Chlorine and calcium low

[mrszaff]

Thank you so much, I am heading to the store to get bleach!!!

[mrszaff]

Hi again,
The pool still looks great but I can't get the chlorine to stay above .5 for more than 24 hours.
I have been adding 2 gallons of bleach every night. I even added a package of the powder shock one night. The chlorinator has been running every day as well with 4 tabs in it.
Thanks
Mrszaff

[Watermom]

Can you post current water testing results. The last ones posted are now 4 days old. It would also be good if you could give us at least 2 of the following: FC, CC, TC, in additon to all the other test numbers.

[mrszaff]

ok, I will try to get back to the pool store tomorrow and get a test done, I only have the strips.

[nthach]

I would suggest picking up the HTH 6-way test kit at Wally-World. It's made by Taylor, and while it's not a K-2006 or one of Ben's/TFP's kits, it's better than the strips - only thing it doesn't do is FAS-DPD chlorine.

[waterbear]

You have a bromide pool right now. It can take a while for the chlorine to hold after a sodium bromide treatment. Keep shocking the pool with liquid chlorine or bleach and you will find your chlorine will eventually hold. It can take 3 or 4 times before it does, however.
Invest in a good test kit and stop relying on the pool store. You will never have your pool under control if you do. Get a Taylor K-2006 (not the K-2005). It is worth every penny (around $80 US) and will pay for itself over and over again. I know that NO ONE on here will disagree with me!

[nthach]

Why are you adding bromine to your pool - not only does Cl and Br interact with each other, Br breaks down to worthless bromides quite quickly.

You'll need to use bleach or liquid chlorine in huge doses to get the Cl levels up and you'll need to maintain them for a few days or weeks until the Br is down to 0.