How much bleach is "standard"?

[dschribs]

Is there a "standard" amount of bleach a pool should consume on a daily basis? It seems that my pool is all over the board in terms of daily chorine use. My CYA is at 40 so I try to keep the Chlorine level at about 5 ppm.

I test my water each and every day and add bleach every night right before sunset. My last few tests have generated the following daily results (Using Pool Pal app).

- Add 79 oz bleach
- Add 64 oz bleach
- Add 48 oz bleach
- Add 64 oz bleach
- Add 79 oz bleach

Are these readings "normal"? I would think that there would be a certain "magic number" of ounces I would need to add (give or take a few ounces) each day. Seems like my bleach needs are not consistent day after day. Is this normal?? Perhaps when more bleach was needed there was more swimming done that day or more sun that day??? My pool gets FULL sun from 7 am to sunset.

FYI

pH is 7.4
TA is 50
CC is 0

Thanks!
Dan

 

[Bama Rambler]

A lot of things affect the amount of chlorine you lose during the day. Sunlight, swimmers, clouds, blown in debris, etc. So the numbers you're seeing look pretty normal to me.

 

[Smykowski]

You can't look at it as an amount of bleach, you need to look at it as a total ppm loss of FC during the day. And, like Bama said, there are way too many factors that go into that number to try to suggest a "standard."

That said, you should absolutely be able to come up with a standard for your particular pool, based on all of those things Bama pointed out.

 

[jblizzle]

To add, the key is to stay above the minimum for your CYA level, this may mean you need to target higher than 5ppm.

 

[jcowart]

Your numbers look good. The others have said, look at the total loss not just your oz you add. Looks like your well on your way of learning YOUR pools personality. They are all different. I see a trend of 2.5 to 1.5 loss. I would think maybe the 2.5 or 79oz days were very sunny and swim days. The 1.5 or 48oz day cloudy by any chance? The more you learn your pool, the easier it will become. After you really start to see trends you might learn how to judge it by the type of day and not have to test everyday. I had to take my CYA up to 50 because I felt my FC loss was a little high. My targets changed min/max but my loss went down to where I saw in the past. Just food for thought.