Hello All --
I have occasionally lurked around this site for mechanical help doing repairs. But for years I have not really paid attention to the water chemistry and just operated on a 'close enough' mentality. Part of my excuse for this is that I had horrible stains in my pool that were demoralizing. I tried everything to scrub them off and various quick fixes. My 'plan' was to get my 14 year old pool replastered when my financial situation changed.
My attitude has now totally changed due to the community here at TFP. I did the AA treatment and my pool is much, much better. None of my friends or family can believe the difference. I will try to attach before and after photos.
I bought a test kit and am getting close to balancing my water. Which leads to my only questions....
1. When testing for free chlorine, the water is pink then clear after enough drops are put in. But if you let it sit a couple minutes, it will sometimes turn back pink. My understanding (now) is that the test results should be based on the drops input to clear the water without giving the sample any time to sit. Is this correct? I was getting higher chlorine readings by giving it time.
2. This one is sort of a stupid question but what is considered clear? I am currently taking it to mean that the water is generally clear when looking straight down at the white bottom. I am not holding it up to the light looking for the slightest pink tint. Again, is my current method correct?
Final comment...
There is so much information on the TFP site. Just skim reading the forum topics that look interesting and doing searches for items provides a real education on pool chemistry. For example, I just learned that Phos Free is unnecessary after getting upsold from Leslie's years ago.
Thanks to all that post here.
I have occasionally lurked around this site for mechanical help doing repairs. But for years I have not really paid attention to the water chemistry and just operated on a 'close enough' mentality. Part of my excuse for this is that I had horrible stains in my pool that were demoralizing. I tried everything to scrub them off and various quick fixes. My 'plan' was to get my 14 year old pool replastered when my financial situation changed.
My attitude has now totally changed due to the community here at TFP. I did the AA treatment and my pool is much, much better. None of my friends or family can believe the difference. I will try to attach before and after photos.
I bought a test kit and am getting close to balancing my water. Which leads to my only questions....
1. When testing for free chlorine, the water is pink then clear after enough drops are put in. But if you let it sit a couple minutes, it will sometimes turn back pink. My understanding (now) is that the test results should be based on the drops input to clear the water without giving the sample any time to sit. Is this correct? I was getting higher chlorine readings by giving it time.
2. This one is sort of a stupid question but what is considered clear? I am currently taking it to mean that the water is generally clear when looking straight down at the white bottom. I am not holding it up to the light looking for the slightest pink tint. Again, is my current method correct?
Final comment...
There is so much information on the TFP site. Just skim reading the forum topics that look interesting and doing searches for items provides a real education on pool chemistry. For example, I just learned that Phos Free is unnecessary after getting upsold from Leslie's years ago.
Thanks to all that post here.
