Balance-TC Problem, Tried everyting...HELP!

[scubaduba]

Hi, Thanks everyone on this forum for your great advice. I am a 4 yr pool vet and learned a great amount from you all. Never a big problem until now. I am goiing nuts for 3 weeks and would appreciate some advice. I can not keep any chlorine in the pool. Algae party every day. I kill, clean/brush/vacuum, clean filter, and run filter pump for hours. When I run the pump for 48 hrs straight, SWG on super chlorinate I can get a TC reading of 1 ppm. I have been adding 1/2 gal of bleach every 10 and running the SWG to maintain 3 ppm I have had pool store test and they have close to same results as K2006.

IF I check the water pimping right off the SWG cell it is producing lots of chlorine. I know something is preventing it from sutaining or eating it up but I think my levels are OK? Pool store says Need to raise CYA but from what I have learned I am probably already a little high.

2 Weeks ago: Replaced the Hayward Electrolytic thinking it was shot, probably was not ($430 mistake). Did not check my balance because "I know my pool water" (or so I thought). PH was way off at 6. After realizing this I added 6 box of 20 Mule team Borax raising it to the right level which it is maintaining. I also had 0 CYA and added 20lb.

32K gunite pool, SWG
Here are my current measurements with K2006:
TC 0-.3
FC 0
PH 7.6
TA 210
CH 100
CYA 70

[Watermom]

Hi scubaduba and welcome to the forum! (Cute username.) In a 32K gallon pool, 1/2 gallon of bleach is nothing. With a cya reading of 70, you need to be maintaining between 5-10ppm of cl all the time and your shock level will be 20. Your cell can't keep up with that kind of shock level and if it did, it would shorten the cell life. You should use bleach to shock the pool up to 20 and try and hold it there. I suspect you've got an algae bloom trying to get started in there since your cl has gotten so low. Test at least twice a day and more than that is even better and will solve the problem quicker. Each time, add enough bleach to get back to 20. (Again, each gallon will raise it by 1ppm.) It will take a lot of bleach for this big pool. You might want to see if you can find liquid chlorine at the pool store in a higher concentration than bleach, which is 6%. That way it won't be so many bottles to lug. Pool store liquid chlorine is usually 10 or 12%. Let us know what you find and we can help you know how much to add.

Be consistent with your testing and dosing. The sustained high cl is what clears pools. If the cl level yo-yos up and down, it will take forever to clear. Two of the most important times to test and dose are early in the morning before the sun really gets on the pool much and in the evening at sundown. When you get to the point that you are not losing more than 1ppm of cl from sundown to sunup, then you can let the cl level drift back down. But, never let it dip below 5 or you'll risk algae. Also, run the pump 24/7 while you are trying to clear things up.

BTW --- FC+CC=TC, so there is an error in your numbers above. Do you have a good kit? You'll need one if you don't. We like the Taylor K-2006. A good price for it can be found here:

http://www.amatoind.com/taylor-k2006-test-p-555.html

Pool stores are notorious for giving inaccurate readings, so the sooner you can test your own water the better.

Also -- don't let them talk you into buying anything while you are looking for liquid chlorine if you decide to do that instead of bleach. You don't need anything but chlorine right now.

Hope this helps. Repost if you have any more questions.

EDIT -- Rereading this again after I posted and I think you already have the K-2006. Good! That will make it easy to test several times a day. There is no such thing as testing too often or adding bleach to often. The more you can, the quicker it will clear up!