chlorine

[mrs.rainbow]

I have been working on getting my free chlorine levels up to 15 so I can drop them back down, but the highest I have gotten is 11.5. I have been testing daily, and my cya is 80. Am I at the point where I should consider buying some stabilizer? My cc level today was 0 so thats good, otherwise it has been running between .5 and 1.0. Any suggestions? Also, I do fill from a well but my water is clear.
Thanks

[Watermom]

No. Your CYA (stabilizer) level is alread 80 which is already a little higher than we suggest, but manageable. However, you certainly don't want it any higher, so no stabilizer and no stabilized forms of chlorine which are trichlor pucks or dichlor shock powder. Just use either bleach or liquid chlorine.

What have you been using as your source of chlorine, how often have you been testing and adding it and how much at a time have you been adding?

[mrs.rainbow]

I am using regular chlorox bleach. I added 3 gallons Thursday night, 1 gallon Friday night, and 2 gallons Saturday. When i got my test kit on Wed., my free chlorine was at 1.5, so it has come up considerably since then. Is there a reason it needs to be as high as 15 before I bring it back down? I'm assuming it's to make sure its sanitized, but how long should I do these large doses? When should I bring it down?
Thanks for your help

[aylad]

You've been trying to get it up to shock level in order to burn off the CCs. If you can test the chlorine tonight, and test again in the morning before the sun is on the pool, and not lose any chlorine in the meantime, then you can let it fall to normal chlorine levels, which for a CYA of 80 means 5-10 ppm.

[madwil]

what aylad said...
1 gal bleach in 20k gallon pool only adds 3 ppm FC, so you've added 15ppm. some of that was used converting CC, and some lost to sun, so 11.5 is about right.
If CC <1 and FC holds, you don't need to shock

[mrs.rainbow]

Thanks for the help!