New User - Doing first drain - What do I need to know?

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Okay, I got my K-2006 kit in, and my pool is back up to skimmer level. Water is still WAY screwed up, even after 2 drains now. The numbers from my kit seem too high, and I'm guessing that they are thrown off, because my FC levels are still through the roof. I can't imagine how high they must have been before the 2 drains.

So, according to my tests with the K-2006, these match what I am seeing on the strips I used before getting the kit.

FC=20 (strip shows over 10, which is it's max)
TA=150 (about the same on the strip)
PH=7.4
CYA=150 on the strip, the K-2006 only goes to 100

Keep in mind that CYA level is after TWO 3-foot drains. So, should I do nothing, and just let this sit until my FC level comes down to around 12? I really do not want to do yet another drain. My water bill will not be pleasant.
 
Do this first:
CYA Dilution Testing:
Add pool water to bottom of sticker.
Add tap water to top of sticker.
Shake.
Pour out half so mixture is to bottom of sticker.
Add reagent to top of sticker.
Shake.
Test outside with back to sun and tube at waist level.
Pour back and forth a few times to see if you get the same result.
Double the result.
 
Thanks for the fast reply. I'm not sure what you mean by "sticker" though. For the CYA test, my kit came with a bottle I fill with water to the 7ml level, then add reagent to 14. I'm guessing you are asking me to put pool water into the 7 level, then tap water (I also have distilled if that would be better) to the 14 level, mix, then dump out to the 7 level again. This should dilute my water to half for the test. Then I add reagent and test per instructions.

For the test of adding to the tube until I can't see the black dot, you mention doing it outside with back to the sun. Does sunlight make a difference? It is dark here, and I've been doing the water testing in the house, not out in the sun. Even if it was daytime, there was no sun in Chicago today.
 
The TF-100 has a different bottle with a sticker showing the halfway point, that is what Splash is talking about. The k-2006 one is smaller but it sounds like you understood what he said. You are mixing your pool water with water that has zero CYA so your reading will be half of what your actual CYA level is.

Yes, lighting is very important but it is difficult to say which lighting will cause you to overestimate and underestimate your level. If your normally test indoors in good lighting then I won't tell you otherwise, but you might want to save your sample after you test tonight and retest in the sun when you can to see if you get the same results. I believe the CYA test doesn't change over time but I will be corrected if that isn't right :)
 
:-| Well, that would put your current CYA well over 200, even after the draining you have done. This does illustrate why we trust neither test strips nor pool stores, both of which appear to have massively under reported your CYA level.
 
To be fair (not defending), the pool store did tell me my FC was too high to get any kind of a dependable reading for anything, and told me to do a drain before trying to get any test results. With an FC of 20, after 2 drains, and not adding anything, that FC must have been massive when I started.
 
But the problem is that the demand created by the astronomical CYA value would mean that you would have to use a crazy amount of chlorine. With a CYA of only 100, you would have to get to 39 FC to start a slam. If you were somewhere north of 200 CYA, you might not have been high enough, even with the value you had originally.

Someone can correct me if I am wrong, but I believe PH will not register properly until FC is below 10. Not sure how that works for your slam in the future, but I am sure these folks can get you through this.
 
Smartjack said:
To be fair (not defending), the pool store did tell me my FC was too high to get any kind of a dependable reading for anything, and told me to do a drain before trying to get any test results. With an FC of 20, after 2 drains, and not adding anything, that FC must have been massive when I started.
Click to expand...

I used to live in Bolingbrook so believe me I get the water cost thing but you still need to get the CYA under control. The amount of chlorine you will need is going to be able to SLAM will be difficult.

yes, with CL over 10 you can't test PH.
 

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Well, this really bites.

is there a better way to measure CYA than the disappearing dot method? Something that changes color? If I am doing this right, my CYA is still over 200 after 2 3-foot drains. That either means my CYA was over 400 when I started this, or I'm just not reading the CYA right, or draining is not lowering the number. The other issue may be I'm not taking enough water out, but everyone has told me not to let the drain go beyond my shallow edge. My wife will not let me do another drain, because she believes the pool store, and not some site I found on-line. She wants me to stop draining, and just keep shocking until it clears. So, I have a few more questions.

Could my CYA have been over 400, or am I not just lowering it by draining?

Since I am pumping out water after the filter, and all the algae is staying in (just getting more concentrated as water goes out), could this be the issue? Could the DiChlor (source of my CYA) be attached to the algae somehow, and not exiting when I am draining? If I were to drain again, I would remove the filters and pump out algae thus time too.

Is there a better method to measure the CYA? Could I just be wrong about the number?

What is the reason for not going below the shallow end when draining? If you look at my avatar, you can see the pool in the picture and the shallow end is to the right in that picture, and not that large. Most of the water is in that deep end, so I'm not even sure what percentage of water I'm removing. If the concern is the liner can come loose with no water in it, could I carefully add weights to keep the liner in place in the shallow end once the water level goes away?

I need to get this CYA under control, or the wife may kill me. She is having Knee surgery the end of June, and can't use the pool for 5 weeks after. So, she wants this open now, so she can get pool time in as soon as we have nice weather. Once I get this fixed, I will have to look at replacing that DiChlor auto-feeder.
 
I'm not sure I follow how the algae is getting more concentrated. If you are draining algae water and replacing with fresh water, the amount of algae would go down.

The DiChlor is increasing your CYA, and it doesn't go away unless you replace water. 400 is easily possible. I've heard rumors of reverse osmosis removing it but never a real world example.

Sorry, can't answer liner question.
 
What I am saying about the algae is that it is not making it through the filter, and staying in pool. I am hooking up a hose to my pool inlet when I am draining. So, I am draining "filtered water" which I assume has little or no algae in it. That is staying in the pool, or filter.

"IF" I were to drain again, I would do it with the cartridges removed from the filter, so I would be pumping out algae. Just didn't think that through the last few days.........
 
Can CYA be 400? I suppose so if all the pool was ever given was pool store tablets and/or massive amounts of bags-of-shock over a long period of time. How you remove the water right now (pre/post filter) is not a big issue really. Whether you have a little algae or a lot, it will still require a SLAM. Reducing the CYA is priority #1.

Just to follow-up on the CYA testing, did you have any problems following the steps as noted on the http://www.taylortechnologies.com/ChemistryTopicsCM.ASP?ContentID=44 page? Of course one of the most important items is to be outside on a bright day (sun at your back) to test while looking at the black dot. You are doing the diluted method, so it can be tricky, but once you've mixed the diluted samples make sure to visually test outside. The precision of the test, when done correctly, is around plus or minus 15 for levels up to 90 and plus or minus 30 for levels between 100 and 200. Novices often have problems reading the test correctly, and tend to get higher than actual readings.

Perhaps an easier way to illustrate: Add pool water to the 7 ml mark on the bottle. Add tap water to the next line on the bottle. Shake. Now carefully discard half the solution until your back to the 7 ml mark. Now add the CYA agent from the bottle to the next line. Shake. It it's not 70 degrees, let it warm up in the house. Then do the reading (outside, sun behind you). Multiply your answer by 2. If you're still over 100 before you multiply by 2, you'll have to resort to further dilution.

We use the shallow end reference when draining because it's universally acceptable between the variety of pools, and you never want either end to get so low that it compromised the integrity of the pool structure itself.

Let us know if any of this helps you out at all or if you still have more questions.
 
I know this is rough and frustrating. Just keep the faith. I knew nothing about pools two years ago and this method works. Every time my pool company comes to open/close, work on my equipment they always say the same thing...Your pool looks amazing. You have to trust the process.

Can you post some pics of your cya tests in the tube. I just read another thread where they suggested that so folks here can get a better ida of how to help.
 
Hi Pat,

i followed your directions last night, and diluted by half, and still got a reading over 100. The only thing I did not do was outside in the sun, because I did this inside at 9PM. That is why I was wondering if there was a test method that did not involve "seeing the dot" where lighting could make all the difference. I know how test strips are used here, and they are not that accurate, put they read CYA by a color change on the strip. That is why I was wondering if there was an accurate liquid test kit method that involved a color change.
 
If you allow the water to drop below the ground water table, even though the steel pool walls are unlikely to sustain damage, water could get between the pool walls and the vinyl liner, causing the liner to separate from the walls and/or floor. Once that happens it is almost impossible to get the liner back in place without damage or wrinkles.

Assuming your pool is 3ft in the shallow end and 9ft deep end (average 6ft), a 2ft drain would be 1/3 of the total.

Also assuming CYA was indeed at 400+, it would take at least 4 2ft drains/refills to get it down to a manageable (<100) level. Even then, your shock FC level is going to be 30-40.
 
So, here is something else I don't understand then. I have done 2 almost 3-foot drains (over 2.5 feet), and my CYA appears to still be over 200. That would mean it was over 400 when I started. But, that would also mean it was VERY high at the end of last year. Yet, I was not going through a ton of Chlorine last year when I closed. My FC level was not at high levels last year to keep the algae down.

If my level was not that high last year, then I took that level to over 400 this year, with the stuff the pool company had me put in before I found this site. All I have put in this year is the Bioguard that the dealer gave me to raise TA. I put in 50 pounds of that, but I have found nothing online that says this will raise CYA. I've also put in 20 gallons of liquid chlorine, but that won't raise CYA. The only thing that has gone in to raise the CYA is the 40 pounds of DiChlor that my automatic chlorinator dumped in. It used so much because I cranked the level of that up, and it was dumping in about 5 pounds a day for a while, before I got on this site, and shut it off. Now, I know 40 pounds of DiChlor is a lot, but it shouldn't raise my CYA that much. For the 8 years my pool has been open, it has only been chlorinated with DiChlor, taking about 100 pounds a season. In Chicago, my season is about 4 months.
 
Unless you drain, CYA only goes up. It very, very rarely goes down. Every time you were adding Di-Chlor you were adding CYA. Since it never goes away, it was just building and building. 640 ozs raises CYA 90 ppm.
 
Bob is right. The 640 ounces you noted does indeed show a CYA increase of about 90ppm. If we go by the 8 seasons x 100 lbs per season, it goes up to at least 112. That's assuming there was nothing else before or in between that may have impacted CYA - to include pool start-up way back when. It's a lesson we have ALL learned which is why we found TFP. The pool store pushes their products on us, never really warning about the consequences months or years later until they say, "drain". Really? :confused: Very upsetting.

But yes it is extremely important to test CYA outside... and on a bight sunny day. No clouds. When you think about it, you're trying to see a black dot in murky (CYA) water. If the outside light is soft, the black dot disappears quicker - hence the high CYA reading. But on a bright day you can see the dot longer which in-turn makes the CYA lower. We could go back & forth on water estimates, but in the end, if you are testing and seeing the dot as the instructions prescribe, you are getting a good reading. Of course take that opportunity to pour the solution back to the bottle, mix, and pour back to the viewing tube to get an average of readings. Also have someone else do the same and compare to your eyes. I do that often with CYA and pH. But once you reduce that CYA to something manageable, even if only down to 60-70 for your area, that's at least something you can SLAM and work with. In time, it will continue to go down through splashout and very slow expenditure. Rest-assured you lower it now, it's never going to rise again unless YOU want it to.
 

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