Hi fellow pool owners!
I'd like to say first up how delighted I am at finding such a wonderful resource. You are really doing a wonderful thing here. The information in Pool School/Math has probably already saved me and others significant money and hair loss. I am a new pool owner and quite anxious about the whole thing, very worried I will do something wrong, so on this forums advice the first thing I have done is acquired a K2006c. I don't want to be "pool stored" as you guys call it!
Quick background about my pool, it's about 4K gal/15K litres, 2 years old, gets LOTS of sun all day (probably 10+ hours since there is zero shade), pump runs from 6am-10am and 6pm-10pm every day (so 8 hours total). Solar heating is in winter mode now and just flushes water through once per day. SWG was set at I guess 50% (half the LEDs were on) when I moved in a few weeks ago which is now set on 87.5%. The water is crystal clear looks so inviting and no algae that I can see in sight. Everything looks to have been well maintained except...
...The water stinks. It has a very pungent odour identical to public pools that I now understand to be dreaded chloramines. Seems very unpleasant. From my reading the only cure is to SLAM the pool but I am having a hard time with my new test kit the K2006c.
I got home tonight with the new kit and decided to test pH, it was showing 8.2+ (as it has been with my previous test kit) and I have been adding muriatic acid probably twice a week, to the tune of about 300-400ml/10oz, brings it down to say 7.6 the next day but in a day or two it's back up again. But then I read that the pH test could be thrown by a high FC of 10+, so tonight even though it was dark I thought well I'll give the FC test a try. Stupid me first off decided to use 0.2ppm/25ml sample test, added the powder, and I ended up putting about 50 drops of the r-0871 in there with no visible change (the solution was red and did not even get lighter). Next up I decided to do it using the 0.5ppm/10ml sample, added my powder and I put about 40 drops of r-0871 in there, again no change from red! At this point I stopped because I was so disheartened and paranoid of using up my precious R-0871. So now I've wasted about 90 odd drops and have no results.
I tried TA and instead of turning green to red, it kind of turned blue-ish to yellow at about 70-80ppm which I read somewhere could happen, so I figure that's at least accurate, that's what my other kit was showing. I stopped there because it's dark and I will do a full set of tests on Saturday morning as I pretty much leave for work when it's dark and get home when it's dark!
I guess at this early stage and before I do anything stupid, I ask you pool gurus, would you agree that the smell is the dreaded chloramines and that my only recourse is to SLAM. And, should I have just kept going adding the precious r-0871 until it changed? It seemed really red and showed no sign of changing, 40 drops at 0.5ppm, could my FC really be 20+? Perhaps the SWG is working overtime (I mean, i did crank it to 87.5% thinking it may eliminate the CC... but hmmm yes given I don't know any other parameters yet e.g. CYA this was stupid in hindsight). I am really keen to post a full set of results to diagnose this, just worried about wasting reagents, they're like gold here in Aus haha! Sorry for the long post.
Shane
I'd like to say first up how delighted I am at finding such a wonderful resource. You are really doing a wonderful thing here. The information in Pool School/Math has probably already saved me and others significant money and hair loss. I am a new pool owner and quite anxious about the whole thing, very worried I will do something wrong, so on this forums advice the first thing I have done is acquired a K2006c. I don't want to be "pool stored" as you guys call it!
Quick background about my pool, it's about 4K gal/15K litres, 2 years old, gets LOTS of sun all day (probably 10+ hours since there is zero shade), pump runs from 6am-10am and 6pm-10pm every day (so 8 hours total). Solar heating is in winter mode now and just flushes water through once per day. SWG was set at I guess 50% (half the LEDs were on) when I moved in a few weeks ago which is now set on 87.5%. The water is crystal clear looks so inviting and no algae that I can see in sight. Everything looks to have been well maintained except...
...The water stinks. It has a very pungent odour identical to public pools that I now understand to be dreaded chloramines. Seems very unpleasant. From my reading the only cure is to SLAM the pool but I am having a hard time with my new test kit the K2006c.
I got home tonight with the new kit and decided to test pH, it was showing 8.2+ (as it has been with my previous test kit) and I have been adding muriatic acid probably twice a week, to the tune of about 300-400ml/10oz, brings it down to say 7.6 the next day but in a day or two it's back up again. But then I read that the pH test could be thrown by a high FC of 10+, so tonight even though it was dark I thought well I'll give the FC test a try. Stupid me first off decided to use 0.2ppm/25ml sample test, added the powder, and I ended up putting about 50 drops of the r-0871 in there with no visible change (the solution was red and did not even get lighter). Next up I decided to do it using the 0.5ppm/10ml sample, added my powder and I put about 40 drops of r-0871 in there, again no change from red! At this point I stopped because I was so disheartened and paranoid of using up my precious R-0871. So now I've wasted about 90 odd drops and have no results.
I tried TA and instead of turning green to red, it kind of turned blue-ish to yellow at about 70-80ppm which I read somewhere could happen, so I figure that's at least accurate, that's what my other kit was showing. I stopped there because it's dark and I will do a full set of tests on Saturday morning as I pretty much leave for work when it's dark and get home when it's dark!
I guess at this early stage and before I do anything stupid, I ask you pool gurus, would you agree that the smell is the dreaded chloramines and that my only recourse is to SLAM. And, should I have just kept going adding the precious r-0871 until it changed? It seemed really red and showed no sign of changing, 40 drops at 0.5ppm, could my FC really be 20+? Perhaps the SWG is working overtime (I mean, i did crank it to 87.5% thinking it may eliminate the CC... but hmmm yes given I don't know any other parameters yet e.g. CYA this was stupid in hindsight). I am really keen to post a full set of results to diagnose this, just worried about wasting reagents, they're like gold here in Aus haha! Sorry for the long post.
Shane