Salutations

[PoolDoc]

I've had the 10% for maybe a month at most.

A month at this summer's temps can change 10% into 2%. And, you don't know how long it sat before you got it. Except in areas like S. Florida, where bleach is delivered to some stores daily, commercial bleach can often be a bad deal. Boxed bleach is almost ALWAYS stored a long time.

By contrast, Walmart has a legendarily fast inventory turnover system, plus household bleach is low iron (to avoid laundry problems), so it lasts longer.

Another reason for fast chlorine loss is the chlorine demand (or 'using-up-ness') of algae. With your pool volume, a gallon of plain 6% household bleach will add about 4 ppm of chlorine. With a dark green pool, I'd recommend buying 25 gallons of bleach.

Then, this evening (Sunday) start adding bleach 5 gallons at a time, every 30 minutes. Pump must be running. Test chlorine levels and if you have not achieved DARK yellow readings, add 5 more. Continue till you do. Then add 5 gallons tomorrow AM (Monday), and start again tomorrow PM. After you get a dark yellow Monday, brush and vacuum and clean your filter . . . and then retest and redose if needed.

One thing to keep in mind: when fighting algae, if you aren't getting ahead, you are getting behind. Once you start this, you need to keep going till it's done. Otherwise, you'll lose any ground you've gained, and TOTALLY wasted the chemicals and $$'s spent.

[MrFrugal]

Will do that, however it is supposed to rain here for the next 3 days, does anyone know how that would affect the effect of the bleach on the algae

[Watermom]

Rain will have no effect on the bleach or the algae except to make it more of a pain to tend to the pool! Many people end up with algae after it rains but it isn't because of the rain. Rather it is because people often ignore their pools when it rains and their chlorine levels drop too low resulting in algae.

[MrFrugal]

I've hit it with a steady dose of bleach starting at 7:00 Pm sunday night. After adding 18 gallons of 6% bleach the chlorine level has risen from below .5 up to above 20. I'm using a hth 6-way tester & the dilution method to test the levels as my K-2006 has yet to arrive. If I understand correctly this evening I need to test the levels again, brush and then vacuum the pool. Am I to assume that it is best to vacuum to wasted at this point. Once again thanks for all the information.

[Watermom]

If it is really green and swampy, you can vac to waste. However, that wastes a lot of water so if it isn't so bad, you can just vac to your filter and then backwash when you have the pressure rise. Your call on that one but at any rate, continue to keep the chlorine high. If you pour the bleach directly into the skimmer (while the pump is running) it will kill any algae in the filter.

[MrFrugal]

Well I think my fight may have come to an abrupt and depressing end. After I back washing I cut the pump off to switch it back to filter flipped the switch & nothing happened. I am thinking my pump may have just died however I can't replace it right now. So thanks for all the help & once it is replaced I will fight another day.

[Watermom]

Sorry you are having pump issues. You might want to start a new thread in the 'Pool Equipment and Operations' section of the forum to see if anybody can give you any advice about your pump. Good luck.

[MrFrugal]

Not sure what was the cause but my pump decided go take a brief sabatical. I left it off for the night and I was going to quit fighting but something told me to add somemore bleach & try the pump this morning. I flipped thw switch & it started up. So I shall keep up my bleach assualt. If my cya is virtually nonexisitent will that cause my chlorine levels to drop quicker then if they were up around 20-30 ppm.

[Watermom]

If you have hardly any CYA, then, yes, you will lose your chlorine fast to the sun. You really want your CYA to be around 40-50ppm. Glad the pump decided to wake up!

[MrFrugal]

Sorry I really don't mean to bug but I was trying to find a post on raising CYA levels but I was unable to locate one. What do i need to add to increase CYA.l