Need advice

[Brandon Penland]

Around three weeks ago, I had my water tested and got the recommendation to add some muatic acid and shock. It has been cold (Texas cold). Now three weeks have passed and I decided to get the water tested again. The pool is only showing .29 PPM of free and total chlorine. Combined chlorine is 0 ppm. The pool store suggested that I do not need to shock, rather just add tablets. Since it is cold, the tablets are dissolving slowly. In the feeder, there were only 2 1/2 tablets left, starting to dissolve.

Is my problem that I need to just keep the feeder filled with more tablets. I posted a picture below. Obviously, I can fit a lot more tablets in this thing but just did not want to get carried away. Just trying to figure out why the pool is not holding chlorine levels.

I have the dial on the feeder turned all the way up. When I put new tablets in, I make sure the pump presses water above the tablet line before sealing the top.

If anyone out there has advice, I would appreciate it. I just want to be able to maintain the chlorine with the least amount of effort possible.

Thanks, hope everyone is doing well.

 

[Mdragger88]

While using trichlor tablets is easy they do a few things -
*they are acidic so they lower your ph & ta
(If the feeder isn’t the last thing in the line this can damage other components down the line like heaters)
* aside from adding chlorine (which gets consumed daily)
they also add cya (which doesn’t leave unless you exchange water).
The higher your cya the higher your fc needs to be to stay sanitary. It can be hard for tablets to maintain properly as cya increases.
See FC/CYA Levels
For these reasons we recommend using liquid chlorine or a salt water chlorine generator for daily chlorination.
Also, you need to be able to test your pool yourself accurately and more frequently than every 3 weeks. A pool is an expensive investment that requires regular maintenance.
See- Test Kits Compared
&
Pool Care Basics

 

[PoolStored]

I just want to be able to maintain the chlorine with the least amount of effort possible.

Replace the puck feeder with a Salt Water Chlorine Generator.

 

[TinFoilHat]

And stay out of the pool store except to buy liquid chlorine and muriatic acid. Those can be even cheaper elsewhere. Get yourself a TF100 or TFPro test kit and take control!