high chlorine use

[smeestu]

First of all i would like to say thank you to everyone who has pointed me in the right direction with my pool and i have been running it on Liquid Chlorine since 11/14 with no problems and perfect crystal clear water. I test PH/CL every day and T/A CH CYA once a month that seems to be fine not too much movemnet on them . But i seem to be using a lot of chlorine over the last week or so the water tempeture has gone up a lot from about 20°C to 29°C in just over 2 weeks . My chlorine demand has gone from 3 litres a day to having to put 6 litres in this morning as the reading was nearly 0 . i went from 3 liters to 4 liters and now it looks like im going to be around 6 liters which seems a lot. I did suspect the chlorine itself but when i put 4 liters in yesterday left it a hour to circulate checked it again and was at 5 (from 2) which is about right looking at pool math .the rest of my readings are ok the pool is crystal clear it doesnt get very heavy use maybe 2 people a hour a day nothing much blows in it .I will get a chlorinator at some point (when funds permit) but looking at my chlorine demand it doesnt seem there are too many that would keep up with it at this rate without running 24/7 .I do live in the tropics so is this the price to pay from running the pool any have any ideas .


PH 7.6 CL .5 CC 0 T/A 100 CH 220 CYA 48

 

[woodyp]

Heat is heat. The hotter the water the more FC that will be consumed on sunny days with or without any bather load involved, which will just consume more. You might consider raising your CYA level to 60 or even 70 to see if that helps stabilize your chlorine consumption some. I run 60 here in Texas and still lose 4 ppm of FC daily. Pool is in full sun all day. And yours is getting pretty intense sun in the tropics. That's a pretty good sized pool too!

 

[JasonLion]

There are several possibilities. First, the significant temperature increase will certainly increase chlorine demand, though probably not quite that much. Second, you might be just on the edge of having an algae problem, just enough algae to consume lots of chlorine, but not enough to be very visible just yet. An overnight FC loss test can clear up the question of possible algae. Another possibility is that your CYA level fell noticeably recently, which seems unlikely but has been known to happen very rarely.

I suspect that the temperature increase used enough extra chlorine that the level fell below the minimum, allowing algae to get a toe hold, which you are now barely holding in check. But that is just guessing.

 

[smeestu]

Thanks for the advice maybe i should of said as well that the chlorine is 10% bought in 20 kg containers (18 liters) i will do a overnight test tonight see what the results are .As for the CYA went down to 35 eight weeks ago so i raised it back up using some Trichlor that i had left over from before over the course of a couple of weeks . But there were no problems at that point and no heavy chlorine load (although it was cooler then )

 

[pwrstrk]

Do you know what your current CYA level is ? May be a little low. The last test I see it was 48. You could go up to 60 and see if that helps out. I would also go ahead and do an OCLT Test. That test will confirm organics or not. As Jason said you my be on the verge of an algae outbreak but your just holding it off. Hard to say without an OCLT.
Like everybody has stated the warmer water temp will increase FC loss. I experience the same thing even where I'm located.

 

[smeestu]

Do you know what your current CYA level is ? May be a little low. The last test I see it was 48. You could go up to 60 and see if that helps out. I would also go ahead and do an OCLT Test. That test will confirm organics or not. As Jason said you my be on the verge of an algae outbreak but your just holding it off. Hard to say without an OCLT.
Like everybody has stated the warmer water temp will increase FC loss. I experience the same thing even where I'm located.

Thanks for the advice i done a OCLT test with no drop maybe there was something and it was at the end of it cause now for the last 2 days its been holding with 4L of 10% the Cl is down to 3 in the mornings then so im using about 4L a day .Before when it was cooler i was using 3L 10% again 3 in the mornings taking it to 6 by adding 3L. But then last week i checked it dropped to 2.5 then 2.0 so i put 6L in each day then it dropped to .5 then on monday i had 0 ( not good i know ) so i added 6L again then 2nd level went back at 4 so added 4L and again today holding at 3 so it seems to of past what ever it was, temp is the same outside is 34-36 water is 29 in direct sunlight all day .Next i think its time to buy a SWG using 90L+ chlorine and having to do a 160 mile round trip to pick it up is getting a bit much so some questions on that next .

 

[pwrstrk]

The SWG may be the way to go. Just remember that it's not a set it and forget it type of thing. Your water has to be balanced for it and you will still have to check FC levels.
Here's an article on them. SWG

 

[smeestu]

The SWG may be the way to go. Just remember that it's not a set it and forget it type of thing. Your water has to be balanced for it and you will still have to check FC levels.
Here's an article on them. SWG

Again thanks for the info time for some more reading they are expensive here in Thailand to buy so im trying to make sure i dont do anything wrong looks like 45g a hour should be ok for my size pool im begining to get a feel for whats going on with the water balance now hopefully seems to work out that ph reaches 7.8 after about 7-8 days then i put 2L of HCL in there drops it back to 7.5 but i check both PH /CL every day havent had to SLAM it in 4 months and the water has stayed crystal clear so im really happy using this method and again thanks to all the work/help from everyone on this forum . Part of me is thinking "if it aint broke" but as i posted earlier the 160 mile round trip to buy the liquid Chlorine plus you got to keep a eye on the manufacture dates here for sure its always about 4 weeks old when i pick it up , it has a use by date for 3 months but you can see it trialing off a fair bit after 8 weeks wouldnt want to use the 3 month old stuff and again heat is a problem here last batch i picked up was sat out the front of the couriers in bright sunlight containers hot to touch and you could see that they had expanded a fair bit so im sure that sort of "care" doesnt help either