Hey there guys. I recently moved into a home with a pool and I have never owned one before. The pool is a 12x28 in ground vinyl pool with roughly 10,000 gallons (I think). We just had a new liner and pump installed a few weeks ago after several years of being out of use. So far the pool guys said they shocked the pool and added chlorine after filling it and i have shocked it twice since then. Also i have a floating chlorine basket and have three 3 inch chlorine pucks in there. The pucks have been in there for a week and are only about half way dissolved. The problem that I am having is with the free chlorine and total chlorine level. After shocking yesterday I tested the pool and everything was in the "ideal" zone and it seemed to be fine. After testing again tonight the free chlorine and total chlorine are at zero. I was afraid this was my test strips being unreliable but I got a liquid test kit and it confirmed that there is no free chlorine or total chlorine. All of the other levels such as pH and total alkalinity are okay though. CYA level is low though, probably around 10-15. I'm hoping one of you all could help me out because I am lost here at the moment. I figured the 3 chlorine pucks should be more dissolved than they are but obviouslt there has been some chlorine put into the water from those and the shock. Also aside from running the pump for 2 days straight after opening the pool, I only run it between 3-5 hours a day now. Could this be causing the problem? oh, and as of now the water is crystal clear.
New at this. please help!
- Thread starter caselfe09
- Start date
I'm new too so definitely check with someone else but it sounds like your CYA is too low and the sun is eating up your chlorine. Add chlorine in the evening after the sun goes down, check FC level, then check your FC level in the am. If it is the same you probably need to add stabilizer. If it is much lower in the morning then you have something else going on. Either way keep plenty of chlorine on hand, FC level of 0 quickly turns water into a nightmare.
Also your chlorinator should have an adjustment valve on it, make sure it is on "full".
Just found the oclt on here. Look that up. It's what I was talking about earlier.
Also your chlorinator should have an adjustment valve on it, make sure it is on "full".
Just found the oclt on here. Look that up. It's what I was talking about earlier.
Welcome to the forum. Doesn't sound like you have enough CYA in there to keep Mr. Sun from eating your FC right up. I'd raise it to 30 with granular and raise your FC with bleach. Have you read pool school here? Have you seen the chlorine/cya chart there and the pool calculator as well? Educate yourself to see what those puck will eventually do if you use them exclusively. Check into one of the test kits recommended there as well. You can't go wrong with those.