and fresh filled with pre balanced water from a local supplier. The following two seasons I admit I wasn’t the best at staying on top of testing, and added chemicals more in a reactionary way than a preventative way. More often than not I feel like I was lucky was we rarely had much issues with the pool water being clear and inviting. Towards the end of last season however I had a battle on my hands with a green pool that was so murky I couldn’t see very far down. Again I attacked it in a reactive way with treatments of Algicide, Liquid Chlorine, and granular pool shock. I’ll admit that in the past seasons my hit and miss testing of the water lead to a lot of guessing, frustration, and waste. I did use one of those pool closing kits from Doheny’s along with a winterizing pill.
This past winter I decided to research and educate myself on pool chemistry both the testing end and treating end. So that this coming season I could be more proactive in my approach. This site has been beyond helpful in that regard. Lurking in the forums, and reading the articles I felt more equipped this spring to keep our pool balanced and in good shape. When I opened the pool this spring the water was in fact clear, and old habits die hard sometimes I got lulled into a casual approach as the water looked great for about a month or so. Then came a serious heat wave in June (95-100+ heat index and heat advisory for more than a week). I got a text from my wife saying the pool is getting cloudy and green. The water felt like bath water it was so warm. We had kept it covered when not in use. Pretty much created a breeding ground for Algae.
Here’s where I turned past failures into success. This time rather than panicking and just dumping chemicals in. I did a full battery of tests on the water with my 2006C kit. CYA was less than 30 (could still see the dot with the comparator full, FC was basically at 0, The other numbers were in the good range. So armed with real numbers I knew our pool needed two things, Chlorine and CYA. And I needed to slam. I stared by adding some pucks to the skimmer basket, and some granular Chlorine, I knew this would add both Chlorine and CYA. I tested both often till my CYA was in the 30-50 range. Once the CYA was in a good range, I cut off the pucks and granular and switched over to liquid Chlorine for the slam process. As the water started to clear up I saw yellow deposits on the floor and some on the walls, it looked like mustard algae. I continued to super chlorinate with liquid Chlorine, brush, and vacuumed the deposits to waste and added water as needed along with regular testing to keep an eye on my FC and CYA levels. The water eventually became crystal clear like glass. I continued to test regularly. I think this was the kick in the butt I needed to keep on top of it. To this day the water is still crystal clear. And the satisfaction of doing the various tests and knowing my water is balanced is priceless.
Now I want to get even more precise and consistent in my testing. So here is where I have some questions. I have the Taylor 2006C kit, and the 1004 6way kit. I don’t know when but at some point I mixed the contents of the two kits. Basically I have both comparators, the glass tube from the 1004 kit along with the R-0001 and R-0002 reagents in my 2006C box. Somewhere along the way I lost the booklet with the dosing charts, but not too worried about that as I plan to start using the Pool Math app to record and guide that process. I know that Taylor recommends replacing the reagents once a year. The K-1004 DPD kit I bought end of June 2020, and the 2006C kit I bought in July of 2020. Obviously beyond the 1 year lol. Today I ordered a replacement set of reagents for the 2006C kit. Most of the reagents had only sparingly been used prior to this season and they’ve always been stored in a cool dry place out of direct sunlight, but, still roughly 4 years old.
So now finally my questions. I want to be sure I’m understanding the directions for the 2006c kit correctly.
Chlorine tests. The instructions inside the lid for the 2006c kit has two options for testing the Chlorine: DPD or FAS-DPD. One involves reagents that are not included in the 2006 kit (R-0001 & R-0002) which is probably why I combined the kits. The DPD one says to fill the small tube to 9ml mark. However none of my tubes have a 9ml mark. The powder is grey and dried out so I’ve been using the comparator and the reagents that came with the 1004 kit to test for FC. So one question is once my refill kit arrives which is better the powder test, or the DPD liquid tests? Also when I’m calculating the combined chlorine (TC-FC=CC) every once in a while my TC number is lower than my FC resulting in a negative CC number which doesn’t seem right. When this happens is there something I did wrong that could cause this or is it actually possible? Also, when I did my chlorine test while slamming I was trying to figure out how to read that high of FC levels using my existing equipment, let’s just say it was some fuzzy math, I errored on the side of caution, and made sure I was regularly adding LC to keep it high.
The reagents themselves. What is the reasoning or science behind the recommendation to replace annually? Do the solutions degrade over time? I ask this knowing mine are 4 years old and due to that my numbers are likely not as accurate as they could be. So I look forward to the refill and using pool math with more concrete results.
Last full set of tests that I ran this past weekend.
FC - 3
TC - 3
CC - 0
PH - 7.4
TA - 180. (This is the only one that’s been high ranging from 180 all the way up to 200) But my PH has been stable)
CYA - 50
CH - 350
What is the best procedure for lowering my TA without tanking my PH? Is my best course of action to use Muratic Acid till my TA is in range, and then try to increase just the PH? I haven't been too worried about it because my PH has stayed in the good range. This is the kind of thing I'm still trying to wrap my mind around.
