How often should I be adding bleach?

[Charles]

I just switched from baquacil this spring and started out with chlorine tablets until I ran onto the site about using bleach. I'm new to chorine and bleach as I used Baquacil for around 15 years until I just got sick of constantly cleaning my pool and fighting algae every August. Well its been around 20 straight days of 100+ degrees in Oklahoma and my pool water is around 90 to 92 degrees. Not very comfortable for swimming but crystal clear! I have had no problems with water clarity this year and have seen no signs of algae. In fact I seem to never need to backwash which worries me a little. At any rate here is my question. With Baquacil I added chemicals every week. I have a 14000 gallon above ground pool and find that everynight I need to add about 60 oz. of 6% Wal-Mart bleach to keep my free chlorine level around 3. I check in the morning and it is still there but every night it is gone. Is this normal to have to add it every night? Also, I haven't shocked since a 4th of July party frankly because the water looks great and because the water is so warm there is very little use right now. Is it necessary to shock if the water is clear? I'm a little concerned about all of the bleach I'm using and at this point don't feel like I'm seeing a tremendous savings over baquacil. The savings has been in work in keeping the pool clean. Thanks for providing this site. Any advice would be appreciated.

[CarlD]

Hi and welcome back from the Dark Side!

We need a set of measurements to answer it. Otherwise it's just a guess.
We'd like to see:
FC
CC
pH
CYA (stabilizer)
and
TA

The relationship of CYA to FC (free chlorine) is what I'd guess is happening, but high pH can reduce chlorine effectiveness as well.

Again, I'm guessing you don't have a high enough CYA level and UV rays are breaking down your chlorine. Still, in this horribly hot summer across the nation, using less than half a gallon of 6% in 14000 gallons isn't bad. I'm using almost double that in 20,000 gallons.

I actually think you're in good shape.

Carl