Using floater for tablets and high chlorine levels

[Treestandmegan]

I use 3" tablets, HTH Ultra in a floater for our pool and even with it fully closed I have high chlorine levels. The pool is covered most of the week as we use it mostly on the weekends and it is indoor so it does not get sunlight. Ph is 7.5, CYA is 30, TA is 100 and tends to run low on hardness scale. I will now switch from the Ultra tabs since they have softener in them. FC runs 5+ on my 6 way test kit. Should I switch to granules?

The other problem I ran into was I had to add pH plus since it dropped to 6.8 and since my FC was high I got cloudy water. I changed my filter and figure the filter will clear it up. I have the pool uncovered now to ' breathe' and hopefully burn off some chlorine. The kids never complain about the chemicals until last week they did get really dry skin and one complained of sore eyes, hence the bump in pH.

 

[JohnT]

Welcome to TFP!

Floaters are very hard to control, and CYA is not needed at those levels in an indoor pool. Unless you have a lot of water turnover, I'm really surprised your CYA isn't much higher using the tabs.

You should probably just switch to bleach or liquid chlorine, but the most important thing is to get good test results. You can try diluting your pool water sample with water that doesn't have chlorine like distilled water and multiplying by the dilution to get actual chlorine levels.

 

[Patrick_B]

Welcome to TFP Megan.

Pucks with Dichlor and Trichlor will lower your pH as they dissolve, and that's why you got the low pH. High FC does not cause cloudy water by itself, but it will make the water cloudy if it's killing a bunch of Algae. Not sure what is in the Ultra to "soften" the water, but there can't be anything in there to actually reduce mineral content in your water. It might contain some sort of chemical that is supposed to inhibit scaling, but Its really not much of a concern in you pool since it is vinyl. If you spend some time here you'll find we don't suggest pucks as a permanent source of Chlorine, but rather Bleach or "Liquid Chlorine" since it has hardly any side effects. Please check out the pool school section for further reading and a good place to start is with the ABC's of pool chemistry.

 

[Treestandmegan]

3700 gallons, how much bleach? Is this a daily thing?

 

[pwrstrk]

3700 gallons, how much bleach? Is this a daily thing?

Welcome to TFP !!
Use pool math to figure out how much bleach to dose. calc.html
It depends on how much FC you lose if it's a daily thing since the pool is indoors and covered like you said. You'll have to test and see how much FC you lose to keep it in range. Since it's indoors and covered your FC levels should hold longer.

 

[Patrick_B]

It may not be daily being indoors, but it depends on how much daily use you have. It won't be much bleach either.

 

[Treestandmegan]

Thank you guys so much for your help, I was wondering if the tablets were doing more harm than good, during the summer when it was set up outside I had absolutely no problems besides for it got cloudy once from not enough chlorine after a heavy rain, shocked it and all was good. I even made it through filtering for several days after fill with the 'green after chlorine' since we had iron in the well water. I don't like messing with chemicals and I think that the bleach is a wonderful idea. I test Often anyways to stay on top of everything since it is heated and on a heated cement shop floor. Once again, thank you!

 

[Patrick_B]

You're welcome! Hope you stick around check things out some more.

 

[Treestandmegan]

One last question, chlorine got down to 1 used bleach per calc and now at 3... Perfect and water is clearing up, husband dumped in super concentrated clarifier at the wrong dose also. It will all turn out ok.

Question is hardness level, I am at 160, do I bring it up or leave it. Ph is At 7.5, CYA was about 30 ( tube filled to the top and just lost site of dot), TA was at 100. I am running a heater and worry about components, do I mess with adding calcium chloride or am I still ok?

Thanks again! You guys are awesome...

 

[pwrstrk]

I would CH alone. You are with in the range. In vinyl pools you don't have to worry as much about it unless it's way high. No need for clarifier's either. Maintain proper FC levels and your water will be perfect.
What is the CH of your fill water ?

 

[jblizzle]

Are you saying the water is not clear? Did you see algae?
If so, then you should likely SLAM the pool until it is cleared up. Or at least perform the OCLT to see if anything is living in the water causing the cloudiness.

 

[Treestandmegan]

The CH was normal upon fill, I never realized that it went to the soft side until I did a full 6 way test kit and saw that it was low this week. The HTH 3" ultra tabs state they fight algae, clarify, stain prevention and soften water. Ingredient list is 91% trichlor and 3.5 % zinc sulfate and rest is other ingredients. Guess it softened the water alright.