Any one else see this?

[FishyMike]

Hello everyone,. Yesterday I was curious to see what my base line water parameter numbers were because I'm in the process of setting up an auto water change with sediment filter and carbon filter.  My chlorine level looked like it registered 0 ppm after 1 minute! I walked away for a couple minutes went back to throw the test strip and the chlorine level was up.... I'm confused by this i talked to my LFS and they said i should get a pool chlorine test kit? anyone else experience a test strip go up on chlorine after the 1 minute? 

[Tihshho]

I can't say specifically about the chlorine issue, but when it comes to auto water change units, be sure to test your source water regularly. If you have city water, the treatment plants dump in chemicals into their system that change based on procurements of cheaper materials as well as seasonally. Due to that you might see an increase in chlorine certain times of the year as well as possible organics if their filtration process changes. If you're on a well and near agricultural land you might also see changes depending on when farms spray fertilizers as well as spray pesticides. 

[gardenman]

With shallow wells, salt runoff after winter storms can make your fresh water brackish also. We like to think our water is always stable out of the tap, but it's often not as stable as we'd like. Here in NJ they like to spray a brine solution on the roads before a winter storm, then dump tons of salt on the road during and after the storm to melt the ice. If you've got a shallow well, that salt can show up in your water a few days/weeks later.