No free Vhl.

Chem Geek,


Need some advice and cant didn't think I could post here or wasn't sure anyone would see it.


I have a 35,000 gallon vinyl liner pool, which just had a new liner two years ago. When I opened it this year my PH as fine, Alk was fine, free and total Chlorine was 0, and CYA was 0.


I have once before opened the pool to find no CYA and just added some and away I went. No this year.


After adding the CYA, I added about 4 gallons of shock. Got a total Chl reading of 1.3 and a free reading of .2. Added several more gallons and ever time I did the total would increase and the free would barely move. I don't have a Taylor tester but I did order one. I felt I was in a chlorine "lock" situation and I tried to add bleach to see if I could SLAM it to the point where free would start to rise and total would start to come down. I checked with test strips and added bleach every half hour. When I reached about 38 gallons I stopped because it was getting two late in the night and I never thought I would be putting this much bleach in. That was about 4 days ago. I have left the filter running and the pool is crystal clear but I still can not get a free chl level to hold. I haven running the chlorinator on full to try and keep some Chl in the pool.


I am prepared to stat the SLAM process again but have some questions.


1. Ben originally posted that in this situation I should turn off the chorinator so as not to "feed" the critters that were probably eating the CYA. I am holding CYA, but that may be because of the chlor tabs I'm running in my chlorinator. Should I turn the Chlorinator off?


2. Ben also stated to shock at 10 ppm at night over multiple nights. In the Slamming section of TRP, it states that you should bring the free CHL level to 12 PPM and hold it there. I have read where some people on the forum try to reach the break point testing ever 30 minutes and until they reach shock level, this is hat I tried to do earlier. Which is correct?


3. I used a 2 gallon bucket and increased adding bleach by 1/4 of a tsp till I reached strips to figure out I need to get to before FC holds. I calculated 85 ppm and 40 gallons of 8.25 % bleach. Should I add this amount all at once at night? This seems like yet a third way to try and get the FC to hold?


As I am sure you can imagine, I ma very frustrated and am thinking of at least draining half the water from the pool and starting over. Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated.


Thanks for your help.