I thought they knew the answers to water problems

[Bleach=Chlorine?]

The pool store loves to confuse the issue of 'shock'. I don't want to steal this phrase but I don't know who deserves credit - 'Shock is a verb not a noun'. You can shock the pool by adding enough chlorine to reach the 'shock' level for your CYA (stablizer) level. Each gallon of chlorine adds 5.25ppm to 10,000 gallons for 5.25% regular bleach. Use Michael's BleachCalc (search for it) for dosages or with ~5000 gallons just divide in half. Below is the Ben's Best Guess CYA chart that shows the recommended levels of FC and recommended shock levels. Also, for now you either have to take results to a pool store (just don't do anything or buy anything they recommend) or dilute your sample. But diluting with a test strip might be less accurate than me guessing your chlorine level right now. You really should buy a drop-based test kit either from L's, Walmart, www.poolsolutions.com, etc because that will give you more accurate results.


Use the info in this chart to help you figure out what levels of chlorine you need to maintain in your pool based on the amount of CYA (cyanuric acid, also called stabilizer) that you have in your pool. (FC = free chlorine)

Stabilizer . . . . . . Min. FC . . . . Max FC . . . 'Shock' FC
=> 0 ppm . . . . . . . 1 ppm . . . . . 3 ppm . . . . 10 ppm
=> 10 - 20 ppm . . . . 2 ppm . . . . . 5 ppm . . . . 12 ppm
=> 30 - 50 ppm . . . . 3 ppm . . . . . 6 ppm . . . . 15 ppm
=> 60 - 90 ppm . . . . 5 ppm . . . . . 10 ppm . . .. 20 ppm
=> 100 - 200 ppm . . . 8 ppm . . . . . 15 ppm . . .. 25 ppm