Bleach Conversion Crisis!!!!

I need some advice. I'm trying to convert to bleach. I went to the pool store and got these results:



Free Chlorine - 0 ppm
Total Chlorine - 0.5 ppm
Combined Chlorine - 0.5 ppm
pH 8.2
Hardness - 50 ppm
Alkalinity (w/ stabilizer Correction) 183 ppm
Cyanuric Acid - 25 ppm
Copper - Not Run
Iron - Not Run

These are the directions they gave me: 4lbs Stabilizer in a Sock. Ty to ladder give 1 week to dissolve. Pour 1 Gallon Acid over pool, wait 2 Hours. Dissolve 4 lbs Shock in a bucket pour over pool, brush well and filter for one hour. Pour half gallon acid over pool and filter overnight.

I did all of this, only I used bleach instead of Shock. I used 4 Gallons of Ultra bleach from Wal-Mart. The next day my pool still wasn't clear. I then put 5 more gallons of bleach (Clorox 5.2%).

Now my pool has a white precipate in it and looks almost like skim milk. The pH is 7.8 and chlorine shows 5-10 ppm.

I don't know what to do. Help, please, I beg of you.

My pool is 40,000 gallons.

Thanks!

KECSMOM

Was the Clorox bleach that you added the kind that has the "new whitening" ingredient? If so, that would explain the white precipitate in it. The new whitening ingredient seems to bind to something in the water and make it fall out in the form of precipitate. Leave your filter running 24/7, remove the stabilizer in the sock--you don't really need to increase your stabilizer at this point. Keep your chlorine at 15 ppm for a couple of days, then let it drift back down to around 5. In the meantime, if the stuff is settling to the bottom, vaccuum as much as you can.

Just don't panic--most everything you do can be undone!! It's just going to take a little patience.....

Janet

More detail to add to the ongoing conversion crisis!!

I put 4 gallons bleach in Monday, 7/31/06 (Ultra from Wal-Mart) in addition to the stabilizer and muriatic acid the pool store recommended. I put 4 gallons Chlorox in Wednesday. I also put in 4 gallons Ultra and 1 gallon Chlorox in Thursday and swept and vacuumed. Is this too much bleach??? My pool is 40,000 gallons. the chlox I got from Sam's didn't say anything on the box about a whitening ingredient, so I don't know if it was in there.

We also have a "Frog mineral reservoir" we use. This is all I have put in there this week. The water does look somewhat better today, but is still cloudy, and when I sweep clouds of white precipitate billow up. I am following advice of aylad (thanks!) and will vacuum this evening and am running the pump. Also the end of our filling hose doesn't look too good. I think I may have bleached it out. I hope my liner is okay. It looks okay. I long for a clear sparkling pool. The weather has been in the 95-105 degree range and maybe some of the precipitate is dead algae??? The only other time we have had a whitish cast to the pool water was when we shocked it this spring with shock that had about 40% of inert ingredients.We drained out probably 20,000 gallons to get rid of that .My husband put in a lot of that week before last before I decided to try the bleach so some of the precipate may be residual from the shock. Should I shock some more tonight? Thanks so much for your help. kecsmom

Hope you don't mind, I merged these threads together because it's much easier to give helpful advice without repeating myself if all the information is in one place.

You want to keep your chlorine level between 12-15 ppm untl it clears. As long as your stabilizer level is 25, don't go above 15 because you risk bleaching your liner. It is not a good idea to just keep dumping bleach in the pool without measuring first--that's a really quick way to bleach the liner. In a pool your size, each gallon of 5.25% bleach you add will raise your ppm by 1, so measure first and then adjust what you add accordingly.

As for the white stuff on the bottom, you can shut your pump off and let it settle to the bottom, then vaccum to waste, if that appears to clear it quicker. If not, then keep stirring it up and leave your pump on, so your filter can get it.

The reason I asked about the Clorox is that Clorox this year started adding a new whitening ingredient of some kind that has a tendency to create a white precipitate. Check specifically the Clorox label--the generic stuff from Sam's isn't a concern. That's why most of us stay with the generic bleach and not Clorox brand.

Janet