3 questions, a) dumping water b) how to fc c) green algae

Jump to latest Follow Reply
Me and my wife watched all weekend and the pool didn't overflow (we were both a bit surprised). She said there was probably a hole somewhere to prevent flooding, and she's right. No backwashing needed.

Little bit of news. Apparently I didn't need to slam the pool as there is no green algae anywhere.

Question though on conversion. I did my taylor test and my FC was 120 ppm. Does that mean that my FC level is 120 ppm. My Combined Clorine was 10ppm. So how exactly do I tell what my FC is? Is it 1.2?, 1.1?

(basically I get a ppm, do I put a decimal point between the 100th and 10th spot, turning 120 ppm to 1.2 fc?)

Also decided to do some borate conditioning. Calculator said I needed 1480 oz of borax, decided to drop about 1000 oz into the pool, then hit it with muratic acid to drop the massive FC spike the borax causes.

Reason I only did 1000 is to both test and confirm the pool size. I'm sure its 30,000 but rather aim at 20,000 first and make sure (Math ain't my strongsuit). Added more chlorine as the chlorine was wiped out, and added a puck because the CYA is basically 10.
 
taylor 2006 test kit? There's no way your FC is 120 ppm. Assume you used the 25 mL pool water measurement, then put in two scoops of the powder and mixed. You'd have a pink solution in the tube. Then you add the drops. Drop, swirl, drop, swirl, until the pink is gone and the solution is just white cloudy. Each drop that you used is 0.2 ppm. So if it took you 20 drops to get rid of all the pink, your FC is 4ppm.

If you used the 10mL water sample, each drop counts as 0.5. So if it takes 11 drops to clear the pink solution, your FC is 5.5.

For the follow-up CC test, you add the required drops and mix. If you have any CC at all, you'll see a touch of pink. Then again you add drops until the pink is gone. In most cases this occurs after one or two drops. Same scale as above: for the 25 mL sample, if it takes 2 drops to make the solution white, your CC is 0.4. etc.
 
aah Ok I see my mistake now. Thank you for the clarification.

The battle continues. Finally realised that my chlorine level is basically zero because my CYA level is basically zero (3 days of rain, plus wound up replacing 80% of the water). With another day of rain coming, decided to dump about 2 lbs of stabilizer into the pool, and chase that with 2 pucks to bring the cya back up. The pool calculator stated almost 7 pounds of stabilizer, but I'd rather go slower than faster. Putting in about 2 bottles of bleach each day to raise the level of chlorine. Added calcium to bring its level up also (half the amount).

Doing it in halves to make sure I don't overshoot (easier to add than to remove). Once the cya is back up to stable, hopefully the chlorine should start holding for more than a day.

Added about 2/3rds the amount of borax to stabilize the pool a bit more, now hitting it with.. lord like 5 bottles worth of muratic acid to bring the PH down. Testing it now to see where the borax is and whether I need to add more.
 
Wow!! I love that you are taking the bull by the horns. I will caution you though. You are doing too many things all at one time. There is a standard way we like to adjust things. You want to be careful about allowing enough time between additions before adding the next thing. In most cases, 30 minutes is considered good. As long as you have good circulation with your pump.
 
Wifes been on me as I've been mildly obsessed with getting this pool right.

I've been running the filter pretty constantly the past few days to get the water fully circulated as well as dilute everything. Seems I'm almost done with all this prep. CYA levels just below ideal (I'm running two pucks so by the end of next week it should be up to perfect). FC is finally holding at a good level because the CYA is in the pool water. Added the Borax (15 of the 19 boxes it requested as I'm estimating the pool is 31,000 vs actually exactly knowing). Borate level seems good. Have to vacuum out the yard to clear out old leaves. Spraying the yard and area this weekend for mosquitoes and bugs (next war to wage). Apparently the home had a few of those big fat roaches so decided to vacuum up all the old insulation in the attic (it was only maybe 2 inches total), dust it with D.E. Spray it, Seal it, then dust the top of it. Sprinkled yard DE in the yard along with another concoction to rid the area of bugs. Have three bug zappers going at night to decimate the bug population. Some yard work to follow but thats relatively minor.

All levels are good, ta's good, conditioners good, borates good, fc is good, calcium levels are low but I'll be adding more once the second box comes. Algae's non existent (apparently cleaning out the DE filter, taking it out, removing every ounce of everything in it in total made a huge difference).

Pools good to go now. I'll monitor, add some more calcium to get it up to proper. I'll pretty much increase CYA with pucks as needed if it rains for 2 or so days. Once I get a steady read on how long the chlorine lasts in this pool I'll be able to monitor it with maybe a gallon or two of bleach every 3 or so days.

10 bucks a week to keep a pool going, not too bad.
 
I had a bug zapper up the first summer. All it did was attract a bunch of bugs near the pool. All sorts of weird things in the skimmer. They would just hang around the walls and the house near the light, but none of them actually went and got killed. The light is meant for mosquitos, but out here where we don't really have that issue, it just made everything worse.

I took it down like 9 months ago and all those bugs went and found better things to do.
 
I'm keeping notes regarding that. There are some extreme mosquitoes in this backyard which needs some killing. Mostly the old landscaping needs to go. Treating the backyard this weekend which should kill everything dead
 
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