Poolnewb, the process of getting chlorine to hold in an ammonia condition is a bit precise in that you add, time, add, time in a rapid sequence until you've added enough to break the ammonia. When you just add now and then as you have been, you're leaving the FC for immediate consumption and then allowing the conversion to ammonia to continue relatively unchecked.
For example, in my swamp recovery, the original pool techs hired put in 6 bags of shock and 5 gallons of liquid and it zeroed out because they didn't sustain the addition. But when I took over and did it the way described, it took 10 gallons and less than 2 hours on a weekend morning to get FC to hold. Then the slam worked like a charm.
With that said, the higher the ammonia level, the more chlorine it takes to break. Dilution is an option if it won't strain your well and if your well water doesn't have a high metal level, eg, iron. I know with my well I was advised not to risk taxing it with a full replacement, but my well also has a high iron load so I didn't need much convincing
But if the condition of your water is such that there is still any cya (from prior addition of stabilized products) to be converted, and if there is still the bacteria to convert it, you could theoretically produce more ammonia while awaiting your partial refill -- and still would have to break down whatever ammonia is left. See my note below for a partial drain scheme that overall would I think help on both the ammonia and swamp fronts.
If you want to try to assess how much ammonia you might have, there are ammonia strip tests available at aquarium stores. But usually this is not necessary unless a complete water change is a viable option, which with a liner on well, it really isn't short of trucking in water.
To my mind, the simplest approach is to wait for your test kit, stock up on bleach, and follow the ammonia test instructions in a dedicated session. Ultimately, that should be less hassle. If you do change out some of the water, try the free trick below or rent a trash pump so that you get some of the crud out while you're at it
Here's the siphon trick that Yakima recently reported...watch the video, its cool
Trash pump is the super powerful, super fast way!
I was cheap and didn't want to rent one, so I did a siphon vacuum. Attach the vac hose to the vac head and either hold the other end to the return to flush the air out, or just slowly push the hose underwater a foot at a time with a light shake to get the air out of the ridges too. Once it is full, keep both ends under water, pull the middle of the hose to wall and pull a loop out over the wall and let it hang/sit on the ground, then pull the non-vac head attached end to the wall, cover it with your hand, and swiftly, with eyes closed or wearing glasses, raise the end (covered with hand) over wall and back down under the waterline, uncovering your hand. The water should gush out fast! Keep that end under the waterline, push the loop back into the pool, and then vaccum as usual! It will pump all the nasty from the bottom of the pool straight to your lawn (which loves all that stuff! Here is a video of me doing my very last siphon vac. Sorry I didn't shoot video of the first three. I waited 2 hours between sessions so it could resettle. My first three had lots of brown and super dark green sludge water, and infinite leaves and pine needles. As you move the head, when it comes out dark, stay there until it runs clear or nearly clear, then move a bit. You'll figure out what works best for you, especially if you can see the water coming out of the hose as you vac. In my case only the bottom inches were gross, and all the rest of the water was really pretty clear in comparison. I'm glad I did this. I ended up pumping out about 2 feet of water and it went from brown to dark green to green, then I refilled with water and SLAMed and now I'm blue and only a little murky after 4 days! Used less than 10 gallons of 10% shock/bleach total so far! Saved a fortune! Glad my water prices are cheap here!
https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resi...nt=video%2cMOV
