Can't get the free chlorine!

[aylad]

Hello, and welcome to the forum!!

Conratulations for finding this site--I think we can get you up and running so you at least can get some swim time in your pool this summer!! Do not add any more phosphate remover or any other chemical to the water except plain, unscented, generic bleach (or liquid chlorine, which is the same as bleach but is supposed to be twice the strength, but some states like mine don't carry the liquid chlorine). Especially do not add the lithium chlorite--it's just another form of chlorine but is extremely expensive, and won't do anything for you that plain bleach won't do.

Do you know the source of your ammonia? Typically we see it at start up as a result of a pool closed with high CYA levels at the end of the past season. When the CYA is biodegraded by bacteria over the wintertime, sometimes it breaks down into ammonia, which does create a HUGE chlorine demand to overcome, but must be done in order to then maintain a chlorine level, as you well know. It seems a little strange to me that you did overcome the ammonia, but now suddently have it back. That shouldn't happen unless you've added something to the pool that contains ammonia (cheap algaecides, maybe?). How did you come to the conclusion that your ammonia was gone? Can the test kits that you are using measure combined chlorine?

In order to overcome it, you'll need to take the chlorine level up to 15 ppm and hold it there, as consistently as possible, until the ammonia is gone. This will take a few days, but the more consistently you can hold that shock level, the faster the process will go. You'll know when that happens because you'll be able to go from sundown one night to sunup the next morning, and not lose more than 1 ppm of chlorine, and your CC will be less than 1 ppm. You'll also start to see a pattern of increasing chlorine levels and decreasing CC levels before you get to that point. In order to do that, though, you're going to need a testing method that is accurate and that will test for combined chlorine. We very, very strongly recommend the K-2006 (see the test kit link in my sig), because it will accurately measure very high levels of chlorine and all levels of combined chlorine.

Edit: OK, Ben's post button is working faster than mine today, but the advice is the same!!

[PoolDoc]

Edit: OK, Ben's post button is working faster than mine today, but the advice is the same!!

It would be nice if vBulletin had an "I'm working on this flag" we could use!

[gorji]

Great advice being given here.
I got some discount bleach at BJ's wholesale club. And its Clorox.
2 -1.5 gallon jugs for 5.90.

[aylad]

Make sure it's not the "splashless", or "new improved", or scented, or "outdoors" versions of Clorox--those all have additives that will make the problems worse instead of better.

Janet

[gorji]

Yes
Plain old bleach.
Gorji

[poolhelp]

This seems to be what everyone suggests! Thank you so much and wish me luck.

[poolhelp]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. I believe I brought the ammonia level down by filling and draining and by adding 50 lbs of chlorine to the pool. However, then the TDS were so high 2400 they told me to drain and start over. As a result there was not chlorine indicated but ammonia was back up to around 4 when it was at less than one when I had added the chlorine and drained and filled with the hose 4 times. Basically I am starting over when I believe I was so close to begin with before. I am so thankful for the advice and I will continue adding bleach until I see free chlorine. The algaecide was bioguard Inhibit (backup) so not the cheap stuff and added once a week.

[aylad]

You can pretty much ignore the TDS readings, too--pool stores scare people into buying stuff in lots of ways, and that's one of them. Looks like the algaecide may be your ammonia source--doesn't it seem odd that they wanted you to add an algaecide to an already chlorinated pool, which degrades your chlorine, and makes you have to add lots more chlorine to counteract the algaecide? Pool store profits.......

Anyway, the best algaecide you can use is chlorine. Skip the other stuff and just be diligent about testing your water. '