Help...numbers out ofwhack.

Jump to latest Follow Reply
D

deenamccauley

0
LifeTime Supporter
May 29, 2007
186
Alberta, Canada
I run a small campground that has a public pool.
I've had really good luck following the advise given here....and I'm hoping I'm doing the right thing now but I just want to doudle check with some of our experts here.
It's been so hot here that we have been near our 50 person capcity on our pool for days now.
I shocked last night with Hypo and my FC was 8.77 and TC was 9.97 so I closed the pool and shocked it again.
My numbers as of 4pm
CYA 80
FC 14.77
TC 16.97
CH 350
Alk 109
PH 7.4
100,000 liter pool, sand filter. Automated PH/ORP sensors and feeds.
Using Color Q for testing.
Because my CYA has been so high (up to 100) I have been running my chlorine around 8 and I've been successful with that for a couple weeks now.
But with this high use the water is cloudy and I can't seem to get my chlorine numbers closer together.

Any thoughts? Am I going in the right direction?
I plan on shocking again tonight to try to get it up to 15 and keep it there over night.
Any insight would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance
 
for your CYA of 80, you need to shock to 20 until your CC's come down and/or you can hold FC overnight.

Also, your FC range (according to the best guess chart) is 5-10... with the high bather load of a public pool, I would tend to keep it at 10. Or maybe 11 if there are babies in the water ! :shock:

Your other numbers look good
 
Thanks

Thanks Mermaid Queen.
I'm still struggling to get rid of the CC. Shocked it to 20 and even with my system on continuous I can't seem to keep it up there long enough to get rid of the CC.
I've just shocked it again....so hopefully soon those numbers will get closer together.

I had been keeping my FC around 9 but I will definately raise it up to 11 now. We do have a lot of babies in our pool.

Thanks again
 
Could you supplement your system with bleach to keep the levels at 20 until you get the problem corrected? I am unfamiliar with your feed system and/or what is used to chlorinate the water. (if it is not BBB or an SWG, or manually dumping in the traditional pool store chems, I am kind of in the dark)

With babies in the water, you may be fighting cc's all the time. :shock:

Do you have a day each week that the pool is closed for maintenance? I think I would take advantage of that day and shock the night before. I think if you run your FC a little higher it will help, but if you still have the cc's you really need to shock to make your pool safe and sanitary.
 
The Mermaid Queen said:
Could you supplement your system with bleach to keep the levels at 20 until you get the problem corrected? I am unfamiliar with your feed system and/or what is used to chlorinate the water. (if it is not BBB or an SWG, or manually dumping in the traditional pool store chems, I am kind of in the dark)

With babies in the water, you may be fighting cc's all the time. :shock:

Do you have a day each week that the pool is closed for maintenance? I think I would take advantage of that day and shock the night before. I think if you run your FC a little higher it will help, but if you still have the cc's you really need to shock to make your pool safe and sanitary.
Click to expand...

We actually never close so I have to keep my numbers good despite heavy bather load.
I have been just using 12% chlorine for several weeks now with an automated sensor/feeding system and then just shocking with the same 12% when needed.
I actually used Cal Hypo (65%) the last 3 times because I did not have enough liquid.
I think I finally have it up to 20 and am trying to hold it there over night at least and check it again tomorrow to see how my numbers are.

The automated system had worked great up until this huge bather load this weekend and I rarely had to shock.
I rarely had CC's and if I did I just increased the chlorine feed.
I do shock with 12% when I get CC's.....just this time I don't think I took it high enough, fast enough.
Does that sound logical?
 
Sounds like things are going well. What are your latest numbers?

Can you anticipate a high bather load? More reservations for a certain weekend, holiday, etc? If so, boost your FC up a bit beforehand to potentially avoid this situation.

I think you can be running an FC just barely high enough, and it will keep most problems at bay for a while, but then if something happens, like high bather load or rain, and Whammo! you have a problem. so yes, that made perfect sense.

Keep us updated
 
The Mermaid Queen said:
Sounds like things are going well. What are your latest numbers?

Can you anticipate a high bather load? More reservations for a certain weekend, holiday, etc? If so, boost your FC up a bit beforehand to potentially avoid this situation.

I think you can be running an FC just barely high enough, and it will keep most problems at bay for a while, but then if something happens, like high bather load or rain, and Whammo! you have a problem. so yes, that made perfect sense.

Keep us updated
Click to expand...


Well by all the miserable people and nasty comments around here, you sure wouldn't think things are going well.
Anyway, I'm still keeping people out until I can get these numbers right.....so I have unhappy campers.
My numbers
8pm last night
FC 21.44
TC 23.43
Alk 111
PH 7.3
CYQ 80
9 am today
FC 20.58
TC 23.28
Alk 105
PH 7.1
CH 350
CYA 80
Noon today
FC 17.86
TC 19.86
PH 6.9
Alk 105

I'm not entirely sure that this Color Q is giving me accurate reads at these high levels. I've had to dilute the pool water with tap water to get a read other than HI.
The water is still cloudy but is slowly clearing.
Is it feasable to start letting the chlorine levels drop now? Should I be adding anything else?
 
You still are consistently showing at least 2 cc's... what does the water look like? (ETA oh duh, you said it is cloudy! :roll: )

If you are diluting for a chlorine test, your best bet would be to use distilled water, or even drinking water. Tap water usually has a small amount of chlorine in it that will decrease the accuracy of your testing even further.

I'm at a loss. There is something using your chlorine, or else the colorQ is unreliable/inaccurate/something...

And why is your pH dropping like a rock? are you adding anything other than the 12%?
 
I don't think any PH test is acurate with chlorine levels that high. And if testing diluted water the PH reading doesn't mean much of anything. I would ignore the PH until the chlorine comes down below 10.

Dilution can greatly reduce the absolute accuracy of the ColorQ, but it wouldn't have nearly as much effect on the difference between FC and TC (since most errors will affect both of them in the same way).

One thing that comes to mind is that monopersulfate (MPS), a non-chlorine shock, can test as CC. Have you used any non-chlorine shock?
 
JasonLion said:
I don't think any PH test is acurate with chlorine levels that high.
Click to expand...

I tend to get tunnel vision when dealing with this stuff! Had the questions been revolving around pH levels, and the FC levels were that high, I would have most certainly made the connection between high FC and inaccurate pH tests. Since we were going the other way, I was not even thinking along those lines! tks Jason!
 

Enjoying this content?

Support TFP with a donation.

Give Support
JasonLion said:
I don't think any PH test is acurate with chlorine levels that high. And if testing diluted water the PH reading doesn't mean much of anything. I would ignore the PH until the chlorine comes down below 10.

Dilution can greatly reduce the absolute accuracy of the ColorQ, but it wouldn't have nearly as much effect on the difference between FC and TC (since most errors will affect both of them in the same way).

One thing that comes to mind is that monopersulfate (MPS), a non-chlorine shock, can test as CC. Have you used any non-chlorine shock?
Click to expand...

Jason:
I did use some MPS this morning to try to clear the water a bit, unsuccessfully I might add.
So I hope that is the culprit, because I cannot imagine with that high of readings how I could possibly have anything growing in there.
When I tested for PH I used undiluted water.
I only diluted for the chlorine but I was just using tap water. I will try it with distilled water and see what results I get.

My numbers at 7:30 pm tonight
Diluting with distilled water (just for chlorine readings)
FC 10.24
TC 11.46
PH 7.2 ( I did add chemical for this because my health inspector was here and having a crisis but normally I would have waited for the chlorine levels to drop like you mentioned)
ALK 100

I did let people swim for 2 hours tonight and it's seems to have made little difference in my numbers.
I was about to have a mutinity here if I didn't, so I figured like you said that the MPS might be causing the high CC readings so I figured I'd let them in.
The water was cloudy before they got in and it's still cloudy.
I'm letting he chlorine levels drop now unless someone thinks I should be doing something else.
I do plan on trying to keep them in the 10/11 range though.
Does that sound right? Any other thoughts?
And thanks so much for all you help.
 
So my numbers this morning are
Undiluted
FC 9.75
TC 9.75
PH 7.3
Alk 126

The water is still a bit cloudy but at least I can see the main drain so I'm opening the pool today.
Thanks for everyone's help.
I've increased the chlorine feed a bit to keep it between 10 and 11 and hopefully that with fend off this type of thing again.
If anyone has any other suggestions, I'd love to hear them
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Thread Status
Hello , This thread has been inactive for over 60 days. New postings here are unlikely to be seen or responded to by other members. For better visibility, consider Starting A New Thread.
Top Bottom
Back
Jump to latest Follow Reply