An alternate title would be "lessons learned" or "how I overshot my SLAM"
First year opening our in-ground, vinyl pool. Hasn't been opened for at least two years (we bought the house in April 2015, and the previous owner didn't have it open the season before either). This forum has been great so far.
However, me trying to be a cheapskate and conserve R-0871 reagent lead me to follow this line:
Basically, I used 8 lbs of dichlor and 2 gallons of 12.5% bleach (2 lbs at a time, 45 minutes apart) to lower PH, add CYA, and add FC. I added 12lbs of baking soda to help bring up the TA, and 4lbs of granular CYA which
I finally decided that after all that chlorine, I should be testing even though things were plenty green. 98 drops of R-0871 later :-( the FC is way too high. Fortunately, the granular CYA dissolved by 18:00 (I hose clamped an old T-shirt into a bag in front of the return jet). But the reading is also questionable because it was my first test and the cloudy water throws it off.
I've resorted to 5ml samples and counting each drop as 1ppm instead of 10ml and .5ppm. I got the impression I'd be blowing through chlorine. Nothing I can do but let it float down (cloudy Ohio isn't helping). Is the 53F water temperature slowing down the slam, or is this the normal rate?
First year opening our in-ground, vinyl pool. Hasn't been opened for at least two years (we bought the house in April 2015, and the previous owner didn't have it open the season before either). This forum has been great so far.
However, me trying to be a cheapskate and conserve R-0871 reagent lead me to follow this line:
http://www.troublefreepool.com/threads/3913-Turning-Your-Green-Swamp-Back-into-a-Sparkling-OasisOne indicator you can use is the color of the water. As long as the water remains a rich green, wait one hour and then assume that FC is zero. The algae will start turning gray or white when the FC level starts holding.
4/23 | 5/1 15:15 | 5/1 16:00 | 5/1 16:40 | 5/1 18:00 | 5/2 7:00 | 5/2 18:00 | |
FC | 49 | 42.5 | 36 | ||||
PH | 8.2+ | 7.8 | 7.5 | 7.35 | 7.5 | 7.2 | |
TA | 30 | 40 | 80 | ||||
CH | 100 | ||||||
CYA | assumed 0 | 70* |
Basically, I used 8 lbs of dichlor and 2 gallons of 12.5% bleach (2 lbs at a time, 45 minutes apart) to lower PH, add CYA, and add FC. I added 12lbs of baking soda to help bring up the TA, and 4lbs of granular CYA which
Poolmath and my 20k gallon estimate should have put my CYA at 40.can take CYA up to a week to dissolve.
I finally decided that after all that chlorine, I should be testing even though things were plenty green. 98 drops of R-0871 later :-( the FC is way too high. Fortunately, the granular CYA dissolved by 18:00 (I hose clamped an old T-shirt into a bag in front of the return jet). But the reading is also questionable because it was my first test and the cloudy water throws it off.
I've resorted to 5ml samples and counting each drop as 1ppm instead of 10ml and .5ppm. I got the impression I'd be blowing through chlorine. Nothing I can do but let it float down (cloudy Ohio isn't helping). Is the 53F water temperature slowing down the slam, or is this the normal rate?