Effect of high chlorine levels

[blue devils]

I have questions concerning my OTHER pieces of pool equipment, and possible damage to them. I'm concerned about my heater, my pumps, DE Filter Cartridge, plumbing, etc. I recently did a spring clean of mustard and green algae in my colored plaster pool. I used Jack's Stuff for mustard algae and 9 gallons of liquid shock. The next morning a lot of mustard algae still existed, and my test kit indicated no chlorine in the pool. I added 5 lb of calcium hypochlorite and later in the day, 4 gallons of liquid shock. In hindsight, I'm thinking my reagent had gone bad and gave me a false zero reading, because a test with a new kit determined my CL level is now 56! But no algae, that's for sure!

My concern now is ... do I need to do something to protect my equipment, let the CL level drop on it's own, or treat the high CL, or something else?! Appreciate any advice to alleviate my concerns.

 

[JasonLion]

It all depends on your CYA level. If CYA is really and truly zero then you have a serious problem. If CYA is 80+ then there is nothing to worry about at all.

 

[jblizzle]

Welcome to TFP!!!

That may have been WAY too much chlorine, which has the potential to cause damage to the pool and equipment if your stabilizer (CYA) is pretty low.

What kind of test kit were you using and what test kit do you have now?

Was it the pink color matching DPD chlorine test (like the pH test) that only reads up to a FC of 5ppm? If so, you have to know that it bleaches out at high FC levels. So you could have very high FC, but the test would show clear like you do not have any. This is why we recommend the FAS-DPD chlorine test, which it sounds like you may now have.

We never recommended adding chemicals without testing first and using PoolMath to calculate how much should be added. And for algae, we recommend following the SLAM Process which will not damage the pool or equipment.

Can you post up a full set of test results?