New and clueless, please help! -UPDATE uh-oh!

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Don't buy their shock. Stick with the bleach. I'd recommend buying at least 8 of their 182oz jugs to start with.

Sometimes it takes adding a lot of chlorine before the FC holds at all. When you first start adding, the chlorine gets consumed almost immediately, killing whatever's in there. Once it's killing it faster than it's growing then the FC starts to last longer.
 
Re: added the 2 jugs of bleach and saw little change

I'd assume something used it up. Algae? If so, your chlorine could have been gone within an hour of adding it.
 
All that means is that the chlorine you put in (via bleach) got used up. You may need quite a bit more.

Don't buy the powdered shock; it's more expensive than bleach per ppm of FC (almost always) and adds other stuff to your water (CYA for dichlor, CH for cal-hypo). Neither CYA nor CH is too high in your pool, but buying a whole box of it could change that.

Though it seems logical, you won't see TC = the amount of chlorine you put in last night.
 
Re: added the 2 jugs of bleach and saw little change

Topics merged for continuity. Just to keep this topic in one place.

sarahelaine said:
Well after getting yesterday's readings of:

pH 7.2
FC .5
CC 1.5
TC 2
TA 140
CH 160
CYA 20

I added 2 jugs of bleach in an attempt to get my shock level near 10.

I tested it this morning and instead I got:

FC 1
CC 2.5
TC 3.5

I thought it would have changed more.
Click to expand...

From reading on this site, with your CC going up the chlorine is working and killing whatever you have in the pool. When I was working on getting my clean, I use about 40 182oz jugs of bleach. I had to have some POP (Pool Owner Patience)

Here is a thread with pictures of where I started and where I am now.

my-journey-from-green-to-crystal-clear-t20117.html
 
In regards to bleach and chlorine, when you use bleach it adds purely chlorine and only affects chlorine therefore you are not adding anything else which may affect other levels. Make sure the bleach you get is unscented as well. I messed up the other day and bought scented bleach, but caught it before I added it to the pool. So that is the other reason besides cost. Bleach is also readily available at your local supermarket as well unless they are out, so easy to get as well.
 
Re: added the 2 jugs of bleach and saw little change

The calculator is telling me to add 224 oz of bleach to get to the FC to 10. Should I just add that, or since it's likely to get used up quickly again add more? If so, how much should I add? Even though the jugs are only 5-6% chlorine it still seems like a lot of bleach to be adding in the pool, I guess it's just a mindset.
 

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Re: added the 2 jugs of bleach and saw little change

sarahelaine said:
The calculator is telling me to add 224 oz of bleach to get to the FC to 10. Should I just add that, or since it's likely to get used up quickly again add more? If so, how much should I add? Even though the jugs are only 5-6% chlorine it still seems like a lot of bleach to be adding in the pool, I guess it's just a mindset.
Click to expand...

I would go with what it said. The more you can check and keep it at 10, the quicker it will go. You can usually check an hr after you add to see what has been eaten up and how much more you will need to add. Also it should say on the bottle if it is 5 or 6%. The percentage will make a difference. Whatever number is buy Sodium hypochlorite, you will want to put that in the percentage field. If it does not say it, from what I have read assume it is around 3.5%. If you use clorox regular unscented, it should be 6%. Most have had good results with walmart great value as well, which tends to be a litlte cheaper. I have switched from a generic at my local supermarket to clorox and seem to get better results. I buy it 3 at a time, as Sams Club sells a 3 pack of clorox 182oz jugs for around 7.50, which is around 2.50 per jug and at the supermarket they are around 3.50-4.00 for the same thing.
 
In the short term it seems like you are buying a lot of bleach and spending a lot of money. It is a bit to lug around, true. However, in the long run, it is better for your pool and you will KNOW it is properly sanitized for baby and you. Ask for help at the store and see if one of the workers can roll the stuff out on a flat hand cart for you. We moms tend to try and do too much on our own! Most of those kids working would gladly do something besides sweep the aisles!

In terms of costs: I buy about 3 large jugs of bleach a week. That's about $7 and covers my hot tub and pool. Over the next 15 weeks that's about 107.00 in chlorine. One bucket of the pucks costs 150ish. And, I always need more than one bucket. One container of 'spa chlorinating granules' is 16.00. So, I'm significantly ahead of the game even though it SEEMS like a lot sitting around. Additionally, though, I know that my pool is in better shape because it's not got gobs of chemicals in it and it is clean. I drive by my new neighbor's house with a pool and it isn't sparkling and the pool company is there all the time...I can't imagine their bill.

Stay the course and stick with the bleach. :wave:
 
Re: added the 2 jugs of bleach and saw little change

in a 10K gallon pool, a gallon of 6% bleach will raise your FC by approx 6ppm. If your CYA is truly 20 (how are you testing CYA?) 10ppm of FC is your shock level so aiming for 12-15ppm (approx 2.5 gals) would not be a bad thing and may speed things up. Your goal is to hold FC at 10ppm until you CC number drops to 0.5 or below.

Good luck
 
powdered "shock" typically consists of either dichlor (dichloro-isocyanuric acid) or calcium hypochlorite.

Dichlor shock adds CYA very quickly; 10 ppm FC added via dichlor increases CYA by 9. For your pool size, each 1 lb packet would increase FC by 5 and CYA by 4.5. Right now your CYA is about 20. Generally, 30-50 is recommended, depending on where you are located (more sun + hotter temps = higher levels OK). So, if you add 8 1-lb packs of dichlor, you'll increase your CYA from 20 to about 55. I don't know how many packs are in a box, but buying and adding a whole box could be a really bad idea!

Cal-hypo adds CH, which is not high in your pool. For every 10 ppm FC added with cal-hypo, CH increases by 7. While it's not as big a deal as CYA, I would try to keep CH low so scaling would not be a worry.
 
I'm a newbie too so no words of wisdom except an idea: Last year people were looking at me like I was a terrorist what with all the chlorine I was buying. I came across a commercial supply place in our little town http://www.planetcoastal.com/ that sells 12.5% chlorine in a 15 gal barrel for $45.

Maybe you have such a place? I've gone through 4 of these (29,000 gal pool) and the pool is finally starting to clear...bad algae! Imagine the number of 6% bottles that would have been!
 
The BIL and I bought 15 jugs at one time the other day in WM and when we got to the cashier she just shrugged and said "clearing the pool, huh?" We said, "yep".

That tells me we weren't the first ones to do that. Went back the next day and bought 10 more. They had completely restocked the shelves the night before.

Just keep adding bleach!
 
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