Thanks for your reply. I get my water tested at a local pool store. For sanitizing I use an offline chlorinator that I keep on number 5 on a scale 0-7-full. I also use liquid chlorine twice a week. My last test results were:
Alkalinity -100
PH -7.3
Calcium Hardness -142
Total chlorine -2.5
Free chlorine -1.3
Chlorine stab -45
Your answers confirm my suspicion, your issues are chemistry not mechanical.
If you have read around here much you have probably seen that not much credence is given to pool store testing. While you would think that a "professional" would be the best, unfortunately in most cases it is quite the opposite. Between employees who blindly trust the word of chemical sales representatives and high school kids working in the pool store for the summer you end up with poor results from their testing.
You will find differences between the pool care taught here and what most pool stores tell people to do. The thing most stores overlook is the relationship between Free Chlorine (FC) & CYA (also known as stabilizer). As the stabilizer level goes up the amount of FC needs to go up proportionality. Following the TFP methods with a CYA (listed on your form as "Chlorine stab") level of 45 the absolute minimum FC you should have in your pool is 4ppm and you should target 6ppm. Seeing that your FC is 1.3 and you have a Combined Chlorine (CC) of 1.2 I'm willing to bet that you have an algae bloom just waiting to happen. As you are adding chlorine you are killing some of the algae and thus making your water cloudy & dull.
The choice will be yours as to weather you follow our methods or continue to follow the pool store methods. The one thing I do know is not to try to mix pool store advice and TFPC advice. It won't work!
If you want to follow our methods you will need to pick up one of the
recommended test kits. To effectively practice the TFPC methods, the FAS/DPD chlorine test is essential. All the kits on the list contain that test while very few other kits do. The kits sold at the pool store generally won't won't cut it, but be careful pool store employees are known to say “it's the same thing”. Generally it's not!
To follow the pool care methods taught here you need to arm yourself with the knowledge and tools necessary to care for your pool.
The knowledge is condensed in the
Pool School link at the top of every page. It is a great community here, but we do ask that you read and try to understand the information being taught. Questions are always welcome and folks will try to direct you and teach you the methods.
The tools are not limited to the brushes, vacuum hoses and other stuff you use around the pool, but include the most important item - one of the recommended test kits I listed above.Think of it this way, do you see a doctor blindly prescribing drugs without seeing the patient or having tests run? Here at TFP we are going to ask for photos so we can see the condition of the water and are going to ask for a full set of test results.
Right now I know you need to conduct a
SLAM to kill what is in your water. SLAM is a continuous process, not a one night addition of chlorine that continues until verified testing (yours, not the pool store) shows that nothing is living in the water.
What is the source or the chlorine in your "offline chlorinator"? Tabs/pucks?
So, welcome to TFP!!
