Help balancing pool ... optimistic about BioActive

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Septimosprime said:
So, for S*#$& and giggles I took a water sample to Leslie's to compare to my testing. Everything seemed relatively similar with the exception of the CH. They came up with 170 whilst I turned out a 425, down from a 450 a couple of days ago. I was curious as to what our tap water CH is so I tested it and it came in at 175. Previous Leslie tests show anywhere from 250-530 (I wonder what the TF100 test kit would have come up with?) Just to make sure I'm doing it correctly I'm filling to the 10ml line with pool water, adding 10 drops of 10, 3 drops of 11L, and counting drops of 12 until red turns blue and then multiply that number into 25.

I decided that 80 to 90 for the CYA was still too high so I'm doing one more partial to drop that number. I'm hoping to have the rest of my kit by the end of today so I can slam the snot out of this puppy. I talked to a pool service person today--an acquaintance of the family--to see if he could take care of the pool while I'm working this summer. He mentioned that I need to check the TDS because that could inhibit the chems from taking affect. Also, he said be careful about using liquid chl because its only 10% chl and the rest is filler which contributes to raising the TDS. It was my understanding that it's just water and chl, am I mistaken? He recommended something stronger, but the stronger chl has either calcium or cya, right?
Click to expand...

Oi. So much bad information.

TDS is total dissolved solids which will NOT inhibit chemicals. It's simply a measure of all the conductive ionic species in water.

LC is sodium hypochlorite and water. The process of manufacturing it can sometimes lead to excess lye (sodium hydroxide) in the solution which is what typically causes the pH to rise upon adding LC to water. The final result of all chlorine reactions on water is for it to eventually become chloride (aka, salt). So all forms of chlorine eventually add your salt levels.

Solid forms of chlorine are dichlor, trichlor and calcium hypochlorite. The former two add CYA to the water and the later raises your CH.

Oh, and yes, you're doing the CH test right and you can count on every pool store to get CH wrong 99.9% of the time.


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HELP!!!!!!

Started slamming yesterday afternoon to bring the shock level up to 26 (see previous post for chem specs) and by 8pm (6 hours into the process) the FAS-DPD and OTO Tests showed FC of 5.0 and CC of 0 (pH 7.5). Pool math recommended 365oz of 12.5% LC to raise it to a shock level back up to 26, which I did. Checked it this morning, nearly 12 hours later, OTO turned dark Orange (15-30) and the FAS-DPD came up with FC of 26.5 and CC of 0, while the pH has risen to 8. PoolMath is recommending 41oz of muriatic acid. Should I add the acid now or wait until another chem test later today?

"You are done when:
CC is 0.5 or lower;
You pass an OCLT (ie overnight FC loss test shows a loss of 1.0 ppm or less);
And the water is clear."

So, at the moment my CC is 0.
I did not test the Chl after adding the 2nd round last night to see if there was in fact FC loss.
The water is blue, but still cloudy.

Advice?

Pump is continually running and I cleaned the filter before adding the 2nd round of LC last night. I'll probably clean it again soon and do another sweeping session.

When I am done with the SLAM I assume I allow the chl levels to dissipate naturally until it falls within the PoolMath Goal range?

Cheers and thanks for all the wisdom. My entire family sends their gratitude.
 
You are supposed to lower your pH before you do a SLAM. At this point, I'd ignore the pH since you can't measure it accurately at high FC anyway (the high FC directly affects the pH dye in a way that can make the pH seem higher than it is, though in your case it probably is high). So I'd wait until you are done with the SLAM before adjusting the pH (if needed). The pH should drop back down when the FC drops back down as the usage/consumption of chlorine is an acidic process.

With the water cloudy, keep filtering. If your filter is working, the cloudiness should clear up.
 
So, pH 7.4 isn't low enough to start the SLAM? Should I have lowered it even more?

I will ignore the pH for now. From reading the SLAM instructions it makes note that the pH test isn't reliable during the SLAM. That's why I inquired as to what I should do.

Thank you so much for the help.
 
You started with an FC of 4 ppm, CYA of 65 ppm, and pH of 7.4 and you did a SLAM that raised the FC to 26 ppm so you added 22 ppm FC. With the TA of 140 ppm, this chlorine addition would raise the pH to 8.14. If you had started with a pH of 7.2, the pH would have risen to 7.66. So what you did was not a serious problem, mostly because it was a normal SLAM. If you had added more chlorine either because the CYA were higher or you were doing a yellow/mustard algae SLAM, then the pH would have risen more.

The main issues with having the pH rise too much during a SLAM are the risks of metal staining and calcium carbonate scale. In your case with the higher TA, the saturation index started at +0.14 before the SLAM and would be at +0.88 during the SLAM. Though scaling is possible, it could just end up clouding the water which can make it difficult to know when to end the SLAM or may make it take longer to clear the water. If you had started out at 7.2, then the pH rise to 7.66 would have the saturation index be +0.44 which would be less likely to remain cloudy.

At this point just follow the normal SLAM instructions to completion, but if you seem to get "stuck" with cloudy water that isn't clearing then you can add some acid to lower the pH to see if it helps. At least with your cartridge filter, it's more likely for you to be able to clear up cloudy water (with very small particles) than if you had a sand filter (unless you used DE with it).
 
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