Impatiently waiting on test kit with 0 CYA, 0 Chlorine and 1.0 Ammonia

[mknauss]

I would suggest adding baking soda to raise your TA to 70. That will raise your pH a little. Enough that you will not need to do anything about it directly.

Take care.

 

[strojnc]

I have a question about my in process slam. I started Sunday morning after raising the TA Saturday. I am losing about 4 ppm every 4 hours or so. I have been checking it multiple times per day and adding the recommended amount of chlorine to bring it up to 12. My water has always been clear, I just lose chlorine. I guess I was expecting my slam to be shorter...

I am wondering if I should increase my shock level. Perhaps I'm not so good at reading the CYA and it is actually 40 and not 30. I checked it again today and I was definitely wondering if I saw the dot when it was in the 40 reading, but sure I didn't see it when it was in the 30 reading.

Would there be any benefit to increasing the shock level? Or am I just experiencing normal results?

I can post all of my test results if necessary.

Thanks for any direction!

 

[strojnc]

I let my shock level drop the past two nights to the 10 range based on Catanzaro's directions. These are my results from just the past two nights when I was allowing for the drop. The rest of the slam I was maintaining 14 to 16.

Should I continue my slam or have I passed?

09-06-2018 @ 06:38 AM
Free Chlorine: 8.5
Combined Chlorine: 0.0

09-06-2018 @ 01:58 AM
Free Chlorine: 9.0

08-06-2018 @ 03:42 PM
Free Chlorine: 13.5

08-06-2018 @ 07:33 AM
Free Chlorine: 17.5

08-06-2018 @ 05:50 AM
Free Chlorine: 9.0

07-06-2018 @ 08:44 PM
Free Chlorine: 11.0

 

[mknauss]

What does your water look like?

The OCLT you did this morning was very short. It is best if you can get 8 hours or so between tests.

 

[strojnc]

The water has always been perfectly clear.

I tested again at 11am today and FC was 7.5. The sun's been hot and heavy since about 8am.

Another thread said to keep it at slam level for the OCLT, so I'm just confused.

 

[mknauss]

As you have been maintaining SLAM level for sometime, you have crystal clear water, and your OCLT is near 1 ppm, I would suggest keeping your FC at 10% of CYA for awhile and see how it goes. Add 10 ppm of CYA powder to the pool and assume you have 50 ppm CYA in the water for the next several days. So your minimum FC would be 5 ppm. Add sufficient chlorine when you add it to the pool to reach 9 ppm. Then see how your FC level is at the time you test and re-dose with chlorine.

Take care.

 

[kellyfair]

I think you are good, but just for kicks, do another OCLT tonight. Test FC when it’s dark, maybe around 9pm or so. Then test in morning before sun comes up. If you lose 1 FC or less, you pass OCLT.

Also test CC. If .5 or less, you pass that part.

And your water is clear. Those are the three criteria for calling your SLAM done!

The only other thing to do is get a handle on your CYA. Follow this method:

In sunlight, back to the sun, fill tube to first line. Quick glance, don’t stare! Still see dot?

Fill to next line, quick glance. Still see dot? Repeat.

The first line where you don’t see dot with a QUICK glance is your CYA. Maintain proper FC level accordingly.

 

[strojnc]

Thanks for the tips on reading the cya. I find that one tricky.

I'm confused on the chlorine tests. I was letting it drop to 5 like mknauss had suggested and we had a ton of rain so I thought for sure it would be under 5 so I used the small blue test kit to check it. According to that test, it was well above 5 (or at least some color more than 5). So I retested with the powder and the drops and got 3.5. Is the blue box accurate? Where am I going wrong now? Should I always test with the powder?

 

[mknauss]

The K1000 OTO test (yellow comparator block) only tells you 'there is chlorine'. So always use the FAS-DPD test. Use the K1000 test if your FAS-DPD shows 0 and that does not seem right.

Take care.