Chlorine levels not holding?! Frustrated!

[dm_r13]

Hi everyone,

I'm new to posting on this forum, but at this point, I feel like I have to try everything. So we opened our pool late June (I know, pretty late). The pool was in pretty good shape when opened, we added the usual chemicals and now the pool is looking beautiful. It is crystal clear, there is no little to no chlorine odor, it looks great. That is, until you see the test results...

Hardness - 250
TC - 0
FC - 0
pH - 6.8
Alkalinity - 120
Stabilizer - 50

We added about 30 pounds of shock into the pool, twice having added 8 bags(lbs) at once. The most recent being last night. This morning I tested the water and the chlorine level was at 1. And now, at around 5:30 pm, it is back down to 0 again. I added in algaecide recently, about 2/3 of a quart, and nothing seems to be improving chlorine-wise.

Any help will be much appreciated.

 

[YippeeSkippy]

Hey there Dm_r13, welcome to TFP! You said you added "the usual chemicals"....what are those?

First- how are you testing your water? Which test kit? There are only two that we trust for accuracy and that contain the all important FAS-DPD test for chlorine. The TF-100 or the Taylor K-2006 both available from TFTestkits.net or on Amazon.

You didn't list your CCs which would be important to know to determine contaminates. Something must be eating that chlorine up, and you can have algae and contaminates that don't show up immediately in the water yet do in the testing.
Please give us the following from an accurate test kit-
FC
CC
pH
TA
CH
CYA

 

[dm_r13]

I've been pretty limited to clorox test strips for the time being, as I am about to go on vacation. The usual chemicals would be algaecide, shock, and the trichlor tablets. I'll be sure to get that test kit ASAP.

 

[Catanzaro]

I've been pretty limited to clorox test strips for the time being, as I am about to go on vacation. The usual chemicals would be algaecide, shock, and the trichlor tablets. I'll be sure to get that test kit ASAP.

Welcome to the Forum. As YippeeSkippy mentioned previously, accurate testing is essential. 30 Lbs. of shock is some serious chlorine. Unless you have ammonia in your water and/or high CC, something is off, which is possibly your testing with the test strips.

The first step is accurate testing. From this point, we can guide you to making your that your pool is taken care of properly.