Losing chlorine and low calcium hardness

31lorene · Jun 13, 2017

Hi everyone. I just started using the methods in this forum. Here are my numbers.
Fc 6.5
Cc. 5
Ph 7.8 - 8 (have a hard time reading it)
Ta 40
Cya 50
Ch 110
My initial worry was about losing chlorine. Before bed I added liquid bleach to raise it and test this morning. Last night it was 9. First thing in the morning it was at 6.5. Can high ph and low ch cause this? Does a low ch matter? One thing to add...i am in Texas and it's extremely hot! It's at or over 100 every single day. Could this cause chlorine loss?

YippeeSkippy · Jun 13, 2017

Don't worry about calcium... your pool is vinyl and doesn't need any

How does your water look? Any cloudiness or green algae??

Losing chlorine... that may indicate a problem. After you added the bleach last night, did you test again to confirm how much response you got from that last dose?

I think its time for an Overnight Chlorine Loss Test:-->Overnight Chlorine Loss Test and possibly a SLAM -->SLAM Process

Maddie :flower:

31lorene · Jun 13, 2017

The water looks fine. An hour after adding the bleach it was 9. This morning at 7:00 it was 6.5.

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I guess I should slam it. Ill have to look it up.

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Thanks for the links!&#55357;&#56832;

Fingaling · Jun 13, 2017

Yup. Slam is the answer! Using that much chlorine overnight means you have something growing in there... You're lucky: you caught it early before it got green or cloudy, so slam should be relatively short.

Slam means you bring it up to shock level for your cya, according to the chlorine/cya chart. Then you test frequently and add chlorine to always keep it above that shock level. Combine with brushing, vacuuming, and filtering.

You stop slamming when all three conditions are met:
1) clear water
2) combined chlorine (cc) 0.5 or less
3) hold most of your chlorine overnight (lose less than 1.5 ppm overnight)

Th.

Fingaling · Jun 13, 2017

Bring the ph down, before slamming, to 7.2

Chlorine works better at lower ph and your ph test won't work at high chlorine so you need to adjust it first.

domct203 · Jun 13, 2017

Fingaling said:
Yup. Slam is the answer! Using that much chlorine overnight means you have something growing in there... You're lucky: you caught it early before it got green or cloudy, so slam should be relatively short.

Slam means you bring it up to shock level for your cya, according to the chlorine/cya chart. Then you test frequently and add chlorine to always keep it above that shock level. Combine with brushing, vacuuming, and filtering.

You stop slamming when all three conditions are met:
1) clear water
2) combined chlorine (cc) 0.5 or less
3) hold most of your chlorine overnight (lose less than 1.5 ppm overnight)

Th.

Correction:
The three criteria to end a SLAM are:
1)Water is clear and free of algae
2)CC is 0.5ppm or less
3)OCLT result is 1.0ppm or less

31lorene · Jun 14, 2017

Thank you all! I'm just starting the slam process. One thing about these intex pools is there is a flap of extra material on the bottom around the seam. It's hard to get in there to clean it out. I'm sure that's where the problem is.