TF-100 Test Kit Results on pond water Update results 5/29/14

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QuiltinMom

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Mar 24, 2013
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Central Iowa
Just a quick background, we are getting ourselves organized to DIY our AGP. We live in the country and are on a well. We have tried multiple options for bringing in water to fill the pool and it looks like we are going use water from the pond that is just down the hill from our house. We are going to be putting it in to some of those large square totes and hauling it up the hill on a trailer.

Today I went down and got some water from the pond just for a pre-test. This is the FIRST time that I have used the TF-100 kit so I don't know how accurate my test results are.

Here is what I got.

FC - 3
PH - 7.5
TA - 80
CH - 120
CYA - 0???? The dot never disappeared even though I filled the tube up.

I don't think there is anything alarming with these results, but then again, I have no idea what any of them mean. :confused:

I'm sure we will also be using a hose from our house and putting in water from our well. I haven't tested that water yet, but I probably will. I know we have some metals in our water as I can not use bleach in the laundry. I have been told by other people in the neighborhood that if you use bleach in the washing machine on your whites that I will get a bunch of rust on the clothes and ruin them.

Can you tell me if there is a way to test for metals and if there is metal in our well water, what do I need to do about it, if anything?

Take it easy on me. This is my first attempt at testing the water. It probably doesn't make any sense at all.
 
Re: TF-100 Test Kit Results on pond water

First, I am shocked that there is chlorine in your pond. Did you use the yellow OTO test or the FAS-DPD chlorine test with the powder?
CYA should be 0ppm, same in your well water.

Let the pool store test for metals, although they may get this wrong too.
If you have metals, then you will need to use a sequestrant to avoid staining: http://www.troublefreepool.com/content/137-metals-in-the-water-and-metal-stains
 
Re: TF-100 Test Kit Results on pond water

Sounds like a project!

I don't believe that FC reading, not from a pond. The others are quite believable. The CYA test should be zero. It doesn't occur naturally.

Pool Stores can test for metals. Alternately, get a clean white bucket (or tote) and fill it with prospective water. Dump an ounce or two of bleach into it. 1 oz in 5 gallons will give you 133 FC, which is waaaaay beyond anything you'll ever have in your pool. Does the water turn yellowish? Then you have iron.

If you use the search box up top and enter pond water, you'll get a bunch of older threads that cover it. There's also a good writeup in pool school on metals in the water, and lots and lots of threads you can search.

Don't overtax your well. You'll end up with a lot of sediment in the pool and out your faucets.
 
Re: TF-100 Test Kit Results on pond water

I was confused by that one also. It doesn't make any sense.

I used the little cylinder with the R-870 powder and the R871 solution. The only think that I can think of that I may have done was to rinse the chlorine cylinder with tap water from our well. A few months ago we were hauling water that had chlorine in it when our well was running out of water. There could be some residual chlorine in the well still. Should I have rinsed the cylinder with the pond water instead?

On the Taylor K-1000 little chlorine and ph test container there was nothing that registered on the Chlorine side.

Maybe I should try it again on our tap/well water.
 
Re: TF-100 Test Kit Results on pond water

And don't keep adding powder until you get some pink. One scoop, if no sign of pink and it is still clear, you are done.
Honestly, no point in doing this and the OTO is a great sanity check.
 
Re: TF-100 Test Kit Results on pond water

Always rinse your glassware with the sample to be tested. If you want to do it like the pros, rinse three times. It doesn't take much for a proper rinse at all.

Pond water will not have Chlorine in it. Something else caused that.

Please begin reading the Pool School article "ABC's of Pool Chemistry"
 
Re: TF-100 Test Kit Results on pond water

Round 2.

I rinsed the chlorine cylinder with the pond water 3 times. I put in the required amount of pond water and then 1 scoop of the powder and I got a really faint pink color. I don't understand where this could be coming from. Of course one drop of the other solution and it was completely clear. I am confused where the chlorine could be coming from. Could it be my collection container (I used a glass canning jar).

I also did the quick chlorine and ph test on our tap water and ph was 7.5 and the chlorine side was completely clear. No hint of chlorine. I proceeded with the other chlorine test to see if I could register anything with that one. I rinsed the cylinder 3 times with the tap water. Put in the required amount of tap water, one scoop of the powder and nothing happened. No coloration at all.

What in the world am I doing to register chlorine from the pond water?

I still have some of the pond water in the glass jar and to look at it it looks rather clean. You can see a hint of green, but certainly not what I was expecting. The good news is that there is a well pump head in the pond. The previous owner planned to use the pond to water several hundred trees that he was going to grow on the land surrounding the pond. This means that most of the bigger living organisims will be pre-filtered out and we won't end up with little fishy in our pool, hopefully. :)
 

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Re: TF-100 Test Kit Results on pond water

Did you do the CC portion of the FAS-DPD test? I think I recently read that high levels of ammonia could bleed into the FC portion (although I may be remembering wrong).
 
Re: TF-100 Test Kit Results on pond water

If I remember correctly, it's when FC is converted to CC *from* the ammonia. The relatively higher CC then bleeds into the FC result. Without chlorine in the first place, it's hard to tell where a FC or CC reading would come from.
 
Re: TF-100 Test Kit Results on pond water

JesseWV said:
If I remember correctly, it's when FC is converted to CC *from* the ammonia. The relatively higher CC then bleeds into the FC result. Without chlorine in the first place, it's hard to tell where a FC or CC reading would come from.
Click to expand...
That was what I was thinking too ... but that would not explain what is going on here. Even if it was CC, that should show up in the OTO test too.
 
Re: TF-100 Test Kit Results on pond water

JesseWV said:
Did you try the OTO test on the pond water again?
Click to expand...

If OTO refers to the little blue box test kit, then yes, I did do it on the pond water again. It was still showing 7.5 ph, but it was totally clear on the chlorine side.

jblizzle said:
Did you do the CC portion of the FAS-DPD test? I think I recently read that high levels of ammonia could bleed into the FC portion (although I may be remembering wrong).
Click to expand...

Not sure if I understand this question, but yes, I did the chlorine cylinder with one scoop of the powder and then 3 drops to make the pink disappear. What could cause high amonia in a pond? The fields around the pond are all hay ground so there is not farm chemicals applied to it.

Maybe I should take my canning jar back down there and rinse it 3 times in the pond water then collect a sample to test.
 
Re: TF-100 Test Kit Results on pond water

I don't think you are doing the FAS-DPD totally correctly.

How much water did you use for the test 10ml or 25ml?
If 10ml, then each drop is 0.5ppm and your FC with 3 drops would be 1.5ppm
If 25ml, then each drop is 0.2ppm and your FC with 3 drops would be 0.6ppm

After that portion of the test you are supposed to add 5 drops of the R-0003 to see if the water turns pink again. If it does, you use the R-0871 to turn it clear again and that number of drops indicates the CC level with the same multiplier as above.

- - - Updated - - -

Regardless, very weird for FC to show up in the pond.
 
Re: TF-100 Test Kit Results on pond water

Um, I think you may be correct. I only did the one scoop of the powder then did the drops to turn it clear again. I didn't do the final part of the test where you add more drops for pink, then more drops for clear again. I do remember when I was doing the testing that I saw a flash of pink, then it disappeared. It was kind of weird.

I did go and get another pond water sample and rinsed out the collection jar before I got it. I have not had a chance to test it yet.

I was in the local pool store the other night picking p some parts for my sand filter and I saw a sign that said they charge $4.00 to test your water. Is that typical? I guess it was a free service that local pool stores would offer.

I will report back in when I have had a chance to test it again.

THANKS for the input.
 
Re: TF-100 Test Kit Results on pond water

Havent had a chance to retest the water because we have.been busy doing our build. Yippee!!!!

So we are following our plan of using water from the pond. We also started with our well water.

It is going to take us a while to get it filled. Right now the deep end is full and we have about ankle deep water across the whole bottom of the pool.

Should we start adding some bleach before we get it filled? Incorporating it in to the water wont be a problem as we have a 2" hose that we are using to continue to add water.

If so how do I know.how.much to add? We just bought some bleach that is 8.25% I think.
 
Re: TF-100 Test Kit Results on pond water

We have diligently been working on our build. We have about 24" of water across the whole pool. We have primarily used pond water, but we have also used some of our well water. We are hauling about 550 gallons of water at a time to add to the pool. It is very hard work, but we are getting it done. We had trouble with the pump yesterday, so we had to shut down early and didn't get as much water in as we would have wanted. We instead changed our focus to the equipment pad.

I need to figure out the proper way to plumb our pool. I have searched the forum extensively and can't seem to come up with the correct terms to get a diagram of what goes where in terms of check valves and shut off valves. Right now we have just the basics - pump, sand filter and a Wanda the Whale cleaner. We also plan to put in a homemade PVC fountain and would like to be able to add solar at a later date if we need to. ANY HELP WOULD BE APPRECIATED!!!

THANKS!!!
 
Re: TF-100 Test Kit Results on pond water

Update 5/29/14 Test results:
Cl 0 (no sign of any yellow coloring)
ph 8.2 (very bright dark pink)

FAS/DPD
when I put the powder in to the pool water I didn't get any pink at all, so I did not continue
TA - at 9 it was pink at 10 it was red
ch 80
cya - dot never disappeared

Currently there is no movement in the water. We are still trying to get water in this beast. We have about 28" across the whole pool. We have not been able to get down to the pond because of recent rain. As of right now we don't even have the water level up to the equipment level to begin circulating it.

Hubby does have the equipment set up and plumbed for the most part. We are hard piping it. We have added some flex hose on the end of the hard piping right now to see if we can start to filter it. But of course last night we discovered the lid on the pump has a little ear broken off of it (the little part that helps keep the lid on under pressure).

What can we do until we can get our water level up????

Is our temporary plumbing asking for trouble?

We did add one gallon of 8.25% bleach the other day when we were pumping water in so it could get circulated. Can we do more to try and keep the swamp from getting worse?

THANKS for all of your help.
 
You could start dissolving CYA in a sock and tie it to a floater/noodle. You can continue to add some bleach and then brush really well to mix it in.

For all the tests, you add drops until you get no further change. So for the TA test, 9 drops made it pink, 10 drops made it read, you should have added an 11 drop with likely would have resulted in no change so you would not count that drop. So your TA is 100ppm.

It is the same for the FAS-DPD and the CH tests. Although with the OTO showing 0 chlorine, there is no point in doing the FAS-DPD.
 

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