Losing 3 ppm of chlorine a day

[paigemetoo]

Opened pool 12 days ago. It was green as a pond. Held it at shock level till pool was clear. At about 6 days in it was blue but cloudy so I treated it with 20 oz of Polyquat. It cleared up in about 2 days. Since then I let it lower to around 6 pmm. I have had to add 1 gallon of bleach a day to maintain it. I also added salt as I was thinking about getting a SWCG and read on a thread that you could have salt water even if you do not use a generator for the feel of softer water. I added about 150 pounds.

PH 7.2
Alk 75
CYA 55
100 cal

I know my PH and Alk is low. How should I fix that and when? Do I wait till I get my chlorine fixed?


Thanks for any help

[Themadczar]

First, maintain shock level (from the Best Guess chart) until 1)water is clear (sounds like you're already there) 2) cc is 0.5 or less, and 3) you don't lose more than 1 ppm of FC overnight.

Ph is low but still within range, so focus on chlorine right now. Alk is nothing you need to worry about yet.

Question: was cya higher than 55 when you closed your pool?

[paigemetoo]

I don't remember. I know it was very low when I opened it. We have a mesh cover and a sump pump and had a good amount of precipitation so the water was diluted quite a bit. I used dichloride, as I always do, to open it and get my CYA back up. I did use a little too much as I usually keep it at around 40. Can't test my cc because I ran out and am waiting for it to come, but when I tested it 4 days ago, I had no cc, which is why I'm a little confused. The other thing that confuses me is that it was 7 after I add a gallon last night, 3 when I test it around 11am, and then stayed there all day- 85 and sunny. I would have expected it to drop some. I normally would have added bleach by now but I wanted to see what everyone had to say.

[paigemetoo]

I also ran the filter with some DE. Should I continue?

[Themadczar]

Bacteria may have eaten your cya from last year causing ammonia in the water. That doesn't change what you need to do. Shock as I mentioned before. If you can't test for FC and cc right now, get a cheap oto test kit and keep it off the chart dark yellow.

[paigemetoo]

I can test for FC. I just got all new regents and got/ordered R-0002 instead of R-0003 (oops) so that's all I'm waiting on. It's a shame I can't buy it at a pool store. I'm at 3 and just added 6 gallons and I will test again in a couple hours to make sure I'm above 20 before I go to bed.

Thx!

[swimdaddy]

I too have had a cloudy or green pool and a CC reading of 0. Not sure how good the CC test is in the Taylor kits, but I still test. However, if your pool LOOKS like it has a problem, it has a problem, despite no or low CC reading.

[paigemetoo]

That's the thing Swimdaddy, my pool looks beautiful! Just eating chlorine. 20 last night, 17 this morning. Added a gallon. 2 hrs later 16. Added 2 gallons. 2 hrs later 16...uggggg!

[Anonymous [GDPR] European in the UK]

I would say the chlorine loss could well be down to the polyquats you added which is really junk anyway. Polyquats wont clear an algae attack and increases the work load on the chlorine burning out the polyquats as Ben would have told you, sounds like you are a little to pool store, return to light! ;-)
If you have your free chlorine reagents now and are waiting for the CC reagent then as said previously get an OTO test kit as that only really measures total chlorine anyway.

Oh and your TA isn't too low either for a vinyl liner pool, so long as your pH doesn't climb the TA is fine.

[paigemetoo]

Teapot I'm confused by your post. Polyquat is the only algicide this site recommends and is why I used it. I have been doing this method since 2011 and I'm not "pool store" at all. I read many threads on here that recommended the use of it for the problem I was experiencing -cloudy but blue, which it did clear up. I am also aware that it increases chlorine demand for a little while. In the past, it has only needed it for about 2 days and I added it a week ago.
As for the oto test, maybe I don't understand or am missing something. What would be the point to using it? How does it tell me what my CC is? It will turn bright yellow and tell me I have at least 5 ppm when I already know exactly what it is from the FC test I have been using.

[Anonymous [GDPR] European in the UK]

Hi Paigemetoo, firstly let me apologise, my post wasn't meant to sound personal but re-reading it, it does. From my experience polyquat does very little good to your pocket or your pool, it adds things we really don't want. I don't know about the Tailor test kits but so far the only one I have found for polyquats is from LaMotte. Lots of people paying attention to water parameters never test for polyquats, I have been to pools where the owners state they added a little but when I test I find a lot, sometimes off the scale. I prefer and I believe Ben also in oxidising the the cloudy to clear with additional constant filtration. Whilst talking filtration, Ben also said roughly, most pools are too small on filtration and too big on the pumps so filtration suffers and so does your wallet. Slower filtration is better filtration because it removes more but helping it with a clarifyer/flocculent is also a good way to reduce down the time it takes to clear. I note you have a 1.5 super pump, what size is the filter? Ok that's a bit off your topic but raising the FC to burn out what's using up your chlorine unless it's really hot weather where you are is what I would do and not add polyquats ever again.
OTO is total chlorine - the free chlorine figure = CC

[swimdaddy]

Agreed, I think your use of polyquat was fine. I use it for the same reasons, to clear up a cloudy or dirty pool that my filter is inadequate to handle.
As to my previous post, I guess I should have said if your pool looks or behaves like it has a problem, it probably does. I have just learned that the CC reading is just one way to detect problems, but at least with my pool, it doesn't seem to always give an indication of CC when my pool is obviously getting green or cloudy.

The polyquat will be oxidized and decrease your FC content for a little while, not sure how long it will do that. Maybe someone else knows that can chime in.

It appears you are trying to maintain FC at shock levels, so keep it up and brush every day until you can maintain overnight. Don't get too frustrated, we've all been there!

[paigemetoo]

I actually have a 1 HP Hayward 2-speed Super Pump. I just updated it. The sand filter is a Hayward pro series high rate S244T. I was running it on low but for some reason, the flow didn't keep up and it ended up throwing air and the water sounded like it was trickling through the pipe leading into the pump. Soooo not wanting to burn up my "new last yr" pump, I just run it on high, 24/7 right now. Not sure what is going on there but I figured I would tackle one problem at a time.
Second day trying to keep it at shock, but it seems to burn off 3-4 ppm every 2 hrs. and I'm not always home. Maybe I should take it higher??? Should I add DE to the filter?
Our temps have been around 85 (30 for you, saw you were in the UK)

Thx for all your help!

[Themadczar]

I come back to ammonia in the water. I had that problem a few years ago when we bought a house with a "swamp". Once the water was clear, I would add 12-16ppm of chlorine each day, and it would be gone the next morning. However, my cc was off the charts so that's one difference between our situations. If it is ammonia, then there is no way to know how much chlorine it will take to clear it up. You could be good tomorrow, or it could be another 200 gallons (yes, gallons) of bleach. After about 40 gallons of bleach, I decided to drain and refill the pool. 24 hours later we were swimming. I can't say for sure this is your problem, but if your cya dropped since you closed the pool, then it's a definite possibility.

[Anonymous [GDPR] European in the UK]

I actually have a 1 HP Hayward 2-speed Super Pump. I just updated it. The sand filter is a Hayward pro series high rate S244T. I was running it on low but for some reason, the flow didn't keep up and it ended up throwing air and the water sounded like it was trickling through the pipe leading into the pump. Soooo not wanting to burn up my "new last yr" pump, I just run it on high, 24/7 right now. Not sure what is going on there but I figured I would tackle one problem at a time.
Second day trying to keep it at shock, but it seems to burn off 3-4 ppm every 2 hrs. and I'm not always home. Maybe I should take it higher??? Should I add DE to the filter?
Our temps have been around 85 (30 for you, saw you were in the UK)

Thx for all your help!

Ok I see, well I agree to tackling one item at a time, it sounds like you maybe pulling air in on the low setting from somewhere but without a flow gauge test it's difficult to say. On my pool the water sounds like it's trickling to but it's at the flow I have selected to give the turnover rate I want. I agree that feels unnerving when you first change over from a pump wasting energy but the savings are tremendous when you get it setup and the filtration improves. Have to get someone to flow test it or buy a flow gauge as low settings on pumps don't give the same pressure rises as big oversized pumps do.

How is the chlorine figure doing?

[paigemetoo]

Pretty sure I have it beat. FC reagent finally came and there is no FC. Lost about 1ppm from last night till 2 pm today. It's sunny and in the 80s/30s. Been running the pump on low and haven't had the air problem so all's good :)

Thanks again for your help!!

[Anonymous [GDPR] European in the UK]

Result! glad to hear it's cleared up and pump running on low is a major plus.