Shocking With Standard Tester Work Around?

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J

Jeagolf

0
Jul 1, 2013
16
1st let me say thank you all. I have been a lurker here for a little over a year, since buying my home that came with a pool. I have learned a ton.

Clearly I did not open my pool this year properly and thus my constant issues this year.
The Problems:
- Almost always no FC.
- Constant fight with alge on the sides of the pool.
- cloudy water

I do not have my $$$$ tester yet and with the 4th holidays this week I started the shocking yesterday without it. (I know bad form! But I am more scared of my wife and 2 daughters than anything else. :lol: )

Starting Information via Leslie Pools & my HTH Test Kit:
FC=0
CYA= 75
TA= 140
PH= 7.4
Salt= 3200

Using the Chlorine / CYA Chart I need to shock at 28.
Using the bleach calculator I came up with a need for 4.2 gal. (I am using SMART Liqui-shock 10%)
So I did the following.

Monday- Soaked my cell in a 5 gal bucket with 1:4 b-acid/water for 24hr. (did not have a lot of junk on it but figured it was better safe than sorry.)
Tuesday-
1. Purchased 8 gal of liqui-shock
2. At 5PM put 4 gal of liqui-shock into the pool, turned on the pump and sweeper.
3. Started manually sweeping the pool sides and steps.
4. At 5:30 took samples from 4 different areas of the pool and I was not even at the 5/10 top range of yellow on the HTH test glass.
5. At 5:45 took another 4 samples as above same results, so I added another gal of liqui-shock.
6. At 6 took another 4 samples and I was 50/50 as far as top color of yellow or the next one below.
7. Continued to manually sweep and scrub the tile and pool.
8. 6:30 took another 4 samples and I was not in the top yellow anymore, added another gal of Liqui-shock. (off to dinner)
9. Came back out at 7:30 tested 4 samples it was 50/50 between the top level of yellow and the one under it. Added another gal of liqui-shock.
*** Total so far is 7 gal of liqui-shock at 10% per gal.***
10. Tested at 8PM was a solid top level yellow, swept the pool again.
11. Tested at 9PM steady top level of yellow.
12 Tested at 10PM steady top level of yellow.

Wednesday-
1. Tested this morning at 6AM and I am at the 3-6 level. So I dumped in the last gal of liqui-shock I had.

Here are my questions:
1. With me being at work and unable to continue shocking did I just waste 40 bucks in shock? I have a short day so I will be back home and could resume shocking at 2PM.
2. Should I continue to shock the pool when I get home?
3. The water was never green it was just really cloudy, this morning it looked 100% better than yesterday. Nothing on the sides of the pool, water fall, or steps. Should I keep the kids out of the pool for another day? If I have to do this all over again anyways I would rather open the pool and do this whole thing again next week.

PS: I have a bunch of friends in the DFW area that have SWG pools and they don't do Crud to their pools and they are AWESOME! If I had a buck for every time one of my buddies told me, " Jim I don't know what your problem is. I run my pump 9 hours a day, have the boy sweep and skim the pool once a week, pour a gal of acid into the pool every other month if the PH gets too high, pour in a bit of stabilizer if we have a big storm, add salt once a year at the start, and that is IT!"

I wonder why mine is so different? :grrrr:

Anyways..... thanks for the help. Sorry for the long post but from past observation I think I have answered all the questions I have seen newbies get asked. :wink:
 
If you stop now, you will have certainly wasted the bleach. I suggest you keep doing what you're doing as soon as you can.

I wouldn't worry about testing in more than one place. Since your test only goes to 5 ppm, you can also dilute the sample by using 1 part of pool water and 3 parts of chlorine free (bottled) water and multiplying the result by 4 to get close.

I understand being afraid of the Wifey and kids! You can swim up to shock level as long as you can see the bottom.

Do you have a tracking number on the good kit? When is it supposed to be there?
 
What color is the chlorine test on your HTH kit?

If it's yellow, then you should see orange when you're at shock level. Sadly, it's not accurate enough to measure things that way... then again, I can't see a difference between 4 and 7 on my tester - it looks like 5 to me. If you use the dilution method, that would put you anywhere from 16 to 28!

When in doubt, go bigger on the dose. But don't just go berserk like the pros and "nuke' the algae.
 
Thanks for the reply Bama.
I can see the bottom no prob.
As far as the test kit goes I'll just pick up the FAS-DPD Service Test Kit from Leslie's on the way home. Mrs. "Budget" will just have to make an adjustment and I will deal with returning any extra stuff.

But seriously no issues with the kido's playing in the pool if it is real clear?
 
Richard the drops are clear and turns the water to yellow. And I never saw anything close to orange even with 7 gal of liqui-shock. It seems to me to be TON of shock for a small pool. But hey you all are the experts I tried it my way since May, clearly my way does NOT work! :)
 
Should I pop out my filter cartridges and clean them today as well? I cleaned them in May but with all the junk going on it might be a good idea to clean them up as well. I for sure don't have the $$$ to drop 150x4 on a new set of filters right now for sure!
 
Bama Rambler said:
If the filter pressure is about 25% above the clean pressure then you should.
Click to expand...
Cool. I don't remember what it was this morning and I regret my notes did not include filter pressure readings. I do know that they went up from being below the dirty mark to above it this am but exact % I would be guessing if I told you numbers. I am going to just clean them when I get home.

Just wondering how long do these CE filters last? I am guessing these are over 3 years old.
 

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If central Garland is not too far for you, there is a Leslie's Commercial Supply at Miller and Jupiter that carries the two items you need to for testing at high FC levels. The two items you need are R-0870 and R-0871. If you ask for this stuff at a regular Leslie's, they are going to look at you like you are from another planet.

http://goo.gl/maps/r4njI

By the way, I'm one of your "friends" in Dallas with a salt water pool that doesn't do **** to their pool other than add some muriatic acid when needed. :)

EDIT: Note that the Leslie's Commercial Supply is only open during business hours, M-F 8-5 or something like that.
 
RobbieH said:
If central Garland is not too far for you, there is a Leslie's Commercial Supply at Miller and Jupiter that carries the two items you need to for testing at high FC levels. The two items you need are R-0870 and R-0871. If you ask for this stuff at a regular Leslie's, they are going to look at you like you are from another planet.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info. Garland is on the opposite side of the metroplex. I'm over in the North Fort Worth/South Keller area. :cool: I probably should just break down and buy 1 nice kit and be done with it for a while. Right now all I can test myself is FC, PH, TA. All the rest of the stuff I am out of. So I have to roll to Leslies to get all the other info.

RobbieH said:
By the way, I'm one of your "friends" in Dallas with a salt water pool that doesn't do **** to their pool other than add some muriatic acid when needed. :)
Click to expand...

Great.. another "friend" who has a perfect pool. :roll: why don't someone just :hammer: me now and make it easier on me! LOL :-D

I know that if I don't stop the "shotgun" trouble shooting method with my pool and SWG system I think momma is going to :whip: :rant: :hammer: :rant: :whip:
 
Update:
Got a K-2006 and here are my readings as of 3pm

FC 15ppm
CC 30 ppm
TA 60
CH 360
PH 6.8
CYA 50
Temp 84f

FYI the 2 HTH type testers say I have 3ppm of chlorine.

The pool looks awesome.

I find it weird that I dropped 20 on my CYA from Monday to today. I wonder if I did the test wrong or the teenager at Leslie's?
 
If the pool looks awesome, sounds like maybe you need to do an OCLT tonight.

Wait... your CC is 30? This seems unlikely. Try doing the Chlorine tests (both the FC and then the CC) again while carefully reading the instructions. The PoolSchool has extended instructions.
 
Yeah you were right I screwed it all up. Try FC 2.5 and CC 1.0
Oh well now I have a good test set, start the shock process all over. Should have known when the other testers said 2.0. :(

Ill go bang my head now!

After the kids get done playing in the pool of course!
 
I would wait until dark to adjust your CL. Retest your FC and CC, add CL to get to a shock level for your CYA (based on PoolCalculator.com), run the pump for about an hour and test your FC again to see what you have. Write this FC and CC down. If your CC is 0.5 or less you can attempt the overnight test. Your goal is to lose less than one FC overnight and have 0.5 or less CC (clears with only one drop).

So if you at 9 pm your results are 12FC & 0.5CC and at 6:30 AM your test goals are 11FC and <0.5CC. If your CC is 1.0 or higher (2 drops or more) you should do another day of shock and adjust your CL level up again in the morning to continue shocking during the day and re-test that second evening.
 
Shocked it again last night and brought pool to 25.5 FC. Tested at 9pm

7AM results.
FC 13
CC 1
PH 7.1
TA 40
CH 340

So my TA is dropping like a rock. Started the shocking process again. We will see what we get tomorrow.
 

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