Hello incredibly knowledgeable people! I am a long-time (well, 2 year) lurker, trying to get serious about doing my own testing and all this summer. I never owned a pool before we bought this house three years ago. I have read Pool School and the article on SLAMing, but have questions. I hope these aren't too rudimentary, please feel free to direct me to threads I've missed if this has all been covered elsewhere.
My main issue is that despite trying my best to follow your guidelines, I can't seem to get any sort of FC reading to stick. Right after I add a 148 oz tub of bleach I get a nice FC of 12 or so, but even two hours later I'm back to 0. My CYA is about 40. I've ordered one of the fancy FAS-DPD kits I saw recommended here, so don't have anything more precise to report about CC until that arrives and I figure out how it works. Right now I'm just using test strips. The strip also tells me that my pH is WAY low, like 6.6. I had some soda ash sitting in my chemical supply area from the first year we had this house, so threw that in (about two pounds, which the pool calculator tells me is not enough, but thought I'd check in with you guys before heading out to buy anything) and am waiting to see if that helps. My TA and hardness were both in the target range the last time I had Leslie's test my water (3 weeks ago). But as I said, I'm trying to get away from them and be more independent and spend less money. Leslie's did say I had a slightly high nitrate reading.
So all that being said, I've now dumped 4 of the 148oz bleach tubs into the pool (3 in the past 24 hours) and I'm starting to worry that I'm poisoning my children and still not getting any chlorine reading. What am I doing wrong? The big thing I fight with this pool is it is almost totally tree covered so it gets loads of leaf matter. I scoop it and vacuum daily, but there's almost always something floating in the pool. Am I just doomed to struggle with this given how much organic matter is always in the pool? Last week a frog was swimming around happily, this has really gotten out of hand.
Oh, final bit of info, the pool did look greenish (not horrible, just a bit) in the deep end this weekend, but is beautiful and clear now. I have brushed the heck out of it, and see no lingering algae.
Thank you so much for your help, and I will get you better numbers once my test kit arrives today or tomorrow!
Amy
My main issue is that despite trying my best to follow your guidelines, I can't seem to get any sort of FC reading to stick. Right after I add a 148 oz tub of bleach I get a nice FC of 12 or so, but even two hours later I'm back to 0. My CYA is about 40. I've ordered one of the fancy FAS-DPD kits I saw recommended here, so don't have anything more precise to report about CC until that arrives and I figure out how it works. Right now I'm just using test strips. The strip also tells me that my pH is WAY low, like 6.6. I had some soda ash sitting in my chemical supply area from the first year we had this house, so threw that in (about two pounds, which the pool calculator tells me is not enough, but thought I'd check in with you guys before heading out to buy anything) and am waiting to see if that helps. My TA and hardness were both in the target range the last time I had Leslie's test my water (3 weeks ago). But as I said, I'm trying to get away from them and be more independent and spend less money. Leslie's did say I had a slightly high nitrate reading.
So all that being said, I've now dumped 4 of the 148oz bleach tubs into the pool (3 in the past 24 hours) and I'm starting to worry that I'm poisoning my children and still not getting any chlorine reading. What am I doing wrong? The big thing I fight with this pool is it is almost totally tree covered so it gets loads of leaf matter. I scoop it and vacuum daily, but there's almost always something floating in the pool. Am I just doomed to struggle with this given how much organic matter is always in the pool? Last week a frog was swimming around happily, this has really gotten out of hand.
Oh, final bit of info, the pool did look greenish (not horrible, just a bit) in the deep end this weekend, but is beautiful and clear now. I have brushed the heck out of it, and see no lingering algae.
Thank you so much for your help, and I will get you better numbers once my test kit arrives today or tomorrow!
Amy
