CH and CYA level?

[henryforever14]

How much are you paying for a gallon? If it's more than 5.67 a gallon, you might try Walmart instead. I either get mine there or at Atwoods (you all don't have one of those, or a Menards) where they are almost always on sale. Right now 3.99 a gallon. So you may shop around to see if you can find somewhere selling them cheaper than the pool store.

I don’t have Atwoods or Menards. I am paying 16 dollars for 2.5 gallons of 12.5%. This is a tiny bit cheaper than Walmart. Pool store is closer than the Walmart that carries that particular liquid chlorine.

I lost about 4ppm of FC in an hour just now. So poured another 70oz lol

 

[henryforever14]

I do have lots of spiders, bugs and dendalion in the pool. I cleaned skimmer sock last night, this morning I woke up to find around 10 spiders+bugs.

Do these things eat a lot of chlorine?

 

[henryforever14]

I am on day 2.5 of SLAMMING. Started Sunday night. Previous activities recorded in this post:
Thread 'CH and CYA level?'
CH and CYA level?

I started this new post because it is no longer about water balancing as was the purpose of the old post.

I am still losing a crazy (expensive) amount of FC hourly.

Last night overnight between 8:30 and 5:30, I lost 3ppm. (It poured an inch last night.) This morning, I am losing at about 2.5ppm/hour.

When I went algae hunting this morning, I found a tiny bit of algae hidden in the pool step. I scrubbed it at 6am. Despite the cold water, I went in the pool just now and brushed the spot using a small brush.

I also took out the ladder to eliminate the possibility of that variable.

However, I could not figure out how to take out the skimmer door. The foam and door looks good to me though. I brushed it as best as I could.

I suppose I am losing FC slower than yesterday, but it still is quite fast and expensive! The wallet is bleeding

I was also going through the FC test reagent very fast. So I ordered 1pt of it on Amazon lol. I swear when I went into the local pool store last night to get another 3 2.5gallon- jugs of chlorine after already getting 4 of them the day prior, the person behind counter was like WTF…

CYA tested again this morning. It is the same as before. At 50, I can see the dot if I try harder. At 40, I can’t see at all. (This time I did test under the sun with my back facing the sun.)

 

[Texas Splash]

Henry, we pulled your last post (# 63) over to this existing thread to keep everything together. We don't want your posts & replies to get scattered,

Let's remember, FC is only lost to two things - organics/algae and the sun's UV. So if you have a starting SLAM FC of 20 just before bedtime say at 10:00 pm, and you check the FC in the morning before the sun hits the water, let's say 5:00 AM, and if your FC dropped below 19 (a loss of more than 1 ppm), then it confirms algae. In that case the SLAM Process must continue because there is algae hiding somewhere. In your case you said you lost 3 ppm overnight, so that answers that question.

Ideally what we hope to see if that you pass Overnight Chlorine Loss Test by NOT losing more than 1 ppm of FC. At that point you know you can raise the CYA to help prevent FC loss during the day.

This may seem repetitive to hear, but it's important because sometimes a pool owner gets frustrated when they feel like there is no end in sight. In reality, if they fail the OCLT and continue to lose chlorine, there's algae hiding somewhere. When the CYA and FC testing are accurate, and the FC is "maintained" at that elevated level (in your case 20), algae simply cannot survive.

If algae is stealing FC during the hours of darkness, then it goes without saying a higher FC loss can be expected during the day with both algae and sunlight taking FC from the water. Hopefully the things you did today will result in improvements. Unless you missed something obvious, the only other thing I can think of are those drain covers down below. They can hide algae.

 

[henryforever14]

Henry, we pulled your last post (# 63) over to this existing thread to keep everything together. We don't want your posts & replies to get scattered,

Let's remember, FC is only lost to two things - organics/algae and the sun's UV. So if you have a starting SLAM FC of 20 just before bedtime say at 10:00 pm, and you check the FC in the morning before the sun hits the water, let's say 5:00 AM, and if your FC dropped below 19 (a loss of more than 1 ppm), then it confirms algae. In that case the SLAM Process must continue because there is algae hiding somewhere. In your case you said you lost 3 ppm overnight, so that answers that question.

Ideally what we hope to see if that you pass Overnight Chlorine Loss Test by NOT losing more than 1 ppm of FC. At that point you know you can raise the CYA to help prevent FC loss during the day.

This may seem repetitive to hear, but it's important because sometimes a pool owner gets frustrated when they feel like there is no end in sight. In reality, if they fail the OCLT and continue to lose chlorine, there's algae hiding somewhere. When the CYA and FC testing are accurate, and the FC is "maintained" at that elevated level (in your case 20), algae simply cannot survive.

If algae is stealing FC during the hours of darkness, then it goes without saying a higher FC loss can be expected during the day with both algae and sunlight taking FC from the water. Hopefully the things you did today will result in improvements. Unless you missed something obvious, the only other thing I can think of are those drain covers down below. They can hide algae.

I lost 3ppm overnight, so definitely failed OCLT.

Yea, I know the drain cover... But the water is about 10ft deep there and I can't swim... So...

 

[Texas Splash]

But the water is about 10ft deep there and I can't swim... So...

The one downfall of a deep pool I suppose. Hang in there!

 

[henryforever14]

An update:

I am on day 5 of my SLAM. It has been hard.

By now, I have passed OCLT three nights in a row, with loss at either 0.5ppm or none. However, I am still going to do it for one more night (tonight). The daytime FC loss still worries me. I run slightly above SLAM level at 22ppm. It was raining most of the day today, 22.5ppm at sunrise dropped to 20ppm at 1pm; I raised it to 22, but it dropped to 18.5 at 5:30pm. The loss would certainly be acceptable if it was a sunny day, but today was mostly rainy.

 

[henryforever14]

So I think I passed again. I actually tested 24 this morning (tested twice) , more than 22.5 last night. So there has to be testing error last night. But the test before I got 22.5, was the 18.5 I got at 5-6pm. The amount of liquid chlorine I put in afterwards has no way to elevate FC level to above 24. So logic dictates that unless I screwed up both tests yesterday, it’s likely that I passed.

Given the high probability of these errors at large number of drops, I will let FC drop naturally during the course of the day and re-perform OCLT at around 10ppm, in the hope that less drops lead to less error.

Last 24 hours was also the first time my Dolphin Nautlis CC plus did not pick up anything except for a bug. On other days, it picked up a bunch of bugs and worms, and sand. The robot has been running 2/3 of the time based on automation.

 

[Texas Splash]

Sounds like you are done. Great news. Now you can turn on the SWG that's been off this entire time. Or wait a day or two if needed to allow the FC to fall to normal levels. From there you can do a couple things:
1 - Ensure the FC never falls below the minimum as noted on the FC/CYA Levels. Best case scenario, always keep it in the ideal range.
2 - Increase the CYA if needed. With an SWG, we recommend a CYA of about 70 which helps the SWG to maintain the FC much better,

Have a great weekend.