Losing 3 ppm of chlorine a day

[Anonymous [GDPR] European in the UK]

Hi Paigemetoo, firstly let me apologise, my post wasn't meant to sound personal but re-reading it, it does. From my experience polyquat does very little good to your pocket or your pool, it adds things we really don't want. I don't know about the Tailor test kits but so far the only one I have found for polyquats is from LaMotte. Lots of people paying attention to water parameters never test for polyquats, I have been to pools where the owners state they added a little but when I test I find a lot, sometimes off the scale. I prefer and I believe Ben also in oxidising the the cloudy to clear with additional constant filtration. Whilst talking filtration, Ben also said roughly, most pools are too small on filtration and too big on the pumps so filtration suffers and so does your wallet. Slower filtration is better filtration because it removes more but helping it with a clarifyer/flocculent is also a good way to reduce down the time it takes to clear. I note you have a 1.5 super pump, what size is the filter? Ok that's a bit off your topic but raising the FC to burn out what's using up your chlorine unless it's really hot weather where you are is what I would do and not add polyquats ever again.
OTO is total chlorine - the free chlorine figure = CC

[swimdaddy]

Agreed, I think your use of polyquat was fine. I use it for the same reasons, to clear up a cloudy or dirty pool that my filter is inadequate to handle.
As to my previous post, I guess I should have said if your pool looks or behaves like it has a problem, it probably does. I have just learned that the CC reading is just one way to detect problems, but at least with my pool, it doesn't seem to always give an indication of CC when my pool is obviously getting green or cloudy.

The polyquat will be oxidized and decrease your FC content for a little while, not sure how long it will do that. Maybe someone else knows that can chime in.

It appears you are trying to maintain FC at shock levels, so keep it up and brush every day until you can maintain overnight. Don't get too frustrated, we've all been there!

[paigemetoo]

I actually have a 1 HP Hayward 2-speed Super Pump. I just updated it. The sand filter is a Hayward pro series high rate S244T. I was running it on low but for some reason, the flow didn't keep up and it ended up throwing air and the water sounded like it was trickling through the pipe leading into the pump. Soooo not wanting to burn up my "new last yr" pump, I just run it on high, 24/7 right now. Not sure what is going on there but I figured I would tackle one problem at a time.
Second day trying to keep it at shock, but it seems to burn off 3-4 ppm every 2 hrs. and I'm not always home. Maybe I should take it higher??? Should I add DE to the filter?
Our temps have been around 85 (30 for you, saw you were in the UK)

Thx for all your help!

[Themadczar]

I come back to ammonia in the water. I had that problem a few years ago when we bought a house with a "swamp". Once the water was clear, I would add 12-16ppm of chlorine each day, and it would be gone the next morning. However, my cc was off the charts so that's one difference between our situations. If it is ammonia, then there is no way to know how much chlorine it will take to clear it up. You could be good tomorrow, or it could be another 200 gallons (yes, gallons) of bleach. After about 40 gallons of bleach, I decided to drain and refill the pool. 24 hours later we were swimming. I can't say for sure this is your problem, but if your cya dropped since you closed the pool, then it's a definite possibility.

[Anonymous [GDPR] European in the UK]

I actually have a 1 HP Hayward 2-speed Super Pump. I just updated it. The sand filter is a Hayward pro series high rate S244T. I was running it on low but for some reason, the flow didn't keep up and it ended up throwing air and the water sounded like it was trickling through the pipe leading into the pump. Soooo not wanting to burn up my "new last yr" pump, I just run it on high, 24/7 right now. Not sure what is going on there but I figured I would tackle one problem at a time.
Second day trying to keep it at shock, but it seems to burn off 3-4 ppm every 2 hrs. and I'm not always home. Maybe I should take it higher??? Should I add DE to the filter?
Our temps have been around 85 (30 for you, saw you were in the UK)

Thx for all your help!

Ok I see, well I agree to tackling one item at a time, it sounds like you maybe pulling air in on the low setting from somewhere but without a flow gauge test it's difficult to say. On my pool the water sounds like it's trickling to but it's at the flow I have selected to give the turnover rate I want. I agree that feels unnerving when you first change over from a pump wasting energy but the savings are tremendous when you get it setup and the filtration improves. Have to get someone to flow test it or buy a flow gauge as low settings on pumps don't give the same pressure rises as big oversized pumps do.

How is the chlorine figure doing?

[paigemetoo]

Pretty sure I have it beat. FC reagent finally came and there is no FC. Lost about 1ppm from last night till 2 pm today. It's sunny and in the 80s/30s. Been running the pump on low and haven't had the air problem so all's good

Thanks again for your help!!

[Anonymous [GDPR] European in the UK]

Result! glad to hear it's cleared up and pump running on low is a major plus.