Hi. I'm fairly new to the forum. Opened my pool for the first time this year following TFP advice and got it from green to clean in a week and never went to the pool store. It's been crystal clear in the weeks since, even despite the never ending rain here in Indiana. Now that we finally have a few sunny days in the forecast I decided to put the solar cover on to help with the chlorine burnoff. Pool gets full sun all day long. CYA was at 50 but with all the rain it may have come down. I haven't retested in a while. Anyway, before putting the solar cover on FC was at 2 (I know, too low, but the sun zapped it), CC at 0.5. I put in 6 cups of bleach to get it back to 8, (1 cup equals roughly 1ppm in my 5,300 gallon pool) then put the solar cover on for the first time this year. Let the pump run all night just in case there were nasties on the cover. This evening after running the pump for a couple hours I tested FC again and it was off the charts. I got to 30 before I quit. Tried again just in case I made a mistake and got over 20 before I quit again. What on earth would cause such a thing? I'm using the Taylor 2006 kit with TFP refills. BTW pH is 7.5 and steady, TA is around 140. Ideas?
Solar Cover = Chlorine Spike?
- Thread starter HoosierHiker
- Start date
It is not possible for the FC to rise like that without adding chlorine.
You do not have a SWG or tablet feeder do you?
You do not have a SWG or tablet feeder do you?
No swg, no tablets. I've been testing and adding liquid Clorox properly for weeks. Even if the 2.0 reading was incorrect, I know I didn't add the GALLONS required to get to 30+ppm. I'm perplexed.
When you say you got to 30 was that 30 drops or 30 ppm? 30 drops (15ppm) would only be 1 gallon in a 5300 gallon pool. Also how old are your reagents and have they been exposed to excessive heat or the sun?
Someone put chlorine in your pool. Unless you can reconstruct a testing error, there is no other valid explanation.
As in 60 drops = 30ppm, color hadn't even begun to change. Reagent is less than 2 months old, stored inside in a dark closet.
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Thanks Duraleigh. I can't figure any better explanation. Don't know why anyone should be in my yard, or anywhere near my pool, let alone adding chlorine.
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Thanks Duraleigh. I can't figure any better explanation. Don't know why anyone should be in my yard, or anywhere near my pool, let alone adding chlorine.
DaninFLA
0
Who knows Dan. I tested again after work and thought I'd see how high it really is, but when I got to 80ppm with no reagent color change at all I gave up again and just took the solar cover off and left the pump running. I have no idea what to do besides let the sun bake it off and stay out until the levels come down.
80ppm? !? I suspect your reagent is bad. You are using 871 after the dps powder right? Do you have the standard chlorine test kit or strip? They aren't as accurate but a good sanity check to see if you have none or off the scale.
Jason wins the prize. I'm an idiot. I switched the location of the 871 and 003 in my test kit and was in autopilot mode when testing. My levels are fine. Lesson learned. Pay attention!
Glad you figured it out.
BTW- a pool does need to breath a bit, and UV radiation (sunlight) helps burn off CC's. With a CYA of 50ppm I really think you would be better off removing the cover during the day.
I keep my CYA at 40ppm and use my solar blanket only at night to retain heat. The pool only consumes about 3-4ppm of FC a day, and a gallon of 12% lasts 4-5 days for me.
Dom
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