Very low Chlorine

[mpetrov]

Hi,

We just started second season of using our 15', 5,000 gallon above-ground pool with Hayward Xstream cartridge pump. After we opened the pool and ran the pump, I took a water sample to the pool store and they gave me a list f chemicals to add, including 1 pound of shock, which I did. The next day chlorine was 0, other chemicals within normal range. I added another pound of shock, in the evening the chlorine was again 0. Last night I took another water sample to the pool store and they told me to add 3 lbs of Alkalinity increaser, about 1/2 lb of the stabilizer thru skimmer and 1 lb of shock, which i did and left the pump running all night. It rained a bit overnight. In the am chlorine was again 0, Alk was up and pH was down, a bit below normal, as intended. CYA is about 0. I then added another pound of shock. After checking the water 30 min after adding the shock, the result is very low chlorine level (about 1). Should I keep adding shock or should we check the filter next? It was clean after my husband put it in before starting the pump. Is there a wrong way to install the filter that it may be malfunctioning? The water looks pretty good, just a bit cloudy, but we can see the bottom of the pool. Any help will b greatly appreciated. Thank you!

 

[hawkeye]

hello and welcome to the forum the first thing you need to do is read the pool school section over it has a ton totally usefully and effective sollutions to your pools needs from cleaning,sanitizing,etc,..you need to buy a nice test kit (taylor k-2006 is a real nice kit runs about $50.00 so you can do your own testing its fun and only way to really know if and when the water is balanced cause this is what you want to acheve "balanced water" (pool store will lie to you to sell you chemicals that dont work).you have come to to the right spot dont take no other advice from pool stores dont buy anything from them but liquid chlorine and cynuric acid other wise know as cya this will help hold chlorine from burning right up from the suns rays which eats it and makes it non effective this is all in the pool school section so it is vital to bookmark it and use the pool calculator also tinker with it and it will start to makes sense the first box is what the current level is in pool you will put your test results findings in there and you will type targeted levels in the second box and hit calculate and it automatically figures it for you....any more questions just ask there are a ton of pros on this site 24/7 i hope i made some sense here for you these steps are vital............mike

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