Foul Smell

My 2 sons and I jumped into the pool immediately after working out in the backyard. At first everything was fine, but after a few minutes we noticed a foul smell, like something was rotten or spoiled.

I checked the pool chlorine and pH afterwards. The pH was around 7.8 and the Chlorine was at 0.0ppm (Ooops!). I quickly added 3 (1.5gal) jugs of liquid chlorine. Each jug usually raises my chlorine by 6ppm. I keep the chlorine usually between 8-15ppm because my stabilizer is high, 180 - 200, from using those hockey pucks for so many years.

What caused the smell? Was there any danger? Was it just our sweat reacting with the pool water? But, without any chlorine, what was out sweat reacting with?

With no chlorine in the pool, you probably have an algae bloom starting and thus will have a CC reading which is probably what you are smelling. Time to shock the pool! Take a look at the Best Guess Chlorine Chart in my signature below.

Also, are you still using the trichlor? If so, you should NOT be. Your CYA level is already too high and the trichlor will cause it to continue to rise.

No, I stopped using the trichlor hockey pucks once I joined this forum and learned about the stabilizer levels causing me to have to use more chlorine.


Thanks for the info.