Hello all - this is my first post here and public "speaking" is not my passion so please be kind.
I have been reading here a lot lately...so much so that I ordered and received the highly acclaimed Taylor K-2006 test kit last week to try and simplify my plight.
We are in FL and pool is in full sun all day - if this matters.
Here goes:
We re-surfaced our 22,000 gal pool last year, fired the pool guy and bought an automatic chlorinator and relied on the OTO tests and the pool store for our readings and guidance. We had no clue about different chlorine types, the fact that the pucks contain stabilizer, that dichlor "shock" adds a bunch more stabilizer or that stabilizer doesn't go away. Fast forward to today where CYA is off the charts and not even measurable. Pool store gave a reading of 150 last week, but I am wondering if their test caps at a certain amount and can't give a true reading(?). Knowing that it was (at least) that when I received my new test kit that caps at 100, I knew I needed to dilute my pool sample to even be on the chart - with a 50/50 dilution I was still not on the chart of the Taylor test kit. I did it again with only 1/4 pool water and 3/4 bottled water (I don't recall the type) and got a reading on the charts of about 75ppm. So...does that really mean my CYA is 300????? I know the further you slice down the sample, the less accurate the test becomes. But it was so far off from the pool store that their test can't possibly be accurate, can it?
Needless to say chlorinator is OFF and we are switching to liquid chlorine, but I haven't added any yet because I don't even know how to treat this. YES, I am aware we need to drain and refill - but we are on a well and guess what our water treatment system uses for sanitation???? Yup...STABILIZED chlorine pucks!! So we would want to fill with the raw well water, no? Our raw water has A LOT of iron in it. I am not sure what the lesser of two evils is here.
Back to the chlorine...new test kit gave me a FC reading of 11ppm yesterday and CC was .5. Just for the heck of it I checked it with the OTO (expecting to see the brown or orange color when 5+) and got chlorine in the normal range - the yellow was somewhere between 3-5ppm. Can these tests be wildly different??
So given all of these variables I decided ping the experts here on the forum - if you can clarify any of the issues of confusion I mention above I would greatly appreciate it!
I have been reading here a lot lately...so much so that I ordered and received the highly acclaimed Taylor K-2006 test kit last week to try and simplify my plight.
We are in FL and pool is in full sun all day - if this matters.
Here goes:
We re-surfaced our 22,000 gal pool last year, fired the pool guy and bought an automatic chlorinator and relied on the OTO tests and the pool store for our readings and guidance. We had no clue about different chlorine types, the fact that the pucks contain stabilizer, that dichlor "shock" adds a bunch more stabilizer or that stabilizer doesn't go away. Fast forward to today where CYA is off the charts and not even measurable. Pool store gave a reading of 150 last week, but I am wondering if their test caps at a certain amount and can't give a true reading(?). Knowing that it was (at least) that when I received my new test kit that caps at 100, I knew I needed to dilute my pool sample to even be on the chart - with a 50/50 dilution I was still not on the chart of the Taylor test kit. I did it again with only 1/4 pool water and 3/4 bottled water (I don't recall the type) and got a reading on the charts of about 75ppm. So...does that really mean my CYA is 300????? I know the further you slice down the sample, the less accurate the test becomes. But it was so far off from the pool store that their test can't possibly be accurate, can it?
Needless to say chlorinator is OFF and we are switching to liquid chlorine, but I haven't added any yet because I don't even know how to treat this. YES, I am aware we need to drain and refill - but we are on a well and guess what our water treatment system uses for sanitation???? Yup...STABILIZED chlorine pucks!! So we would want to fill with the raw well water, no? Our raw water has A LOT of iron in it. I am not sure what the lesser of two evils is here.
Back to the chlorine...new test kit gave me a FC reading of 11ppm yesterday and CC was .5. Just for the heck of it I checked it with the OTO (expecting to see the brown or orange color when 5+) and got chlorine in the normal range - the yellow was somewhere between 3-5ppm. Can these tests be wildly different??
So given all of these variables I decided ping the experts here on the forum - if you can clarify any of the issues of confusion I mention above I would greatly appreciate it!