Weird Smell

[briansturgeon]

This is our fourth year with your pool and I have something weird going on that I need help with. First, I noticed a weird smell to the water. Not sure what could be causing this but here is my other issue. I believe the sensor in my IC 40 salt cell is bad because it is indicating low salt although when I use test strips at the pool store it reads fine. Therefore, I have been using liquid 12.5 % chrlorine to shock and maintain pool until I get the cell fixed. Currently 1 gallon of 12.5% takes my pool to about an FC of 5. After about 48 hours the FC is down to 0. MY CYA is currently 42 and I just added 4 lbs more today to get me into the 60's to hopefully help with my chlorine loss. Water is clear and looks really nice.

Any ideas why my chlorine is gone so fast and any idea what the weird smell could be? Numbers seem to look okay so I'm struggling figuring out what is going on. CC's have consistently been below .5 for a week now since opening a week ago.

Thanks.

 

[tim5055]

My guess is that you have something growing in the water. Why not try an Overnight FC Loss Test (OCLT) to verify one way or the other.

 

[Swampwoman]

^that may be the case, but you are also not dosing frequently enough if you're only adding more 48 hours later.
Its not uncommon to "use" 2-3 ppm daily in sun, warmth or use.

In your case I'd expect at a start ppm of 6 ish for you to need to add about a half gallon daily to be sure to stay above the lowest recommended FC for your CYA -- my pools a bit smaller in terms of gallons, but that's my common use age with roughly the same cya level.

If you dose it to 6 or 7, then check the next day and are any lower than 3 or 4 ppm then it might be worth riding at slam levels for a few days.

 

[briansturgeon]

I didn't mention that I ran at slam levels when I opened it. I used the mustard shock levels upon open g and my cya was 0 so my shock level was lower. Also I do not loose any chlorine at night.