How much chlorine should my pool be using?

[DistantHorizon]

How often are you testing? What is the cl when you test before adding bleach? How often are you adding bleach and how much?

The last week or week and a half, I've backed testing off to every other morning, and occasionally in the evening. Both times, I haven't added bleach until the chlorine level was down to the .5-1 range - I think each of those times, I tested two days before and had chlorine around 5 or 6, then a couple days later, dang near nothing.

Test your pool again tomorrow morning within 2 hours of sunrise. If you have lost more than 1ppm of cl overnight, then you should shock the pool. If not, then it shouldn't be necessary.

How should I be testing? My OTO and Taylor K-2005 test kits only test chlorine up to 5, so I have to measure and dilute the water, swirl in a measuring cup and then pour to get a reading, which is extra steps and added inaccuracy. The Brita pitcher and my tap both dispense chlorinated water - do I need to buy distilled or bottled or what? For instance, tonight all I had was tap water, which tested at .6ppm on my OTO, so diluting with that guaranteed my readings to be inaccurate. Will a better test kit go to higher levels?

Between that and my inability to always tell what color the test corresponds with on the scale on the Taylor kit (the OTO chlorine test is easy to read, the Taylor I have a little more trouble discerning on), my testing isn't accurate.

I can't tell for sure from reading your post, but I kind of get the idea that you are maybe not testing regularly and as a result, your cl is getting too low. Is that right? I would suggest testing every evening for awhile and maybe even writing down your test levels in the evening, making notes of how much bleach you added and what level your cl was when you tested the next evening. This will help you identify a pattern with your pool. After a few days of doing this, if you find that you can make it two days without your chlorine dropping below 3ppm, then maybe you'll be able to test and dose every 2nd day instead of daily. You'll just have to learn how your pool behaves.

I don't know where you live but if you find after awhile that with a CYA of 40-50 you continue to have trouble keeping chlorine in your pool, then it may be appropriate to take it a little higher. Aylad (another one of the mods) lives in LA and her pool is in hot full sun all day. She deliberately runs her CYA at 80-90 (or maybe 70-80, I can't remember which) because without doing so, she can't keep a FC reading. This also allows her to only add bleach every second or third day instead of daily. Watch your pool's pattern for a few days and report back and we'll help you decide what is most appropriate for your pool.

I'm in south central Kansas, it's frequently hot and sunny. I was trying to avoid high CYA, since then the little OTO test would still show chlorine off the charts even when it's below the necessary minimum levels on the Best Guess Chart. How do they deal with that? Just buck up and take extra steps to test? Am a little hesitant to add CYA since reversing it is so dang difficult, but I guess I'll watch and see.