Super high combined chlorine

[Watermom]

Your thread in particular was one we discussed with Ben. He says if you are losing chlorine over night, then you just have to keep hammering it with bleach. I know it seems like it will never end, but one morning you're gonna get up and find that you haven't lost chlorine overnight! There is nothing else to do but keep at it. Every day consistently and you will win. (Please know that we understand your frustration. We are frustrated, too, because there is nothing new to tell you that we haven't already said. Now it is just time to stay the course and don't give up. I'm sure that doesn't help much, but there is no other easy cure. Wish there was ...

[AnnaK]

The major issue is to keep the chlorine up very high all the time. You've mentioned letting it drop down to 10 ppm occasionally. That doesn't help the situation. You've also allowed the CYA to creep up from 30 to 50 by using stabilized chlorine products, which means you'll need more chlorine. This is a project and a process. It's not the time to run short of or out of chlorine.

One approach other than chlorine to kill the bacteria might be UV irradiation with a UV bulb. You could place it in the skimmer so it hits all the water being sucked through the intake. Where to get such a bulb and how much they cost I don't know. UV irradiation is used in some homes to sanitize well water, it's not just a scifi concept.

100 gallons of bleach put into a pool without any obvious progress would frustrate the heck out of anybody and I do sympathize with you. We all do. At this point you need to exercise some extreme discipline. No swimming, no slacking off, no substitutions. High concentrations of bleach 24/7. You almost had it beat once. You can get there again.

[themaccs]

Thanks for all the encouragement. Not sure how exactly to do what you are saying i need to do. I don't think my employer would understand if I had to take a few days off so i could keep chlorine in my pool. Today is a good example, FC was 18 when I left the house this morning, I had a long busy day at work, FC is now 7. What to do?

[Watermom]

Obviously, you can't babysit your pool 24/7. But, just test and hit it with bleach as often as you can. Before work, as soon as you come in from work, a couple hours after that, before bed. Whenever you can. The more often the better. Good luck and please keep us informed how it is going.