waterbear said:
I would recommend getting your CYA down to 80 ppm for the installation of your SWG. This way you will only need to maintain a 3-5 ppm FC with the SWG and will not have to run the cell on a higher output to maintain higher chlorine levels. This will have several advantages such as increasing cell life and helping keep pH from rising as quickly.
I definitely want to do that. I've been draining off/refilling for about three hours a time based on that's all I've been able to do while home to monitor it. I don't quite trust leaving it to go while I'm at work, so it'll have to wait until I'm home for a weekend. Next weekend, I'll be here and installing the SWG, so I should be able to do it before I add the salt and fire it up.
I think I've got it nailed now. I just tested again, at least as well as I can with my kit, and I got the following numbers:
FC: >15 (I got a deep red result >5 with a 3:1 dilution)
Ph: 7.2
TA: I couldn't measure this, probably due to the high FC. The sample turned blue and then changed to yellow after about 19 drops of what should've turned it red.
There is no visible algae and the water looks crystal clear. I'm tempted to jump in! The water temperature this morning is 82, but the air is 52. Clouds of steam are rising from the pool and they smell strongly of chlorine.
I'm going to pour in three 1.42 gallon jugs of Clorox before I head off for a few days. Hopefully, that'll carry it while I'm gone.
waterbear said:
Thank you very much! I'm glad to have found this forum. You all are very nice and helpful. With the help of this forum, I know I'll always have a beautiful, sparkling pool.
I had been troubled for months over why I couldn't keep algae at bay in spite of a 3+ ppm FC and 0 CC. This is the first season I've had that problem. The pool store was stumped. The forum knew right away: High stabilizer. It's the cumulative effect of using dichlor and trichlor exclusively for the past four years and the fact that we had so little rain this past winter that I never needed to drain off the excess water as I had in the past. I've learned more in the past week about pool chemistry than I ever knew before, even after reading a couple of books on the subject.