Bucket test

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klavant

klavant

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Jun 3, 2008
36
West Grove, PA
I've read through the old messages and want to confirm something for the bucket test. I fill the 5 gallon bkt with pool water and add 1oz of 6%. Wait an hour and test. Trying to get the FC to hit 15PPM and hold for how long? After I figure how many oz I have added to hit this point, what's the calculation to determine how many gallons to add?
 
The only bucket test I know of tests for leaks (by comparing the amount of evaporation from a bucket filled to a known height). I'm not sure what test you're performing, or what you're trying to find out. Can you please elaborate? If you're looking for the amount of bleach to add to your pool in order to raise it to shock value, you could try JasonLion's Pool Calculator (it's in the stickies).
 
klavant said:
I've read through the old messages and want to confirm something for the bucket test. I fill the 5 gallon bkt with pool water and add 1oz of 6%. Wait an hour and test. Trying to get the FC to hit 15PPM and hold for how long? After I figure how many oz I have added to hit this point, what's the calculation to determine how many gallons to add?
Click to expand...

This was the advise I got from Jason...

"It might be time to do a bucket test to see how much chlorine it will really take. Get a five gallon bucket of pool water, add one teaspoon of bleach, mix, wait an hour, test the water. Repeat until the FC is high and CC is near zero."

I think the idea is that you add chlorine, wait one hour and test. If after one hour when you test, the FC is high and the CC is 0, then you know how many teaspoons it took for 5 gallons. There should be info somewere on the site that helps convert the teaspoons/5 gallons to how much to add to a pool.

Sean
 
There is a test for extreme chlorine demand that you can do with a bucket, but it is not The Bucket Test, which tests for leaks.

If you have been adding lots of chlorine and FC is always zero (or close), you can do a test to see how much chlorine it will take to be able to hold a FC level.

1) Put five gallons of pool water in a bucket.
2) Add 1 oz of 6% bleach
3) mix throughly
4) wait one hour
5) test the FC level
6) If FC is 10 or higher you are done. As long as FC is less than 10 repeat steps 2 through 6.
7) If FC is 10 or higher on the first round, repeat the entire test with fresh pool water and use teaspoons instead of oz of bleach.

Each oz of bleach is equal to 96 ppm of chlorine. Each teaspoon of bleach is equal to 16 ppm of chlorine.

This test is most useful when you have CC, ammonia, or fertilizer in the water. The results will not be accurate for baquacil, which reacts too slowly, and are only approximate for algae, since you can't safely add chlorine to the pool that quickly and with algae speed matters.
 
OK, for starters, I seem to have a similar problem as others. Pool is crystal clear but won't hold FC. Using TFT100, started testing to find CC's fairly high. After two weeks of dumping gallon after gallon of 6%, the CC is better but apparently not gone.

Took 5 Gal bucket and filled with pool water around 7:30PM last night. Added .5oz (15ml) of 6%. (had troble finding something to measure a full oz.) Tested at 9:10PM and FC=20, CC=2. Waited an hour and at 10:10PM FC=15, CC=1.5 Let sit overnight and at 9:00AM this morning, FC=5.5, CC=.5 CC appears to be going down, but I think I still am fighting something.

I suppose I need to start the bucket test again, using teaspoons instead. Then when that is right, calculate how much to hit the pool with. Am I on the right track?
 
Kurt,

two things deplete chlorine...the sun and organics. I assume you did the bucket test indoors thereby eliminating the sun as your source of depletion so it must be organics.

Calculate the appropriate shock level based on your CYA ppm and shock your pool....holding the FC at that level until:

A. You hold FC loss to 1.0 or less overnite
B. Your CC's test .5 or less
C. Your water is sparkling

I don't see what additional info another test would do for you.
 
In my previous attempt, I made the calculations and added the proper amounts but the FC never came to the proper shock level. So basically I think I've been spinning my wheels here because I didn't do what I was supposed to and have just extended my frustration. :oops: Bottom line seems to be that if I don't get the FC to the appropriate level (using however many bottles it takes) and hold it there, I may as well throw $5 bills in the trash. When I get to shock level, I believe I am to test every hour to ensure the level stays up until night time, correct?
 
klavant said:
In my previous attempt, I made the calculations and added the proper amounts but the FC never came to the proper shock level. So basically I think I've been spinning my wheels here because I didn't do what I was supposed to and have just extended my frustration. :oops: Bottom line seems to be that if I don't get the FC to the appropriate level (using however many bottles it takes) and hold it there, I may as well throw $5 bills in the trash. When I get to shock level, I believe I am to test every hour to ensure the level stays up until night time, correct?
Click to expand...

Kurt,

I hear your frustration. I went through it too. One thing I can tell you is that I was adding 4 174 oz jugs of bleach to my pool which based on the calculator would have brought it to somewhere around 10ppm of FC. Within 45 minutes, my FC was down to 1 or 2. Looking back on it now, I probably should have gone with more chlorine to get the FC higher. I think I might have fixed the problem sooner.

I can also tell you that in my case water clarity was no indication that there was a problem. My water has been 100% crystal clear since I started this process. My liner had a slight green tint to it which is what made me start the process. Within two days of adding lots of bleach, my liner was it's normal blue color.

I'm also not sure at this point what caused the problem. I've heard about neglected water balance, but my water has always been fine, and I did nothing different this winter than I have in the past. I have a solid cover so very little in the way of leaves and debris get into my pool over the winter.

I also bought an ammonia test kit which showed no ammonia in the water.

While I was battling this problem, I went through approx. 75-100 174oz jugs of bleach. Again, my guess is that it might have been less if I had added more (6 would have brought me to 15ppm) each time. Live and learn!

Good luck, and keep us posted.
 
Sean,

I've been wathcing your posts because you had the EXACT same problem. I even posted a message asking if you were sure you were testing your pool and not mine. :lol: I think that got lost during the upgrade. Live and learn.. I hear ya.

When I beat his problem, I'll never forget it. I work on computers and always say that machines don't win, so I'll just substitute pools for machines and will put it in my signature. POOLS DON'T WIN! :goodjob:
 

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klavant said:
Sean,

I've been wathcing your posts because you had the EXACT same problem. I even posted a message asking if you were sure you were testing your pool and not mine. :lol: I think that got lost during the upgrade. Live and learn.. I hear ya.

When I beat his problem, I'll never forget it. I work on computers and always say that machines don't win, so I'll just substitute pools for machines and will put it in my signature. POOLS DON'T WIN! :goodjob:
Click to expand...

I've never found a computer that I couldn't beat!!!
 
You don't want to add chlorine to the pool either too quickly or too slowly. The best approach is to add chlorine up to shock level for your CYA level, wait half and hour, test the FC level and add more chlorine, and so on every half hour. In a plaster/pebble pool you can use the mustard algae high shock level to speed things up.

If you add too much chlorine all at once you can get bleaching of the pool surface and corrosion of metal parts. If you add chlorine too slowly it is lost to sunlight and algae growing and you don't get the full effect.

The test, I describe above using a bucket, can give you an idea of the amount of chlorine you are going to need to have on hand, but you should not duplicate the procedure by adding 96 ppm of chlorine to the pool all at once.
 
Sean,

Just curious as to how many gallons you used in your "quest"...?

I'm in the middle of the process now and am thinking I'm going to have to make a run for more bleach. I had (10) 182oz jugs on hand, hoping I could make a difference with them. I'm not going to bother posting numbers yet, I haven't seen the FC stay high enough for any length of time. Sun has been in and out today, so that's probably not helping to keep the FC up.
 
klavant said:
Sean,

Just curious as to how many gallons you used in your "quest"...?

I'm in the middle of the process now and am thinking I'm going to have to make a run for more bleach. I had (10) 182oz jugs on hand, hoping I could make a difference with them. I'm not going to bother posting numbers yet, I haven't seen the FC stay high enough for any length of time. Sun has been in and out today, so that's probably not helping to keep the FC up.
Click to expand...

Kurt,

I went through 75-100 174oz jugs wich translates into 100-135 gallons. As I said before, I think I could have gotten away with less bleach overall if I had added more bleach in each dose.

Sean
 
JasonLion said:
There is a test for extreme chlorine demand that you can do with a bucket, but it is not The Bucket Test, which tests for leaks.

If you have been adding lots of chlorine and FC is always zero (or close), you can do a test to see how much chlorine it will take to be able to hold a FC level.

1) Put five gallons of pool water in a bucket.
2) Add 1 oz of 6% bleach
3) mix throughly
4) wait one hour
5) test the FC level
6) If FC is 10 or higher you are done. As long as FC is less than 10 repeat steps 2 through 6.
7) If FC is 10 or higher on the first round, repeat the entire test with fresh pool water and use teaspoons instead of oz of bleach.

Each oz of bleach is equal to 96 ppm of chlorine. Each teaspoon of bleach is equal to 16 ppm of chlorine.

This test is most useful when you have CC, ammonia, or fertilizer in the water. The results will not be accurate for baquacil, which reacts too slowly, and are only approximate for algae, since you can't safely add chlorine to the pool that quickly and with algae speed matters.
Click to expand...


How would you calculate this with 8.25% bleach?
 
SeanH said:
This was the advise I got from Jason...

"It might be time to do a bucket test to see how much chlorine it will really take. Get a five gallon bucket of pool water, add one teaspoon of bleach, mix, wait an hour, test the water. Repeat until the FC is high and CC is near zero."

I think the idea is that you add chlorine, wait one hour and test. If after one hour when you test, the FC is high and the CC is 0, then you know how many teaspoons it took for 5 gallons. There should be info somewere on the site that helps convert the teaspoons/5 gallons to how much to add to a pool.

Sean
Click to expand...


Is there anywhere on the site that shows how to calculate the results of the "bucket test" into how much product to add to the pool? If I know that I need to add 3 teaspoons / 5 gallons, and I have a 22000 gallon pool, then do I just divide 22000 by 5 gal = 4400. Then multiply by 3 tsp = 13200 tsp. I guess then all I need to do is convert teaspoons to gallons. If my math is correct (and it's fuzzy at times), I get about 17 gal of bleach to put into the pool. Can anyone verify this?
 
Ryan,

This is a very, very old thread and I'm not sure that we still subscribe to the test that is being recommended.

Looking at post #14 it looks like it took over a 100 gallons of bleach... Based upon that alone, it seems like it would be much more economical to just replace the water.

Old threads like this one get very few new posts so it would be better for you to post a new thread.

Thanks,

Jim R.
 
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