Hello everyone!
My family in law bought a country house with a pool last winter (pool came winterized) and my father-in-law opened it for the season but unfortunately did it without much knowledge or the right materials.
He was using Aquachek testing strips and thought they didn't work because the colors "were not chaging". I know the strips aren't great but definitely not so bad as to not work right out of the box. I realized upon arrival that every chemical/level tested was so low that the difference between the baseline and the results was difficult to see if you're not paying attention (FC:0, ph way below 6.8, TA non existent, CYA low). I let him know why they seemed to "not work", so he could work from there, because I thought he knew what he was doing.
However, based on the information I provided he kept trying to shock the pool and add Chlorine to raise FC levels (as it kept reading 0) but he did it with Dichlor ?
. As a result, in a couple of nights our CYA levels went from about 30 to close to 200, with no change whatsover to FC levels. We partially drained (1/3rd) and are close to refilling the pool but our CYA levels still seem to be stuck at around 150. I will be buying a proper taylor test kit, and liquid chlorine or household bleach from now on, but I need to figure out what to do so the pool is "swimable" for the season, knowing that there is now way in this European heat wave that I can re-drain/refill or exchange the pool water any more.
My current levels with the limited info on the Aquacheck strips is:
FC – 0
CC – Not testing
pH – 7.8
TA – 150
CH – Not testing
CYA – 150
Borates – Not using / Not testing
Do you have any tips, recommendations or ideas on how to proceed for the rest of the summer? Should I still attempt to SLAM? Will I need to eventually drain at least 2/3rds of the pool ??
Thank you for your help!
My family in law bought a country house with a pool last winter (pool came winterized) and my father-in-law opened it for the season but unfortunately did it without much knowledge or the right materials.
He was using Aquachek testing strips and thought they didn't work because the colors "were not chaging". I know the strips aren't great but definitely not so bad as to not work right out of the box. I realized upon arrival that every chemical/level tested was so low that the difference between the baseline and the results was difficult to see if you're not paying attention (FC:0, ph way below 6.8, TA non existent, CYA low). I let him know why they seemed to "not work", so he could work from there, because I thought he knew what he was doing.
However, based on the information I provided he kept trying to shock the pool and add Chlorine to raise FC levels (as it kept reading 0) but he did it with Dichlor ?
. As a result, in a couple of nights our CYA levels went from about 30 to close to 200, with no change whatsover to FC levels. We partially drained (1/3rd) and are close to refilling the pool but our CYA levels still seem to be stuck at around 150. I will be buying a proper taylor test kit, and liquid chlorine or household bleach from now on, but I need to figure out what to do so the pool is "swimable" for the season, knowing that there is now way in this European heat wave that I can re-drain/refill or exchange the pool water any more.My current levels with the limited info on the Aquacheck strips is:
FC – 0
CC – Not testing
pH – 7.8
TA – 150
CH – Not testing
CYA – 150
Borates – Not using / Not testing
Do you have any tips, recommendations or ideas on how to proceed for the rest of the summer? Should I still attempt to SLAM? Will I need to eventually drain at least 2/3rds of the pool ??
Thank you for your help!
