Taylor K-2006 Questions

[seabright_sc]

New to spas and on the advice given on this forum, I went out and purchased a Taylor k-2006 test kit. I went through my initial round of testing and a couple of questions came up.

For the time being I've using dichlor (daily) and non chloring shock (weekly)

Alk- 110

Calcium 170 (Should I be adding a little de-scaler once a week or so?)

Ph- 7.6

Chlorine.... here's where the question comes up.

I tested once using a 25 ml sample and it came up as 14.4 ppm (free) Combined was 3.2ppm

This seemed high as we had only put in 2 tsp of diclor 2 hours earlier after a one person 30 minute soak so I tested again this time using a 10 ml sample (so I wouldn't use so much R-0871drops).

Second test 9.5 free (I did not repeat cc test).

Test strips, which I know are not as reliable, indicated around 1-3ppm. This is what I would have suspected.

So I'm wondering if I am adding too much R-0871 drops. At first, after adding two tiny scoops of the powder, sample water was dark pink. After adding some drops, sample went from dark pink, to clear with a pinkish hue. I am not sure if I should have stopped there and got a FC reading But I continued dropping in R-0871 until sample was completely clear. Not sure if this was correct, but if not, then it accounts for why my FC reading was higher than anticipated. Or maybe the strips are wayyyyyyy out of whack and there was much more FC than I imagined there would be. I'm new (obviously) and just trying to figure this out!

Thanks for any guidance and tips on how to obtain accurate readings!

[chem geek]

See the demo here. It usually goes from pink/red to clear. I have never seen nor heard about the lingering pink hue you describe. I wonder if it's a false hue based on where you are holding the sample bottle so I suspect you should have stopped when it looked mostly clear and didn't change with an additional drop. You can try using a 10 ml sample where each drop counts as 0.5 ppm to see if it produces a more clear transition for you. Did you recently add MPS? That can interfere, though usually with the CC reading.

[seabright_sc]

See the demo here. It usually goes from pink/red to clear. I have never seen nor heard about the lingering pink hue you describe. I wonder if it's a false hue based on where you are holding the sample bottle so I suspect you should have stopped when it looked mostly clear and didn't change with an additional drop. You can try using a 10 ml sample where each drop counts as 0.5 ppm to see if it produces a more clear transition for you. Did you recently add MPS? That can interfere, though usually with the CC reading.

Yep, That's the method I used (according to demo). I'll try it again today. Here's a simple question. What's MPS?

Here's another question.... How critical is it to monitor CC? I read the owner's manual (hotspring) and there is a lot of info on water chemistry, but no mention of CC.... just FC.

Thank you!

[quantumchromodynamics]

Here's a simple question. What's MPS?

Here's another question.... How critical is it to monitor CC? I read the owner's manual (hotspring) and there is a lot of info on water chemistry, but no mention of CC.... just FC.

MPS is non-chlorine shock. The active ingredient of MPS is potassium peroxymonosulfate, KHSO5

(CAS 10058-23-8), commonly known as potassium monopersulfate, which is present as a component of a triple salt with the formula 2KHSO5•KHSO4•K2SO4

It is important to monitor CC.

Reference 1

[seabright_sc]

Here's a simple question. What's MPS?

Here's another question.... How critical is it to monitor CC? I read the owner's manual (hotspring) and there is a lot of info on water chemistry, but no mention of CC.... just FC.

MPS is non-chlorine shock. The active ingredient of MPS is potassium peroxymonosulfate, KHSO5

(CAS 10058-23-8), commonly known as potassium monopersulfate, which is present as a component of a triple salt with the formula 2KHSO5•KHSO4•K2SO4

It is important to monitor CC.

Reference 1

What should the CC level be? If it gets high how should it be addressed?

Thanks.

[quantumchromodynamics]

CC should ideally be zero. Less than 0.2 is within test error and should not be cause for too much concern.

When you get CCs, you need to shock with chlorine or MPS.

[chem geek]

Measure CC before a soak, not afterwards since the CC will get high when you add sanitizer after a soak and that is normal. For spas, any CC <= 0.5 ppm is OK though as QCD noted the lower the better.