I am an employee at a pool store in S.E. Michigan and we have an issue that we've been dealing with for a couple years now, and are still not quite sure what causes it.

The Problem:

When a water sample of the infected pool is tested, we get a reading which shows an amount of Total Chlorine in the water, however no Free Chlorine reads on the strip. The pool usually looks very cloudy, to the point of not being able to see the bottom. If you keep throwing chlorine in it, the Free level never changes, only the Total level.

The Fix:

The only thing we have found that fixed this issue is to super chlorinate the pool. On anything over 10,000 gallons, usually 12 - 16 gallons of chlorine all at once, and if that doesn't work, another 8 - 12 gallons. It usually gets VERY cloudy for a couple hours, then a Free Chlorine reading will appear on the test, and the pool will become clear as the chlorine burns out of the water.

Our Reason:

We think this is caused by a build up of too many Total Dissolved Solids in the water. This, we think, comes from the jets from local Selfridge Air National Guard Base. This is a problem very persistant in our area over the past few years, and I would say every 3 or 4 pools being opened this year have had what we have deemed a "Chlorine Lock." (I understand this is a term for too high stabilizer where the clorine locks up however this is not the problem)


Can anyone shed any light on this for us. We are afraid the customers are soon going to get sick of having to throw in so much chlorine so often. This problem isn't strictly from customers of our store. It happens all over our area, and most customers end up coming to us because noone else knows how to fix it. As much buisness as it brings, we would rather fix the problem than prolong it.

One thing we have been experimenting with is using a Natural Enzyme Treatment every other week to reduce the total dissolved solids. Not sure if it's worked yet.