Hello,
I have a question, but need to provide a little information first... I recently used your excellent information on SLAM-ing my pool, and was able to end a lengthy battle I had with algae. (After 2 months, and with many 110 degree days here in Texas... I won the battle!!)
It struck me that your shock chart showed such higher levels of chlorine than I had been accustomed to using. Conventional wisdom was to get the chlorine to 7 ppm, but based on my pool (16K gallons and CYA at ~45-50, as close as I can tell from my CYA kit), I needed 16-20 PPM to shock. That's easy to achieve, and it appears I was just not using enough chlorine. More importantly, my waterfall is on a separate pump, (and not filtered), and the pipe is 150 ft long. Before I read your SLAM instructions, I didn't think to turn that pump on to clear the bad water from those pipes. I ran it for 1.5 hours while starting up the shock. All algae is now gone, and none reappeared for the past week. So thank you VERY much for the knowledge on this site!
Now to my question(s)... after using such high levels of chlorine, how can I accurately measure it? I am having trouble measuring it with my Taylor K-1004 test kit. The scales are listed 3-6, 5-10, etc.... And it also says to measure the free chlorine (FC) first, then measure the total chlorine (TC), then subtract them for the combined chlorine (CC). If I use 5 drops of all the solutions, the color is still off the charts.
I tried adding just one drop of each of the first 2 reagents, and then multiplying it x 5. I was at about 3, which would translate to 15 (3x5). Is this an acceptable way to measure it? Moreover, when adding the one drop of DPD Reagent #3, the color still looked the same. Does that mean my CC is almost zero? And is that a bad thing?
I have been measuring my pool chemistry for years, and I'm generally familiar with doing this. But I need to know which numbers I should be working with (FC, TC or CC?) and how to accurately measure them under the current conditions? I don't think keeping the FC so high is a good thing. But we have had 5 days of rain and clouds since I SLAMed. So that lack of intense sunlight, plus my high CYA could be why the FC is so high. That should change when it gets hot again this week.
Don
I have a question, but need to provide a little information first... I recently used your excellent information on SLAM-ing my pool, and was able to end a lengthy battle I had with algae. (After 2 months, and with many 110 degree days here in Texas... I won the battle!!)
It struck me that your shock chart showed such higher levels of chlorine than I had been accustomed to using. Conventional wisdom was to get the chlorine to 7 ppm, but based on my pool (16K gallons and CYA at ~45-50, as close as I can tell from my CYA kit), I needed 16-20 PPM to shock. That's easy to achieve, and it appears I was just not using enough chlorine. More importantly, my waterfall is on a separate pump, (and not filtered), and the pipe is 150 ft long. Before I read your SLAM instructions, I didn't think to turn that pump on to clear the bad water from those pipes. I ran it for 1.5 hours while starting up the shock. All algae is now gone, and none reappeared for the past week. So thank you VERY much for the knowledge on this site! Now to my question(s)... after using such high levels of chlorine, how can I accurately measure it? I am having trouble measuring it with my Taylor K-1004 test kit. The scales are listed 3-6, 5-10, etc.... And it also says to measure the free chlorine (FC) first, then measure the total chlorine (TC), then subtract them for the combined chlorine (CC). If I use 5 drops of all the solutions, the color is still off the charts.
I tried adding just one drop of each of the first 2 reagents, and then multiplying it x 5. I was at about 3, which would translate to 15 (3x5). Is this an acceptable way to measure it? Moreover, when adding the one drop of DPD Reagent #3, the color still looked the same. Does that mean my CC is almost zero? And is that a bad thing?
I have been measuring my pool chemistry for years, and I'm generally familiar with doing this. But I need to know which numbers I should be working with (FC, TC or CC?) and how to accurately measure them under the current conditions? I don't think keeping the FC so high is a good thing. But we have had 5 days of rain and clouds since I SLAMed. So that lack of intense sunlight, plus my high CYA could be why the FC is so high. That should change when it gets hot again this week.
Don
