No chlorine...help!!

[mak73100]

I went to the pool store the other day with a water sample and complaints of green algae in my pool. My free chlorine was .07, total chlorine .05, ph 7.8, calcium 214, alkalinity 89, stabilizer 90, salt 3900. We run our cell at 50% 12 hours a day per our pool builder. We were told to brush the spots, backwash and rinse, 1 gallon of acid, 9lbs of shock, 2 mustard algae packs, run filter 24 hours, day 2 vacuum to waste, shock with 6 more lbs.

I turned my cell up to 70% output and have done everything except day 2 (which will be done this afternoon). I tested my water and there is STILL NO CHLORINE!!

Our pool was built in in July. Our pool builder says we may already need to clean our cell. I would appreciate any input. Thanks!

 

[Smykowski]

Welcome to the forum!

Sounds like a case pool storing to me. You have algae in the pool, and SWGs are not designed to fix a dirty pool, they're designed to maintain FC in a clean pool.

Take a look at Pool School in the upper right corner. Pay special attention to the articles on "The ABCs of Water Chemistry" and "How to SLAM your Pool."

Also, in order to do this right, you'll need to buy (invest) in a good test kit. We don't trust pool store test results, and I'm very reluctant to give anyone advice without seeing results we can trust.

 

[jblizzle]

Welcome to TFP!!!

Step 1 to taking control of your pool: Order one of the Recommended Test Kits and stop trusting the notoriously unreliable test results you get at pool stores and thus will avoid being sold all the worthless products. While waiting for said kit ...

Step 2 is reading Pool School to gain an understanding of the chemistry ... start at the top with these:
ABCs of Water Chemistry
Recommended Pool Chemicals
How to Chlorinate Your Pool

Once algae starts, it is not uncommon for SWG to not be able to keep up. Thus you need to supplement with liquid chlorine / bleach and go through the SLAM process. [slam:3cdn0zoq][/slam:3cdn0zoq]

All this is done with the SWG OFF so that you get the pool under control and then you can dial in the SWG to maintain the FC. Depending on how well you have been maintaining your pool (have you been testing the FC and ph daily?), it could certainly be possible that your cell has a build-up reducing its effectiveness, but like I said, the SWG will NOT rid you of algae once it starts.