New 2006 kit arrived have ?

[PoolDad2]

When I do my calcium hardness the water never turns red it stays blue, I take that as I don't have any calcium? Even though I put in 40lbs of CLC2, 9 days ago.

My CYA when I test is 80 not the 110 the store tells me.

My ph is 7.0 took 7 drops to get it up to 7.4 color

T/A is 120ppm, it took 12 drops. This was close to the stores reading

I Have 0 FC, when I add the two scoops it stays clear, no color change.

It doesn't look like much to adjust the T/A. But the Calcium has got me stumped.

 

[itabb]

If you are using the K 2006 test kit from taylor, there's a 10ml CA test you can do, where each drop is worth 25ppm instead of 10. Take your test up to 500 or more. at some point, you should see a bit of red as the drop goes in before turning blue again. I bet your CA is super high. I would not worry to much about this, since your CYA is 80, and you need to get that down to 50. To do that, drain 35% of your water and refill. That will lower your CA as well. One thing, if you have an SWG, forget about lowering your CYA, 80 is good. Check with the SWG manual on proper levels. Mine is 80.

If your PH is 7, and you added 7 drops to get 7.4, then your PH is really 6.7 (I think 1 drop is .1, but maybe it is .2, which is worse for you. I just cannot remember right now). Either way, that's really bad for your pool. Since your TA is 120, just turn on waterfalls or something to aerate the water. Your PH should climb in a couple of days and it will reduce your TA a bit. If your really worried about your PH (and I would be), go to the grocery store and buy a box of 20 mule team Borax and dump it in. Each box of Borax will bring a 10,000 gallon pool up about .3 PH. You probably need 2 boxes, unless you are going to aerate. Then you only need 1. Also, you need chlorine in the water. While your at the store, pick up some Clorox. Get like 10 gallons, just in case. For a 10,000 gallon pool, I'd put in 2 gallons to start, poured slowly into the skimmer. That should give you about FC 12. If you are not at FC 12 an hour later, you've got a chlorine demand problem. Do this in the evening out of the sunlight. Anyway, at CYA 80, you need a FC of 8 for sanitation without an SWG. If you have a chlorine demand problem, your looking at holding your FC at 20-30 for a few days until whatever it is burns off.

1. fix your PH with borax!!! will damage your pool.
2. shock with liquid chlorine, determine demand
3. drain and fill to lower CYA (re-test before doing this to verify the necessity) if you do not have an SWG.

Get this done, then worry about CA and TA later.

 

[Guest]

If you are using the K 2006 test kit from taylor, there's a 10ml CA test you can do, where each drop is worth 25ppm instead of 10. Take your test up to 500 or more. at some point, you should see a bit of red as the drop goes in before turning blue again. I bet your CA is super high.

PoolDad2 said the color stayed blue and never turned red when he added the calcium indicator. This would mean that there is NO calcium hardness in the water, not that he has a very high calcium hardness!!
I would not worry to much about this, since your CYA is 80, and you need to get that down to 50. To do that, drain 35% of your water and refill. That will lower your CA as well. One thing, if you have an SWG, forget about lowering your CYA, 80 is good. Check with the SWG manual on proper levels. Mine is 80.
A CYA level of 80 ppm is livable if the FC level is raised to compensate for this. Also you cannot say exactly how much the pool needs to be drained because under high CYA conditions the excess CYA can actually come out of soution and deposit in the plumbing and can redissolve when the level drops so it is possible for it to creep up again after a drain and refill.
If your PH is 7, and you added 7 drops to get 7.4, then your PH is really 6.7 (I think 1 drop is .1, but maybe it is .2, which is worse for you. I just cannot remember right now). Either way, that's really bad for your pool.

This is not how the base demand (and acid demand) tests work. The number of drops just gives you a ballpark of how much soda ash (or acid) is needed to change the pH. A higher number of drops just means that more chemical is needed for a given pH change becuase of the buffering effects of the TA. A pH of 7.0 is not going to harm a pool and is, in fact, the lowest safe level for a vinyl pool. Plaster and fiberglass can withstand a lower pH for a short period of time

Since your TA is 120, just turn on waterfalls or something to aerate the water. Your PH should climb in a couple of days and it will reduce your TA a bit.
Aeration will increase pH without increasing TA but it will not lower it from where it is. Adding acid lowers TA, aerating just raises pH without causing the TA to raise up again.
If your really worried about your PH (and I would be), go to the grocery store and buy a box of 20 mule team Borax and dump it in. Each box of Borax will bring a 10,000 gallon pool up about .3 PH. You probably need 2 boxes, unless you are going to aerate. Then you only need 1. Also, you need chlorine in the water. While your at the store, pick up some Clorox. Get like 10 gallons, just in case. For a 10,000 gallon pool, I'd put in 2 gallons to start, poured slowly into the skimmer. That should give you about FC 12. If you are not at FC 12 an hour later, you've got a chlorine demand problem. Do this in the evening out of the sunlight. Anyway, at CYA 80, you need a FC of 8 for sanitation without an SWG. If you have a chlorine demand problem, your looking at holding your FC at 20-30 for a few days until whatever it is burns off.
You are making assumptions about the chlorine demand. PoolDad2 just said that he had no FC but did not say if he had any TC. It is entirely possible that the pool just needs some chlorine because there is none in there. If he had said there was no FC but there was TC then I would suspect some sort of chlorine demand problem. From the sketchy information he gave it is really not possible to say what is going on.
1. fix your PH with borax!!! will damage your pool.
2. shock with liquid chlorine, determine demand
3. drain and fill to lower CYA (re-test before doing this to verify the necessity) if you do not have an SWG.

Get this done, then worry about CA and TA later.

PoolDad2, please read this sticky about what test results and information to post. It will help us help you with any problems you might be having. You really did not provide enough information in your post to figure out why your test results came out the way they did.

 

[Guest]

When I do my calcium hardness the water never turns red it stays blue, I take that as I don't have any calcium? Even though I put in 40lbs of CLC2, 9 days ago.

My CYA when I test is 80 not the 110 the store tells me.

My ph is 7.0 took 7 drops to get it up to 7.4 color

T/A is 120ppm, it took 12 drops. This was close to the stores reading

I Have 0 FC, when I add the two scoops it stays clear, no color change.

It doesn't look like much to adjust the T/A. But the Calcium has got me stumped.

What exactly are you asking here? You have not posted a full set of test results. Did you get any combined chlorine when you did the second part of the chlorine test? I work in a pool store and I will be the first one to tell you that many people who test water in pool stores really do not know how to do it properly so if you are following the instructions in your kit and the results are not matching the store's I would not lose any sleep over it. CYA testing is especially subjective and I would trust your results if they are repeatable.

How big is your pool and what is the surface? If you can provide more complete information perhaps we can answer your questions about the calcium. I assume that you mean you added CaCl2 (calcium chloride) and not CLC2. Was it the flake or pellet form?

 

[itabb]

Chem Geek suggests lowering PH to 7.0 and aerating because at the lower PH, it increases outgassing of carbonate, thus lowering TA more than could be accomplished at PH 7.5. Maybe I am misunderstanding.

I thought the CA was blue to red. I just follow the directions, I can't recall which way it goes. I just know it does, eventually. Maybe I am confusing ALK.

Nevertheless, I wouldn't worry about that as much as the FC to begin with. FC of 0 is no santitation, regardless of CYA, CA, TA, or whatever. It's easier just to get FC up than to fight off an algae bloom. And without more information, it's just best to use bleach. And PH is of course a problem at that level. All I was saying was that in my pool, each drop of base demand seems to bring up the PH by .1. I tested this because I wanted to know by how far I was above or below the readable range in various situations I have been in (adding borax, burning off TA).

 

[PoolDad2]

I have an IGV 24,300 gallon 18’x36’ rectangle pool with average depth of 5’.

I was using the Bioguards Calcium Hypoclorite (CLC2) for chlorine but will be using regular bleach from here on out.

No sanitizers are used or have been.

The water looks great, nice and clear.

I have a Quad 60 DE filter and a ¾ HP Hayward pump, the pool is older so it is plumbed with 11/2” and of course the filter is 2”.

I added 10lbs of the BioGuards CLC2 last night about 11 hours ago, pump has been running 24/7. Here is my latest test results. Pulled water from same spot as usual about 20" down in the water in the 3.5' end.

Test Kit is a Taylor K-2006.

T/A 130, took 13 drops
pH 7.2 took 12 drops to get it up to 7.5
FC 9.0
CC 2.8 14drops to get it up to this.
Calcium hardness, when I added the blue it stayed blue or rather a light blueish lavender. No red at all according to the test stating that it should. I read the book and it doesn’t state what to do if it doesn’t turn red and I don’t want to waste chemicals.

I didn't due the CYA again it uses a ton of the test kit chemicals. Are the replacements expensive for my Taylor K-2006 Kit? Hope I covered everything. I'm also going out of town today for five days so any suggestions as to what I might need to do extra to keep it until I get back?

 

[JasonLion]

10 lbs of cal-hypo would take the chlorine level up somewhere around 25, depending on the strength of your brand. Since it went down to 9 overnight and you have CC you must be fighting some kind of algae in the water.

Since you CYA level is around 80, you need to test the chlorine level and bring the FC level back up to 20 at least twice a day, more often if you can manage it, until the FC level holds overnight. While you are doing that you want to brush the pool once a day and keep an eye on the filter pressue, backwashing/cleaning as needed or every couple of days in any case.

Cal-hypo does add calcium to your pool, but far more slowly than calcium chloride (deicer) or calcium chloride dihydrate (what pool stores sell to increase calcium). You get something like 1 or 2 ppm for every pound in that pool. I would expect you to have a calcium reading by now, though a fairly low one. The calcium test can fail to work if the FC level is very high. Did you do the test shortly after adding some cal-hypo?

 

[PoolDad2]

The test was done about 11 hours after adding the cal-hypo. I added it last night at 9pm and tested the pool this morning at 8am.

 

[ric]

Hi PoolDad2
Just made a order of reagents last night so maybe this will help. R0004 2 0z ph indicator solution 4.70
R0003 2 0z dpd reagent #3 7.10
R0010 2 oz calcium buffer 5.50
R0871 2 oz fas-dpd titrating reagent (chlorine) 10.95
R0870 dpd powder 1/4 lb 34.50
I only use taylor k-2006 kit and never use strips or other kits and use it on both hot tub and pool. I do go through a lot of reagents especially with the hot tub. I have learned to trust taylor's reagents. These sizes are probably bigger then you need. so will be a little cheeper for you. Just go to Taylor Technologies and click on Reagents. also there was no shipping charge. Hope this helps.
Ric W

 

[JasonLion]

Doing the calcium test with a FC of 9 shouldn't have caused any problems. There are a couple of other things that can interfere with the calcium test but they are rare.

I would wait till you have the algae issue dealt with and the water is crystal clear and then try it again. If you have a vinyl liner the calcium level doesn't matter anyway. If you have a plaster pool it should be able to handle the level being off for a week.

 

[giulietta1]

Calcium hardness, when I added the blue it stayed blue or rather a light blueish lavender. No red at all according to the test stating that it should. I read the book and it doesn’t state what to do if it doesn’t turn red and I don’t want to waste chemicals.

Might be a fading endpoint. . . this can happen if you have metals in your water.

Jules

 

[Guest]

Try doing the calcium test this way.
1. Add 6 drops of reagent #3 (hardness reagent R-0012) to your 25 ml sample and swirl for 20 seconds.
2. add 20 drops of reagent #1 (calcium buffer R-0010) to your sample and swirl for 20 seconds.
3. add 5 drops of reagent #2 (calcium indicator R-0011L) to your sample and swirl unitl it is mixed. If there is calcium present the color should be pink. If the calcium is below about 60 ppm the color will be blue. If the color is pink continue to step 4.
4. add reagetent #3 one drop at a time and SWIRL THE SAMPLE FOR 20-30 SECONDS AFTER EACH DROP! Continue this unitl the sample turns blue. You want to add reagent #3 one drop at a time and swirl until the color changes and adding an additional drop does not produce any further color change. Do not count the last drop that caused no additional color change but add the first 6 drops you put in during step one to get your calcium hardness.

Here is an example. You add 6 drops of reagent #3, swirl, add 20 drops of reagent #1, swirl, add 5 drops of reagent #2 swirl and you get a pink color. You now add reagent #3 AND SWIRL FOR 20-30 SECONDS AFTER EACH DROP and it takes 20 drops for the color to start to change (it gets purplish), you add 2 more drops and the color changes to blue and add another drop and there is no additional color change. You have added a total of 29 drops of reagent #3 but the last drop did not cause any further color change so you only count 28 drops. This would mean you have a calcium hardness of 280 ppm.

The calcium hardness test really needs to be done slowly so the reagents has time to mix with the sample between each drop. Pool stores that use this test use a magnetic stirrer to speed the test up because it mixes the reagent much better than swirling. The initial 6 drops is to remove any interferance from metals that might be present in the water that could lead to a false purple endpoint with 'floaties' in the sample (fading endpoint). The thorough mixing between drops also helps prevent the false endpoint and purple 'floaties'.

 

[Guest]

Chem Geek suggests lowering PH to 7.0 and aerating because at the lower PH, it increases outgassing of carbonate, thus lowering TA more than could be accomplished at PH 7.5. Maybe I am misunderstanding.
That is correct, however it is the lowering of the pH that lowers the measurable TA by converting the carbonates and bicarbonates to carbonic acid. Aeration raises the pH by outgassing the carbon dioxide (carbonic acid is essentially carbon dioxide dissolved in water, same as seltzer) without causing the TA to rise also.
I thought the CA was blue to red. I just follow the directions, I can't recall which way it goes. I just know it does, eventually. Maybe I am confusing ALK.
The CH test will be pink when there is calcium present in the water and you add the blue colored indicator. It will change back to blue when all the calcium had been chelated by the EDTA titrant. The TA test turns from green to red. This is what I mean about getting your information correct before posting since it can be confusing to others when you post inaccurate information.
Nevertheless, I wouldn't worry about that as much as the FC to begin with. FC of 0 is no santitation, regardless of CYA, CA, TA, or whatever.
Not entirely true, some of the combined chlorines do have sanitizing ablility, especially monochloramine. In fact monochloramine is used to kill algae blooms and is how some of the inorganic ammonia based 'chlorine enhancer' type of aglaecides work! That is why I asked what the CC reading was. If there was an appreciable amount of CC in the water then that is different then having NO chlorine in the water.
It's easier just to get FC up than to fight off an algae bloom. And without more information, it's just best to use bleach.
Chlorine is chlorine once in the water. Other forms of unstabilized chlorine would be just as effective.
And PH is of course a problem at that level.
Actually it isn't. A pH of 7.0 is low but not in the danger zone.
All I was saying was that in my pool, each drop of base demand seems to bring up the PH by .1. I tested this because I wanted to know by how far I was above or below the readable range in various situations I have been in (adding borax, burning off TA).
The acid and base demand tests will vary depending on where the TA is. If the TA is low it will take fewer drops to produce a change than if the TA is high. His TA of around 120-130 would be at the high end of normal so it would take more drops to change. Just because something happens in your pool doesn't mean the same will happen in another pool that has a different intial water balance.