Losing chlorine faster than I can add it

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S

Stukeye

Member
Mar 25, 2021
12
Oklahoma
So I had a fire and lost power to the pool for a month during the hottest month of the year. Pool has been crystal clear the 2 years prior.

Looks like a swamp now.

I dropped my pH to 7.2 yesterday.
Alkalinity a little low at 70
Last time I checked CYA it was around 60

Poured in 7 gallons of bleach to get my FC to 24.

2 hours later I checked and FC was only 5 so I added 5 more.

Had to go to work overnight but when I came back roughly 12 hours later it was back down to 0.

Added 7 more gallons.

Checked an hour later and it had already dropped to a FC of only 13.5

Added 3 more gallons.

Fell asleep for about 4 hours.
Woke up and tested. FC already all the way down at 6 again.

At this rate I'm going to end up spending nearly $1200 and pouring bleach in every 2-3 hours over the next week.

Is it normal to be blowing through chlorine this fast?
 
mknauss said:
When was the last time you checked CYA?

Add enough liquid chlorine to reach 10 ppm, pump on. Test the FC in 30 minutes. Post the result here.
Click to expand...
Last tested cya a couple of months ago. I've added water since but not enough that it would have changed that significantly.

I just added another 6 gallons about an hour ago to get back up to pool maths suggested concentration of 24.

Am about to go test again. Will let you know the results
 
wireform said:
You need to know the CYA of today to know what's going on. If it was ammonia it's gone now that it held FC but you may be losing FC to the UV very fast if just saying if the CYA is 30, any FC above the CYA/FC ratio will burn off quickly and is pure waste.
Click to expand...
Gotcha. I guess I just assumed that with the minimal amount of water I've added since it wouldn't have changed by more than 10%.

Is it possible that my CYA decreased even without dilution? I was under the impression that the level would stay the same other than dilution from topping off pool.

Unfortunately my CYA test was in the pool shed that burned down. I have a new kit coming in Saturday. I suppose in the mean time I'll take a measurement after sundown tonight and before sunrise tomorrow and see if there's a significant difference in how much it's holding.

Right now it seems like on average I'm losing about 8-10 ppm of FC. I misspoke earlier and meant to say the FC was at 3 ppm after 4 hours. It does seem like it burns off at a faster rate during that first hour than it does over the next few though so who knows. Maybe the CYA has somehow been lowered considerably.
 
wireform said:
You need to know the CYA of today to know what's going on. If it was ammonia it's gone now that it held FC but you may be losing FC to the UV very fast if just saying if the CYA is 30, any FC above the CYA/FC ratio will burn off quickly and is pure waste.
Click to expand...
Gotcha. I guess I just assumed that with the minimal amount of water I've added since it wouldn't have changed by more than 10%.

Is it possible that my CYA decreased even without dilution? I was under the impression that the level would stay the same other than dilution from topping off pool.

Unfortunately my CYA test was in the pool shed that burned down. I have a new kit coming in Saturday. I suppose in the mean time I'll take a measurement after sundown tonight and before sunrise tomorrow and see if there's a significant difference in how much it's holding.

Right now it seems like on average I'm losing about 8-10 ppm of FC. I misspoke earlier and meant to say the FC was at 3 ppm after 4 hours. It does seem like it burns off at a faster rate during that first hour than it does over the next few though so who knows. Maybe the CYA has lowered considerably.

I guess I'll find out Saturday.
 
An extended time of 0 FC can create a condition that a bacteria invades and consumes the CYA. The result is ammonia in the water. That ammonia rapidly consumes any chlorine added until the ammonia is neutralized by the chlorine.

The process I requested you to do above is a way to check for ammonia.

Ammonia - Further Reading

www.troublefreepool.com www.troublefreepool.com
 
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mknauss said:
An extended time of 0 FC can create a condition that a bacteria invades and consumes the CYA. The result is ammonia in the water. That ammonia rapidly consumes any chlorine added until the ammonia is neutralized by the chlorine.

The process I requested you to do above is a way to check for ammonia.

Ammonia - Further Reading

www.troublefreepool.com www.troublefreepool.com
Click to expand...
Gotcha. I'll have to do that. Actually found an old test kit that had just enough chemical to test my cya and sure enough it's at an unreadable level. So off to buy some more stabilizer 😐
 
Stukeye said:
Gotcha. I'll have to do that. Actually found an old test kit that had just enough chemical to test my cya and sure enough it's at an unreadable level. So off to buy some more stabilizer 😐
Click to expand...
Don't rely on that test for the CYA. All it'll cause is more aggravation onto of what you going on now when you over shoot the cya .....now it'll be 3X the chlorine due to that. You have only one way to go at it now. Add 5 ppm chlorine daily and wait for the new kit to be in the mailbox. It'll keep the condition from getting worse till you know exactly what your dealing with. No additional stabilizer for now period.
 
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wireform said:
Don't rely on that test for the CYA. All it'll cause is more aggravation onto of what you going on now when you over shoot the cya .....now it'll be 3X the chlorine due to that. You have only one way to go at it now. Add 5 ppm chlorine daily and wait for the new kit to be in the mailbox. It'll keep the condition from getting worse till you know exactly what your dealing with. No additional stabilizer for now period.
Click to expand...
Ah, saw all these a little too late. I only added enough cya to bring it from 0 to 20 ppm, but I left the house for 7 hours and only lost 7 ppm compared to the 8
6-10 per hour that I was losing earlier today.

Luckily after slamming my pool with 0CYA everybhour under the assumption that it was at 60, the pools started to turn a little more blue than brown. So I think that's a step in the right direction
 
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