New, and the test strips say chlorine keeps disappearing ...

Jul 9, 2018
6
Clarence, NY
Hello all!

My husband, 17 month-old and I (a clinical pharmacist) recently moved into our forever home, complete with our first pool. After some perusal on here, and some massive frustrations trying to balance our pool, It looks like the $200 in pool chemicals that our local pool supplier sold us may be quite the overkill, and possibly not quite what we need anyway ....

Looks like the strips that we've been using may not be the best resource, per this site, and I'm about to plunk down another $70 to get the Taylor 100 kit. We had algae, and lots of sediment, after our post-winter opening last month. We seem to have gotten *most* everything stable and in the desired range (again, per the test strips), but our chlorine keeps disappearing, even though we have the 3" pucks floating at all times. When we shock the pool with the appropriate packs of granular, non-chlorine shock, the chlorine level skyrockets for a day or slightly more, then disappears again. I have 2-3 pucks in the floater, and feel frustrated. We have yet to enjoy our pool, as we can't seem to get that chlorine under control and I do not want to expose my little one to massively over-chlorinated or way under-chlorinated (the germs! the germs!!!) pool water.

Any off-the-cuff suggestions until I can get some good numbers from the kits? Am I being paranoid about the water? It looks clear and barely smells of any chlorine at all (which is probably correct, from what I see), but I don't want anyone getting sick.

Thank you kindly for your attention, and happy swimming, all! :)
 
HI and welcome!! Good for you for finding TFP and knowing right off the bat you need a test kit. The $70 spent will save you much more than that in the long run!!!

I am going to share a link with you that shows the basic pool care for the pool: Pool School - Basic Pool Care Schedule Once you get your pool dialed in you will be able to adjust this schedule to fit your lifestyle.

For right now please stop using any kind of solid chlorine such as bags of shock and pucks. Those are just adding more CYA (cyanuric acid) aka stabilizer to the water. CYA is needed but too much will make it harder to have enough FC (Free Chlorine). Here is a chart to help you understand the relationship between FC and CYA: Pool School - Chlorine / CYA Chart

Look around your area for liquid chlorine. Some pool stores sell it. You put a deposit down on the yellow jugs and just stop by to exchange them when you need to. For the most part the chlorine is 11% or so. If you do not have a convenient pool store Walmart has "pool shock" that is in white jugs that is around 10%. You can also get liquid chlorine from Lowes and Home Depot BUT make sure to check the date codes!!! These stores are not known for a high turn over so the chlorine gets "old" and degrades to water. You do not want it older than 3 months if you can help it!

Until you test kit gets there you can add 1/2 gallon a day to your pool to start killing the algae you see. You do need to brush the pool at least once a day (try to twice if you can) to get it up and out into the water so the FC can kill it.

I hope this helps you get started on having a Trouble Free Pool!!! Once you get over this hump it really will be easy!!!

Kim:kim:
 
Wow, thank you kindly for the prompt and thorough reply! :)

I have one more question for this thread, if I may: I got the pool brushed twice, and the FC pretty high all day (per the strips, that is ... waiting on the test kit delivery), so I'm assuming the new sediment-looking deposits on the bottom of the pool (looked a bit like small, scattered clumps of sand) are the algae corpses that didn't get picked up by the filter? I didn't have an opportunity to vacuum before I went to work tonight, so since the bottom looked a bit "dirtier" tonight, and I tested the chlorine twice, which came up high each time ... I'm probably heading in the right direction?