FC Testing Question

[Wade C]

Greetings all. So Idecided that I wanted to start taking care of my 10,000 gallon pool, and after acouple of weeks of reading (and some experimenting), I think I am starting tounderstand some of the basics. Thatsaid, my pool has relatively high CYA levels (90) - probably reflective of tabletuse and the fact it hasn’t been drained in at least the last 3 years - andafter doing some reading around the forum it looks like I need to keep mytarget FC around 10 and my shock FC around 35.
So, last week I purchased Total Poolcare DPD Test Kit (Mfg.by Taylor) at Leslie’s, and realized after getting it home that the CL/BR scaleonly goes to 5/10. That said, I also havea bottle of Clorox Smart Strips that measure FC up to 10 PPM, but I’d like tobe able to get a better sense of where I’m at daily than the test stripsprovide; also the strips won’t help me to figure out where I am relative toshock values. So, I was wondering ifanyone might have some ideas on testing above 10 PPM.
FC 10
PH 7.5
TA 100
CH 400
CYA 90
Thanks in advance!

Wade

 

[zea3]

Hi, welcome to TFP! What you need is the FAS/DPD test to measure chlorine > 10ppm. Your local stores probably do not have this test but you can order it from TF Testkits .

You also may want to consider a partial drain and refill to lower your CYA.

 

[Wade C]

Thanks very much zea3, the TF-100 in the link you sent looks like it will do exactly what I need. I've been thinking about doing a few 10% drains - right now the water table around here is really high and I am nervous about draining too much - and I'm hoping that combined with the evaporation will help me get the number down during this season. I need to repaint this winter so I will be doing a full drain then, and hopefully that will drop it down to a more manageable level. Thanks again!

 

[singingpond]

It sounds like you may just need the FAS/DPD test reagents, not the entire TF-100 (since the Taylor kit you already bought covers the other frequently measured parameters). If you browse around the tftestkits site, you will find a set of refillls specifically for the FAS/DPD test. You may also want to look at how much CYA reagent you have in your kit, and perhaps order a refill of that at the same time -- if you do a couple of partial drain and refills, you'll want to measure CYA a few times along the way.

 

[Wade C]

Good points all singingpond, will no doubt save me some "waiting on the UPS truck" time. Thanks

 

[singingpond]

Take a look here
TFTestkits.net

If you are getting FAS-DPD test materials separately, you will need all three chemicals shown - 0870, 0871, and 0003 (the latter is necessary for testing combined chlorine levels).

 

[laprjns]

Thanks very much zea3, the TF-100 in the link you sent looks like it will do exactly what I need. I've been thinking about doing a few 10% drains - right now the water table around here is really high and I am nervous about draining too much - and I'm hoping that combined with the evaporation will help me get the number down during this season. I need to repaint this winter so I will be doing a full drain then, and hopefully that will drop it down to a more manageable level. Thanks again!

If you don't have to SLAM your pool, then a cya of 90 ppm is manageable until you do drain for the repaint. Your cya is only going to go down from there (assuming your not using stabilized chlorine) by splash out and back-washing. Note that evaporation does not lower cya. With a cya of 90, you of course ,have to be able to measure FC above 5 ppm

 

[Wade C]

Thanks to all for the replies and recommendations! I received my shiny new TF-100 yesterday, and will hopefully use it to support a SLAM this weekend. I will probably do the 10% drains/refills as discussed to get the CYA down...this pool "balancing" is just a little fun