Trying to figure out why we can't keep chlorine levels up...

[yelkcerb]

I have read the pool school and have been looking at the CYA/Chlorine chart but admit I'm a bit confused. We have an above ground that is about 12,000 gallons. The pool is crystal clear but has a strong odor. From my reading, I'm pretty sure we are dealing with an issue of too much Combined Chlorine but am not sure how to get it down. Here are the numbers from the test I just ran:
FC: .5
TC: .5
PH: 7.5
CYA: 50
ALK: 80

My husband has been using 6% bleach from Walmart, adding it at night. We get high readings until about mid-day the following day when it drops. Any direction you could give me would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Rangerman]

Try shocking your pool. Seems I've read here that's the way to get rid of your CC.

 

[yelkcerb]

Thanks for the reply. We have been using quite a bit of the bleach and I imagine we are just not using enough. We used the Pool Calculator and added bleach as instructed and still have the same problem the following day with the readings dropping very low.

 

[JasonLion]

How much bleach? For a CYA of 50, shock level is around 16. To raise FC by 16 in a 12,000 gallon pool requires just over 3 gallons of bleach. To properly shock the pool may require doing that several times in fairly rapid succession. See this article for more information on the proper way to shock a pool.

 

[yelkcerb]

We have added the bleach that the calculator suggested but I guess we just aren't doing it over and over again. We generally wait until the following night. We'll try to do it in rapid succession to keep the numbers up. Thank you!

 

[dbrown199]

Keep at it. If you don't check the water in the morning you go a whole day with a low FCL level . You need to keep shock level up over night.( 0.5 drop or less) to ensure you end with sparkling water.