jwhop3
0
- Jun 9, 2014
- 146
- Pool Size
- 14000
- Surface
- Vinyl
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Autopilot Digital Nano+ PPC2
The olympics needs you!
- Thread starter isriam
- Start date
The article above actually sounds about right. Fina, the organization who is in charge of the olympic pools released a statement that the cause of the green pools was that one of the tanks ran out of chemicals resulting in the ph level going outside it's "normal" range. While at first this seems like a joke to those of us in the "know," it does sound legit if you sit back and look at things. It also helps "backup" much of what we teach on TFP. The Olympic pools very likely use zero CYA instead they rely on a steady flow of chlorine gas and uv to keep the water clean. The water is also filtered several times over per day as the pumps and filters used is very likely greatly oversized. Normally when operating at a pH of 7.2-7.4 and a FC level of 2 this creates enough active chlorine to keep algae at bay and water looking clear. With the officials claiming that some chemical was "out of stock" in the pools this allowed the ph to rise outside of the normal levels which likely happened very quickly due to the high amounts of splashes and aeration. When the ph went outside of these normal levels combined with zero CYA the active chlorine's effectiveness was greatly reduced as shown in this post. Once the pH was off it would have required double the amount of chlorine to maintain the same effectiveness as if the pH was inside of the normal range. The staff tested the water and it likely showed the FC level was acceptable but missed the fact that it wasn't working as effective due to the pH imbalance. In addition with the questionable water condition around the area it's likely the water was high in nitrogen allowing the algae to take off with great speed once the fc level was low.
Now this for sure is assuming that we are getting the "whole" story. I'm sure there are tidbits that are being left out but this is my guess. I could see the sanitizer being turned off or a valve being turned wrong too, but taking the official statements at face value, that is my guess.
So...
Wrong chemical dumped into Olympic pools made them green, smelly—and unsafe | Ars Technica
It seems like someone dumped 160 liters of h2o2 in the pool. Resulting in the FC most likely dropping to 0.
Wrong chemical dumped into Olympic pools made them green, smelly—and unsafe | Ars Technica
It seems like someone dumped 160 liters of h2o2 in the pool. Resulting in the FC most likely dropping to 0.
Even if it was only 3% H2O2, that would be enough to destroy somewhere around 2 mg/L of FC in an olympic sized pool.
- May 23, 2015
- 24,481
- Pool Size
- 16000
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Pentair Intellichlor IC-60
Commercial grade peroxide is closer to 27% H2O2. So it likely took out all of FC and stayed around long enough to neutralize any additional FC added.
