I thought they knew the answers to water problems

I just found your site this morning. I have been trying to get my 4000 gallon pool up and running for the year. I never realized there was more than one chlorine. I was using the test strips and the pool was showing no chlorine but i just started using the regents drops and it shows chlorine over the top so how do i lower my total chlorine but raise the free Chlorine?
I just checked and these are the numbers:
total chlorine probably 6 or 7
(the tube only goes to 5 and it is a darker yellow
free chlorine less than 1
(it hardly registers on the dip stick, in fact only half of the pad turns a little purple and then fads back to nothing
PH is 7.5
total hardness is 400
CYA is 30-50
total alkalinity is 180
The pool store told me to add two pounds of shock, i added one and that sent the total chlorine up but not the free chlorine.
Is it safe to swim?
Should i still use a float with chorine tablets (Small pool and no skimmer)
Thanks for any help
Marji

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Originally Posted by mbeauman

I just found your site this morning. I have been trying to get my 4000 gallon pool up and running for the year. I never realized there was more than one chlorine. I was using the test strips and the pool was showing no chlorine but i just started using the regents drops and it shows chlorine over the top so how do i lower my total chlorine but raise the free Chlorine?
You don't, you bring the pool up to shock territory, ~ 15ppm for CYA 30-50, and then keep it there until the CC registers at less than .5ppm. Then let the chlorine burn off with the sunlight.

I just checked and these are the numbers:
total chlorine probably 6 or 7
(the tube only goes to 5 and it is a darker yellow
free chlorine less than 1
(it hardly registers on the dip stick, in fact only half of the pad turns a little purple and then fads back to nothing
You are bleaching out your test strip, pool is probably 5-6ppm FC.
PH is 7.5
Good... keep it there.
total hardness is 400 This is slightly high, I would try lowering that some.
CYA is 30-50 Perfect, keep 3-6ppm of Cl in the pool at that stabalizer level.
total alkalinity is 180 A little high, 120 would be ideal.
The pool store told me to add two pounds of shock, i added one and that sent the total chlorine up but not the free chlorine.
Is it safe to swim?
If your FC is below 10ppm you should be fine, just wear old swim suits.
Should i still use a float with chorine tablets (Small pool and no skimmer)
Anything that goes into a floater has CYA in it and will cause that level to keep rising which means you will have to keep a higher and higher level of Cl in the pool. I would stop using all floaters and start using bleach. That will not raise your CYA.
Marji

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Experts will be along to help with lowering on TA and CH otherwise search the forums for help with that!
Thanks

I am still confused by the whole shock treatment thing. Should i add another bag of shock?
How do i test my free chlorine if the chlorine is bleaching out the test strips?

The pool store loves to confuse the issue of 'shock'. I don't want to steal this phrase but I don't know who deserves credit - 'Shock is a verb not a noun'. You can shock the pool by adding enough chlorine to reach the 'shock' level for your CYA (stablizer) level. Each gallon of chlorine adds 5.25ppm to 10,000 gallons for 5.25% regular bleach. Use Michael's BleachCalc (search for it) for dosages or with ~5000 gallons just divide in half. Below is the Ben's Best Guess CYA chart that shows the recommended levels of FC and recommended shock levels. Also, for now you either have to take results to a pool store (just don't do anything or buy anything they recommend) or dilute your sample. But diluting with a test strip might be less accurate than me guessing your chlorine level right now. You really should buy a drop-based test kit either from L's, Walmart, www.poolsolutions.com, etc because that will give you more accurate results.


Use the info in this chart to help you figure out what levels of chlorine you need to maintain in your pool based on the amount of CYA (cyanuric acid, also called stabilizer) that you have in your pool. (FC = free chlorine)

Stabilizer . . . . . . Min. FC . . . . Max FC . . . 'Shock' FC
=> 0 ppm . . . . . . . 1 ppm . . . . . 3 ppm . . . . 10 ppm
=> 10 - 20 ppm . . . . 2 ppm . . . . . 5 ppm . . . . 12 ppm
=> 30 - 50 ppm . . . . 3 ppm . . . . . 6 ppm . . . . 15 ppm
=> 60 - 90 ppm . . . . 5 ppm . . . . . 10 ppm . . .. 20 ppm
=> 100 - 200 ppm . . . 8 ppm . . . . . 15 ppm . . .. 25 ppm

Marji, I hope it didn't take you as long as it took me to find this forum. You will get help here!

Go to http://www.poolsolutions.com/sitemap.html#links, then to Table of Contents. Select Swimming Pool Info (free) / Things Your Pool Dealer Won't Tell You, Read Tips 1 through 10, then read More Tips. Its great stuff.

- Jim

Well, i added a bottle of bleach (Clorox no longer comes in gallon bottles and the Bleach calculator said to add .8 gallons which is about what is in a bottle) to my pool to bring it up to 15ppm but now my total chlorine is so high the regents test turns a pumpkin orange for total chlorine. I even tried adding just one drop of regents and it is still orange. I did try a test strip and yesterday it didn't seem to register and "Bleach=Chlorine?" said it might be getting bleached out. It wasn't because now the test strip shows Free Chlorine at over 10 which is the highest the test strip goes. So now do i just wait for the free chlorine level to come down? Any guess as to how long this will take? And will this get rid of the combined chlorine? How do i prevent this from happening?
All the other numbers seem in the right range except for the hardness at 400, how do i lower that?
Thanks for all the help
Marjie

You can try diluting your sample with 50% distilled water and then doubling the ppm reading you get. This is not very accurate but may help reinforce the CL reading. Also, if it is sunny today that should help burn off some chlorine. Lastly, I think the range on Ch is between 200-400 so you are still within acceptable zone. This will probably drop on it's own, just keep an eye on it.

Only a couple of notes/ corrections to B=C's advice:

I'm assuming your pool is a vinyl above-ground with that gallonage. With a vinyl pool a Tot Alk of 180 is FINE--don't worry about it. A hardness of 400 is high, but don't worry about that either until it hits 500ppm.

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I don't want to steal this phrase but I don't know who deserves credit - 'Shock is a verb not a noun'.

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That's probably me, but I'm sure Ben and some of the other moderators and other long-term posters have said something similar.:rolleyes: