mguzzy
Gold Supporter
I'm in California.. but I don't see why the swag wouldn't work it's way north
Time for my first SLAM? Now with Pictures!
- Thread starter TheDeuce
- Start date
- Jun 8, 2019
- 4,581
- Pool Size
- 20000
- Surface
- Vinyl
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Pentair Intellichlor IC-60
The tftestkits cert might not be as useful as they can’t ship tests to Canada. Not sure how Canadians normally use that.
- May 3, 2014
- 62,705
- Pool Size
- 6000
- Surface
- Fiberglass
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Pentair Intellichlor IC-40
Once the border opens the TF100 can be shipped to a border mail drop and the purchaser crosses the border and picks it up.
Yep, that's what I did when I got my TF100. However I was running low on the 871 reagent so I, with faint hope, called my local pool store and they actually had some but it had a March 2020 expiry date. Since I'm in the middle of a SLAM I had to bite the bullet and hope that 871 reagent 3 months out of date would be better than guess strips. I ended up using the last of my original 871 when doing my second reading today so I had to use the expired stuff. I'm hoping that it's not so age sensitive as to be useless.
For my OCLT I took my early morning reading around 3:30 or so to make sure I beat the sunrise (we get morning twilight at 4:30 AM) and had a FC drop of 1 and a CC count of either 0.5 or 1.0 depending on how you define the colour red. My FC levels are still above SLAM levels though so I might as well do one more OCLT tonight. But no matter what my pool is now quite quite clear, white floaty stuff notwithstanding.
Back to that Gold Supporter swag pack - the one thing I'd like is that sweet, sweet t-shirt. Would that get shipped up here?
m.
So I read elsewhere about the limited value of a UV unit for an outdoor pool. Since I did our build before I discovered TFP I have a UV unit. Should I have shut it down during the SLAM? Might that unit be contributing to my OCLT failures? Pool School made mention that any SWG should be turned off but was silent on UV systems.
m.
m.
It's almost midnight and I can't wait until my AM reading.
We had friends over this afternoon who were oh so impressed with my clarity. I can't wait until we have some pool owners over so I can sell them on the TFP philosophy.
m.
We had friends over this afternoon who were oh so impressed with my clarity. I can't wait until we have some pool owners over so I can sell them on the TFP philosophy.
m.
What the heck? FC at 11:44 PM last night - 22.5 ppm. Morning reading? 13.0. My UV unit was on (I couldn't figure out how to disable it in the dark) but I can't believe that it would eat up that much chlorine in 6 hours! The water is clear, the OCLT was 1.0 on the night of the 13th - 14th, CC's are near zero and my filter is clean.
But there was one weird thing about the filter. I cleaned it on Sunday and my clean pressure was 5 psi. Yesterday afternoon, after 18 hours, it was 7.5. 50% jump in 24 hours.
I was letting my FC drift back down since I figured the SLAM was done. Back to an FC of 28?
m.
But there was one weird thing about the filter. I cleaned it on Sunday and my clean pressure was 5 psi. Yesterday afternoon, after 18 hours, it was 7.5. 50% jump in 24 hours.
I was letting my FC drift back down since I figured the SLAM was done. Back to an FC of 28?
m.
I think I found out why my FC was so over-the-top high after my first addition.
I went into Poolmath today to get how much 10.8% to add and it said 40 litres - almost 11 gallons. I knew that was way off so I went to the old Poolmath calculator and it said around 10 litres. Much more reasonable. Then I went back to Poolmath on my PC and it was still insisting on 40 litres. SO I checked my pool volume to see if it was off. It thinks that I have a 280,877 litre pool - 74,306 gallons.
Doing the math: 280,877/74,306=3.78. And there are 3.78 litres to a gallon.
I know that I didn't put in a pool volume of 280,877 litres, that's for sure. I think there might be an issue with the app in moving from imperial to metric. It's like it took my entry in litres, called it gallons, and then converted it to litres.
Still don't know why my OCLT isn't working but at least I know why I've been overshooting on my chemicals.
m.
I went into Poolmath today to get how much 10.8% to add and it said 40 litres - almost 11 gallons. I knew that was way off so I went to the old Poolmath calculator and it said around 10 litres. Much more reasonable. Then I went back to Poolmath on my PC and it was still insisting on 40 litres. SO I checked my pool volume to see if it was off. It thinks that I have a 280,877 litre pool - 74,306 gallons.
Doing the math: 280,877/74,306=3.78. And there are 3.78 litres to a gallon.
I know that I didn't put in a pool volume of 280,877 litres, that's for sure. I think there might be an issue with the app in moving from imperial to metric. It's like it took my entry in litres, called it gallons, and then converted it to litres.
Still don't know why my OCLT isn't working but at least I know why I've been overshooting on my chemicals.
m.
mguzzy
Gold Supporter
I learned beacuse of here, actually @mguzzy you were there too when we were trying to make Casey a chlorine slow dripper...... anywho there are 2 kinds of gallons. The US and the English (imperial) ones.
If you are buying imperial gallons of bleach they are bigger...... 4.54 litres instead of 3.78. That could have juiced up the FC also.
If you are buying imperial gallons of bleach they are bigger...... 4.54 litres instead of 3.78. That could have juiced up the FC also.
5 litres per jug. $6.79 at Canadian Tire (10.8%). I'm sure the issue was the pool size, although I'm still head scratching about how my OCLT dropped one ppm two nights ago and 9.5 ppm last night.
I figured out how to shut off the UV light this afternoon so I've eliminated that variable for tonight.
m.
I figured out how to shut off the UV light this afternoon so I've eliminated that variable for tonight.
m.
OCLT passed! Apparently it was the UV light dragging my AM readings down. Lesson learned.
m.
m.
mguzzy
Gold Supporter
See... it didn't have anything to do with being metrically challenged
SLAM update!
Things took a turn for the worse a week after I finished SLAM #1. Our heat pump was acting wonky - it wouldn't kick in even though our temperature was dropping. I tried turning it off and on and no luck. So I jacked up the thermostat to 92 degrees or so and it finally activated. Then I absentmindedly left it on and we didn't use the pool for two days. When kid #3 stepped into the pool after 48 hours of heating he said "It's so warm!". I instantly recalled leaving the heat pump on and now our pool was a scant 7 degrees cooler than our hot tub!
And it was thick and cloudy with white dander. Oy was I ticked. Is algae growth accelerated by warmer water temperatures or was this just a coincidence?
At any rate I started to reSLAM. This one was more challenging. Improvement was slow indeed. In SLAM 1.0 I didn't bother opening up the ladder plugs or taking out the light fixture, figuring that our pool store experts had just put them in a couple of weeks before and it must have been clean then. How could algae have built up in there?
Well the ladder was clean (or darn close) but when I pulled the light I was stunned. I wish I had grabbed my Ikelite scuba camera setup. There must have been a half inch of built up algae in there. All grey and dead (grey algae is dead algae, correct?) but present nonetheless. I herded the kids to the shallow end while I grabbed the manual vacuum, hoping to slurp up the deleterious material straight to the filter - I didn't want wash and wake from hyperactive kids washing that crud into the pool at large. Kept SLAMming until the night of July 3-4 when I not only passed my OCLT - I somehow had an increase of 1.5 in my FC count (from 21.5 to 23 ppm). I wanted to be sure we were good to go so I did another OCLT on the night of July 4-5. This time I had an FC increase from 19.5 to 20.5!
It's not a Defective End User Error here - I could do the drop count in my sleep. Could it be that my liquid chlorine addition wasn't quite as uniform as I'd like? Is there a +/- 1.5 ppm margin of error possibility? Old reagent? My R-0871 bottle has a March 2020 expiry date.
(I'm forced to use the expired stuff since I can't get fresh TFP store reagents up here in Canada so I have to go with what I can source locally).
This post got longer than I was planning so here's the TL;DR version:
1. Does elevated water temperature increase algae growth?
2. Fellow newbies: clean out that light fixture when SLAMming!
3. Any theories as to why my FC would go UP overnight?
Have fun swimming!
m.
Things took a turn for the worse a week after I finished SLAM #1. Our heat pump was acting wonky - it wouldn't kick in even though our temperature was dropping. I tried turning it off and on and no luck. So I jacked up the thermostat to 92 degrees or so and it finally activated. Then I absentmindedly left it on and we didn't use the pool for two days. When kid #3 stepped into the pool after 48 hours of heating he said "It's so warm!". I instantly recalled leaving the heat pump on and now our pool was a scant 7 degrees cooler than our hot tub!
And it was thick and cloudy with white dander. Oy was I ticked. Is algae growth accelerated by warmer water temperatures or was this just a coincidence?
At any rate I started to reSLAM. This one was more challenging. Improvement was slow indeed. In SLAM 1.0 I didn't bother opening up the ladder plugs or taking out the light fixture, figuring that our pool store experts had just put them in a couple of weeks before and it must have been clean then. How could algae have built up in there?
Well the ladder was clean (or darn close) but when I pulled the light I was stunned. I wish I had grabbed my Ikelite scuba camera setup. There must have been a half inch of built up algae in there. All grey and dead (grey algae is dead algae, correct?) but present nonetheless. I herded the kids to the shallow end while I grabbed the manual vacuum, hoping to slurp up the deleterious material straight to the filter - I didn't want wash and wake from hyperactive kids washing that crud into the pool at large. Kept SLAMming until the night of July 3-4 when I not only passed my OCLT - I somehow had an increase of 1.5 in my FC count (from 21.5 to 23 ppm). I wanted to be sure we were good to go so I did another OCLT on the night of July 4-5. This time I had an FC increase from 19.5 to 20.5!
It's not a Defective End User Error here - I could do the drop count in my sleep. Could it be that my liquid chlorine addition wasn't quite as uniform as I'd like? Is there a +/- 1.5 ppm margin of error possibility? Old reagent? My R-0871 bottle has a March 2020 expiry date.
(I'm forced to use the expired stuff since I can't get fresh TFP store reagents up here in Canada so I have to go with what I can source locally).
This post got longer than I was planning so here's the TL;DR version:
1. Does elevated water temperature increase algae growth?
2. Fellow newbies: clean out that light fixture when SLAMming!
3. Any theories as to why my FC would go UP overnight?
Have fun swimming!
m.
mguzzy
Gold Supporter
The increase in FC.. is only one.. that just could be the tolerances/sampling error. Give it another go tonight.
Yes... most of the time bio activity likes a warmer petri dish... AND Higher temp burns off FC faster too. those two combined probably created the perfect conditions for a BA-Loom!