FC Levels? Am I doing this right?

[ateam]

I'm pretty new to TFP and I think I'm starting to pick it up, but I was hoping to get some confirmation on some of my assumptions.

First things first, my water looks beautiful.

My test results (using TF-100)
PH - 7.5
CC - 0.5
TA - 100
CH - 300
CYA - 50
Borates - 30

According to the chlorine/cya chart my FC min is 4 and my target is 6.

I'm struggling with FC levels. I'm assuming I don't want my FC to drop below 6 (target level). I've been adding bleach to get up to 10-10.5 every night, but I'm dropping down to 5-5.5 by the end of the day. I'm not sure if I should be worried or not because I am dropping a little below the target, but staying above the min.

I know I have a couple things working against me:
bather load = 4 kids, wife and me, plus 2 golden retrievers (and sometimes the neighbors as well)
sun = South Texas (I do get some shade, but it's been extremely hot and sunny lately)

One of my dogs has a really bad habit of getting wet and then rolling in the mud before going for another swim, so I'm sure that isn't helping either.

Right now I'm adding a full jug of bleach every night to replenish the ~5 FC of chlorine lost each day. This feels a little excessive to me, but maybe my expectations are off.

Should I just get used to adding a jug or more of bleach every day? Do I need to raise my FC levels a little bit to make sure I don't go below 6 each night, or would I just be wasting bleach?

Thoughts?

 

[MarianParoo]

Hmmm. I think you should raise that target so you don't dip below.

Texans will chime in here, but I am thinking you may want to raise your CYA, but an OCLT first to reassure yourself that you have no need to slam? Thinking out loud...

 

[woodyp]

That minimum# is the one you don't wanna go below. My pool still loses 4 ppm FC daily with a cya of 60------full sun all day. My minimum # is 5 so I take it to 9---to 9.5 nightly. I really should try a cya of 70 or so. ALWAYS more before a good bather load and afterwards as well. Adding anything much over what your daily loss is excess. That much extra "unprotected" by cya will disappear rapidly.

 

[COBrien]

Definitely take your FC up to somewhere north of 10.0 tonight (test, add, wait 30 minutes with pump running, then test again to be sure) and do an OCLT. Just because your CC is 0.5 doesn't necessarily mean you're not fending off some sort of growth.

If you pass the OCLT, my recommendation is to test your FC in the morning, before the sun comes up, and then in the evening, after the sun has gone down, and figure out what your FC loss due to sunlight is. Then bump your target FC high enough that you don't drop below the minimum FC for your CYA level before the sun goes down.

I have kept my CYA at 40 ppm all summer (finally trying to get it up a bit), which makes my Minimum FC 3, and my Target FC 5. Since my pool loses 2.0-2.5 ppm FC daily (full sun all day), I have bumped my target to 6.0, just to make sure I don't go below 3.0 before I get home to add more chlorine.