another new user with chlorine questions

[sobrien2]

my pool was stable at 2ppm free and total chlorine and 60 ppm cyn, 7 .4 ph. I added 1 gallon of liquid bleach and the chlorine went to near 0, I balanced the ph with borax when i opened the pool this year.

Can anyone tell me why or how the chlorine may have gone to 0, I just added 2 lbs of hth super shock and my site glass ph/cl says I have about 1.0 ppm.

[TomC]

Hi sobrien. If your CYA is at 60 ppm, then a FC level of 2 ppm is too low to properly disinfect your pool water. If the FC level went to 0, it is being consumed by biologicals, algae and/ or bacteria. How does your water look, is it clear? You need to shock (super chlorinate) your pool water until your combined chlorine levels are less than 0.5 ppm. Then bring and keep your FC at levels appropriate for your CYA level. You can find these charts in watermom's and pooldoc's signatures.

Tom

[Watermom]

I just now realized that sobrien has two threads going about her pool which makes it hard to help with advice scattered. So, I'm going to close this thread and let her/him just use the other one.

Tom, thanks for your reply, by the way!