No Free Chlorine?

Jump to latest Follow Reply
S

Sligoth

0
May 21, 2015
18
Brick, NJ
Hi guys, I'm Steve. New here. My Fiancee and I just recently closed on a house last week and have since been having issues with the pool. It's a 27,000 gallon inground pool, vinyl liner, DE filter + heater + Polaris. So anyway, for the water issues.

My Dad who has had a pool for years has been trying to help me out but his pool seems to always just kind of test perfect and have no issues and neither of us could figure out what is going on with my pool. The numbers seemed to fluctuate daily with the test strips he had purchased, the only constant was no FC. So, after researching a bunch I went out and bought the Taylor K-2006 which came today. So I did the tests after work and came up with the following numbers:

FC - 0
CC: 0.14
CYA - 100
PH - 7
TA - 60
CH - Unsure, I was really confused by this test as it tells you to just keep adding drops until it turns blue and I had added about 20 drops and it wasn't turning blue and I didn't wanna waste the whole testing bottle as I bought the smaller kit for now. I realized after that I could do a 10mL test instead of 25mL and use a lot less solution. So I'm going to rerun this one tomorrow morning. But I really wanted to get this post out there to see what I should do.

I used Poolcalculator.com which pretty much said drain 60% of your water and try again. My main worry is draining like 15,000 gallons of water into a neighborhood I just moved into at risk of flooding half the neighborhood. Cause that's A LOT of water.

From what I can understand, besides the fact that my PH is pretty low, my CH is probably pretty high I'm guessing (I got to at least 350 on the drop count before I stopped with no signs turning to blue) and my CC is high I think? I essentially have to drain the pool because there's no way to get rid of the CYA short of draining the water.

Luckily, I do have a well that my outside hoses utilize, so I won't be paying for the water which is nice. But I'm just trying to figure out if there's anyway to fix this issue without draining half the pool, mainly cause I was really hoping to use the pool this Memorial Day weekend as it's supposed to be really nice Sunday, Monday & Tuesday (off Tuesday). Currently the pool isn't green or cloudy or anything. It actually looks perfectly clean, it's just not testing well. I'm guessing it's not getting very dirty yet due to the fact that before today when the testing kit came we just kept dumping shock into the pool trying to get the FC level to break open.

Any help would be much appreciated, even if the help is "Sorry bud, drain it or keep dumping gallons of bleach into the pool every few days".

Thanks a bunch,
Steve
 
Welcome Steve! Congrats on your test kit!
You need to get some bleach in there to raise FC
Your PH will probably rise on its own
Unfortunately the only way to lower CYA is partial drain and refill. Maybe drain 20% and recheck so you don't flood the neighborhood all at once.
CC do .5 or lower is good

- - - Updated - - -

Do you have a SWG? If not you want your CYA to be 30-50. If yes then lower it to 70-80
When you add bleach don't blindly add. Use pool math to figure out how much you need to add.
My well water has a very high CH 550
 
Azgirl71 said:
Welcome Steve! Congrats on your test kit!
You need to get some bleach in there to raise FC
Your PH will probably rise on its own
Unfortunately the only way to lower CYA is partial drain and refill. Maybe drain 20% and recheck so you don't flood the neighborhood all at once.
CC do .5 or lower is good
Click to expand...

Thanks, it's a pretty intimidating kit. Took awhile to understand what it was asking. Once I realized the bottles were color coated snd in order it made stuff a lot easier though.

How much bleach do you think? Pool calc said like 2 gallons of 6%? I guess is that fine or would I be better off adding one to start and testing again? Also, I read on another thread that the chlorine pucks add CYA, so should I stop using those?

- - - Updated - - -

Azgirl71 said:
Welcome Steve! Congrats on your test kit!
You need to get some bleach in there to raise FC
Your PH will probably rise on its own
Unfortunately the only way to lower CYA is partial drain and refill. Maybe drain 20% and recheck so you don't flood the neighborhood all at once.
CC do .5 or lower is good

- - - Updated - - -

Do you have a SWG? If not you want your CYA to be 30-50. If yes then lower it to 70-80
When you add bleach don't blindly add. Use pool math to figure out how much you need to add.
My well water has a very high CH 550
Click to expand...

Just saw your edit, had to Google SWG. I don't think so? It's not a Salt water pool so I'm assuming the answer to that is no.
 
Sligoth said:
Thanks, it's a pretty intimidating kit. Took awhile to understand what it was asking. Once I realized the bottles were color coated snd in order it made stuff a lot easier though.

How much bleach do you think? Pool calc said like 2 gallons of 6%? I guess is that fine or would I be better off adding one to start and testing again? Also, I read on another thread that the chlorine pucks add CYA, so should I stop using those?
Click to expand...

Do you have 6% bleach? Most is 8.25% and you can change the percentage.
You catch on quick to the tests. I can do mine without direction at all now...lol
 
Be aware that MOST regular bleach nowadays is 8.25% (unless it's the dirt cheap stuff for chicken coops and such) and you can type that in where the 6% is in that block........OR...........use the bottom where it talks about he effects of adding chemicals and it's in that list.
 
Welcome! :wave:

Doublecheck your math or your typing on that CC test result. I'd believe 1.4. As an aside, you can also do the FC test with 10 ml of water and count each drop as .5 and save a bunch of reagent that way, too. On scoop of powder is enough, usually. As long as you have one or two undissolved crystals, you're good.

You probably ought to recheck that CYA test using the dilution method in Extended Test Kit Directions, step 8, note 9.

The quick answer is bleach. It's not the SLAM process, and it won't do anything for the high CYA, but if your CYA is really and truly at 100, then you should have at least 8 FC in the water. It won't bleach swimsuits or anything. I've swam in my pool with FC at 20 because I was stuck with 240 CYA and draining wasn't an option in dry California.

You'll also want to raise the PH a little. Borax or Washing Soda, or any leftover pH up or Soda Ash you have will take care of that.

Like I said, it's not a SLAM, and if you have the option of a partial drain you should take it. But there are probably millions of people who will be jumping into much worse pools this holiday weekend. Get the pH fixed and raise the FC and keep your fingers crossed. Next week you can attack it properly.
 
Make sure you do not get any scent, easy pour or splash less. Just straight household bleach. Make sure you also check the date. If it has a 15 after the letter or two at the front then it is this years and should be fine.
 

Enjoying this content?

Support TFP with a donation.

Give Support
Richard320 said:
Welcome! :wave:

Doublecheck your math or your typing on that CC test result. I'd believe 1.4. As an aside, you can also do the FC test with 10 ml of water and count each drop as .5 and save a bunch of reagent that way, too. On scoop of powder is enough, usually. As long as you have one or two undissolved crystals, you're good.

You probably ought to recheck that CYA test using the dilution method in Extended Test Kit Directions, step 8, note 9.

The quick answer is bleach. It's not the SLAM process, and it won't do anything for the high CYA, but if your CYA is really and truly at 100, then you should have at least 8 FC in the water. It won't bleach swimsuits or anything. I've swam in my pool with FC at 20 because I was stuck with 240 CYA and draining wasn't an option in dry California.

You'll also want to raise the PH a little. Borax or Washing Soda, or any leftover pH up or Soda Ash you have will take care of that.

Like I said, it's not a SLAM, and if you have the option of a partial drain you should take it. But there are probably millions of people who will be jumping into much worse pools this holiday weekend. Get the pH fixed and raise the FC and keep your fingers crossed. Next week you can attack it properly.
Click to expand...
All of this noted, lll try the alternative testing method tomorrow before I pour in anything just to make certain that's my CYA. As for my CC, pretty sure I did the math right? I forget the exact numbers and how I got to that though to be honest. I only noted the final numbers, not the process in obtaining them lol
 
Also, thanks a bunch for everyone's help. It's good to know that if I chose I can let this go and just keep a higher chlorine level from the sounds of it. Is it possible I could just keep adding more chlorine than usually throughout the season and drain the pool in the fall? Or would that be a bad idea for winterization and stuff?
 
Sligoth said:
Also, thanks a bunch for everyone's help. It's good to know that if I chose I can let this go and just keep a higher chlorine level from the sounds of it. Is it possible I could just keep adding more chlorine than usually throughout the season and drain the pool in the fall? Or would that be a bad idea for winterization and stuff?
Click to expand...
It's a major PITA to have high CYA and use our methods. For starters, your pH test will always be suspect when FC is above 10. And with the two symptoms of high CC and won't hold FC, I'd say an algae bloom is in your future. And to kill that at 100+ CYA requires this much bleach
attachment.php
 
Yeah, so I'll be trying to drain some of the pool tonight then and just take some walks around the block to make sure nobody has a lake growing on their lawn or in the road. Sounds like it's the only way to go though unless as you said I wanna dump gallons and gallons of bleach in the pool.
 
Sligoth said:
Yeah, so I'll be trying to drain some of the pool tonight then and just take some walks around the block to make sure nobody has a lake growing on their lawn or in the road. Sounds like it's the only way to go though unless as you said I wanna dump gallons and gallons of bleach in the pool.
Click to expand...
How do you plan to do it? If you use the pool pump on waste, it will come out at a pretty good clip. If you use a small submersible pump, you can probably feed it into your sewer. You're not on a septic tank are you? Don't do it if you are. But as I was saying... I used a small submersible and fed it into the sewer cleanout behind my kitchen sink. It's a good bet a couple thousand gallons of water rushing down the pipes will remove any buildup in them.
 
I'm 99% sure there's no septic tank. I was thinking of just using the waste feature on the pool pump to conserve time. Also, I'm guessing it should be fine to drain like 5-10% and fill and then another 5-10% a few days later and fill etc. Right? Like that should still lower the CYA. Mainly to not flood the neighborhood and keep it usable in between those spurts.
 
Sligoth said:
I'm 99% sure there's no septic tank. I was thinking of just using the waste feature on the pool pump to conserve time. Also, I'm guessing it should be fine to drain like 5-10% and fill and then another 5-10% a few days later and fill etc. Right? Like that should still lower the CYA. Mainly to not flood the neighborhood and keep it usable in between those spurts.
Click to expand...
That works, but it takes a lot longer and wastes water.

27000 gallons. CYA 100

Replace 3000. CYA 89
Replace 3000 CYA 79
Replace 3000 CYA 70

Replace 3000 CYA 62
Replace 3000 CYA 55
Replace 3000 CYA 49

Replace 3000 CYA 44
Replace 3000 CYA 39
Replace 3000 CYA 35

27000 gallons replaced. That's the whole pool. CYA still at 35. But what if CYA started at 150? Or 200? That's not beyond the realm of possibility. When I took over my pool, the pool service and their pucks had run mine up to 240! Pool stores don't generally mess around with dilution and all that. The tester goes to 100. Anything beyond that is reported as 100, or as "99," which is shorthand for "off the scale." Run the CYA dilution test and see what you get.

You don't want to completely drain a vinyl liner pool, or the liner may shrink or shift and wrinkle. You'll need to leave at least a foot of water in the shallow end. But the faster you get things in line, the easier pool maintenance will be.
 

Enjoying this content?

Support TFP with a donation.

Give Support
You must log in or register to reply here.
Thread Status
Hello , This thread has been inactive for over 60 days. New postings here are unlikely to be seen or responded to by other members. For better visibility, consider Starting A New Thread.
Top Bottom
Back
Jump to latest Follow Reply