Recently opened - When to stop daily shock?

[jreiser]

Hey folks... I've had my pool open for 9 days now and the last couple days have really started to look great - nice clear/blue water. I've been keeping the pool at shock levels each day and every day I'm greeted to more dead gray algae on the bottom that I skimmer vac up and backwash.

What little I've learned here tells me to run an overnight FC loss test to see if the water is ready to come out of shock and allow swimmers. The trouble is, we're not actually living at the house just yet, so I'm not there typically until about Noon and again around sunset.

Is there any other (perhaps not sure-fire) way to tell if it's okay to drop my daily chlorination levels to a more moderate level?

Chems as of 1PM:
FC=5.0
CC=0.5 (barely... maybe 0.25 if I had a smaller dropper)
TC=5.5
TA=80
pH=7.3-7.4 (above 7.2, below 7.5)
CYA<20 (was probably zero)

I've been adding 2 lbs of CYA over the past few days and the socks over the returns are still slowly feeding it. This will only bring my CYA levels up to around 10 but I have to start somewhere and I'd rather start slow.

After taking the above measurements, I added 2 182Oz containers of 6% bleach for a target FC of 10.5 and will check again around sunset. Based on previous days, I expect to find FC around 8.5-9.

We're hoping the swim on Saturday so I'm hoping it will be safe to begin lowering FC to around 3.

Here's a photo from yesterday and a link to my Day-1 and Day-7 photos if that helps at all.

first-timer-with-bbb-method-order-of-operations-t23597.html
[attachment=0:bjysp7za]day-8.jpg[/attachment:bjysp7za]

Thanks!
- Jason

 

[Melt In The Sun]

Jason, your pool is awesome. If I ever build one, it will look like yours.

 

[loughps]

I'd say until you can get over there and do an overnight FC loss test, keep the pool at shock level until it's sparkly clear.

 

[jreiser]

Jason, your pool is awesome. If I ever build one, it will look like yours.

Thank you - that's very nice of you! We're actually just renting the house, but I can still take pride in it. :-D After we power-wash the patio it should look great. It's already a huge improvement. Here's a better angle...
[attachment=0:3emp3pk1]day-8-pool-and-house.jpg[/attachment:3emp3pk1]

 

[jreiser]

I'd say until you can get over there and do an overnight FC loss test, keep the pool at shock level until it's sparkly clear.

Thanks - I had a feeling that was the advice I'd get. The pool store was no help obviously... they said my FC is too high at 5 and I should stop shocking the pool unless it's a green pool (lots of algae). I may drop the FC levels to less than shock (10 on the pool calculator) but above normal (1 to 3) by Saturday and do a little swimming. Here's hoping anyway...

 

[Melt In The Sun]

I could be imagining it, but is the water still a little bit cloudy? If so, I'd say keep it up til it's perfectly clear or you can do a proper overnight test.

 

[jreiser]

I could be imagining it, but is the water still a little bit cloudy? If so, I'd say keep it up til it's perfectly clear or you can do a proper overnight test.

I think it was more of an artifact from the crappy iPhone camera, but I've been keeping chlorine levels up just to be safe until I can perform an overnight loss test. In the mean time, we swam last night and today and the pool water is great! My wife even remarked that the pool water doesn't seem to irritate the eyes as we commonly experience in other people's pools. Maybe it's that the pH is on target? Who knows... she's happy so I'm happy.

- Jason