Chlorine high and Ph low but the algae is gone...now what?

[karenib]

I had an algae problem that I got rid of by following information from this site...
I added a few bottles of bleach (3 gal then 2 days later 2 gals more) and then brushed, vacuumed and cleaned the cartridge everyday. I don't have good test kit so I use the pool store results, but didn't follow their recommendations. I stopped adding bleach because it is currently very high. I still have the chlorine pucks in the feeder at 2.5. The algae has been gone for a few days and the pool is almost crystal clear. This mornings results from the pools store are as follows -
Cartridge filter
Fiberglass 12,000 gal

FAC = 8
tac = 8
calcium - 180
cyanuric acid = 100
TA =60
PH = 7.1
Phosphates = 100

The pool store wants me to bring the calcium hardness up then dechlorinate. Then retest for the ph. I don't want to use their products but I am not sure how to bring the chlorine down...and if I really need to worry about the hardness.

What do you recommend?

[Watermom]

The chlorine will come down on its own. But, actually it is not that high for a pool with a CYA reading of 100. And it actually could be much higher than that since the CYA tests cannot differentiate anything higher than 100.

Take a look at the Best Guess Chlorine Chart in my signature below. It shows the connection between CYA levels and needed chlorine levels.

Those tabs are the reason your CYA is so high. They are stabilized which means they have CYA in them. You can either do some partial drains (never totally drain a pool) to try and lower the CYA level or just run higher chlorine levels per the chart. The choice is yours. Either way will. Work but, either way you have to stop using those tabs. Also, no dichlor shock powder. The tabs are also very acidic and push the pH down. Your pH is getting too low. You need to bump it up a little with some 20 Mule Team Borax (laundry aisle at Walmart.

By the way in case you haven't figured it out by my post, the reason you had algae is because your chlorine levels dropped below the minimum required for a high CYA pool. Now, you know how to prevent it from happening again!

Hope this helps.

EDIT: One thing I forgot to mention. You are going to have to order a kit that can measure the high chlorine levels you are gonna need. Get a Taylor-2006 or 2006C from the test kit link in my signature.