7 gallons of bleach gone in 45min?!

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J

ja123

0
May 21, 2018
205
NJ
Hey guys,

Need some assistance. I am attempting the slam method today. CYA is 60. Followed all the steps from pool math. About 6 1/2 gallons of 6% bleach would bring me up to a chlorine level of 24. Added all the bleach and checked levels about 45min later. My powder test kit is telling me my free chlorine is at 1.5ppm. How is this possible?
 
The Algae is EATING it as fast as you can put it in... do it again, and see if your levels don't come out closer to what you would expect.

This is where the "Level" in SLAM comes into play. ("S"hock "L"evel "A"nd "M"aintain)

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As you go through the process, you will need less. and less to achieve your numbers.

I remember when I first came here, and needed to do it, my wife looked at me and said "More Bleach?!?!?!?!!" this is costing us a fortune!!!"

She has not complained since! She admits that we NOW spend less than 1/4 what we used to to maintain the pool. :)
 
Ugh I don’t know if I can keep buying bleach this quickly. I’m guessing what I might have is black algae. Any recommended algaecides I can use to help kill it off?! Had some silver algaecide in the garage and decided to use a little bit of it but it was so black it looked like it can possibly cause staining I decided to not use the rest.
 
Alagaecide is to prevent algae. The high FC needed to SLAM just oxidizes it.

Read this Pool School - Black Algae

The cost to SLAM is incentive to maintain your FC at proper levels so you do not have to SLAM!!

Take care.
 
If the pool is a green sludge pond, it will have an almost insatiable thirst for chlorine initially. If you discovered you had no CYA this year when you did last year, it could have converted to ammonia, which takes enormous quantities of bleach to neutralize, and it will use it up almost as fast as you can pour it in.

It would help diagnosis if you included a CC reading.

But it really doesn't matter much either way, because the solution is the same for either case: more bleach. Once you've killed off the bulk of the algae, it doesn't take so much to keep it from reproducing and to also kill what's left. And once any ammonia gets neutralized, the bleach will go to work on the green.

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The pool is clear and blue. Not sure what is eating the chlorine this quickly. I see some black on the bottom of the pool that looks like dirt I’m guessing it’s black algae, but not sure. All my other levels are pretty good my calcium hardness a little high but working to get it down. CC is 3.0 and has been for awhile
 
From your other thread -- did you get the K1515 FAS-DPD test? If you are trying to do this with a DPD test you may be bleaching out your test with high FC.
 

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You can have CYA and ammonia if bacteria have just started to grow and haven't had time to eat all of the CYA.

It might not be ammonia, but I don't know what else could be causing the CC.

Begin the SLAM and keep us posted on the results.
 
pookiesunshine said:
Question for James, Marty and Richard....does the presence of CYA rule out ammonia? I thought if ammonia was present the cya would be gone. Thanks
Click to expand...

You could have killed off the bacteria that ate the CYA and created the ammonia. The ammonia is not what depletes the CYA.
 
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