New User New Pool - Initial and Rising Chloramine

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Jeremy McGinnis

Member
Jun 23, 2024
5
Bremerton, wa
Hi, Everyone!
Not sure if this is the right forum, but I need help. I bought an el cheapo Coleman (Bestway) 12'x33" pool last weekend and started setting it up in accordance with the recommended chemical values on the back of a cheap (JNW) test strips. Found the Pool Math calculator to figure how much of each chemical I should add, then shocked with Clorox 4-in-1 shock Saturday night. Next morning, total chlorine was at around 3 or 4 and Free Chlorine was zero... so I added some bleach so the kids could swim. That brought my FC up to around 1 or 2 and my Total chlorine to around 5, but figured it wouldn't be too bad for the kids to swim in.
Went and got some Chlorine granules (cal-hypo) and shocked again, adding what should have brought FC up to 12 in accordance with the app in an effort to burn off the Chloramines. Except the next morning showed Free Chlorine at 5 and Chloramines at 20 (as high as the test strip goes.) Purchased a Taylor K-1005 to test chemical comp. but turns out that kit doesn't test chlorine that high, but Free Chlorine does, indeed, appear to be at around 5 ppm. As of this morning, it appears as if the levels have not really dropped.

Turns out my tap water is treated with Chloramines, so I probably should have shocked with an oxidizer before adding chlorine? Should I do that now? Do I have to start from scratch? I feel like I'm chasing my tail with the chlorine.
Here's my chemistry
FC: 5 pH: 7.5 TA: 120 CH: 260 CYA: 40
 
Welcome to TFP!!

First thing to do is get a recommended test kit. You will need it to use the SLAM process and clear the pool. Link-->Test Kits Compared

Add 5ppm of liquid chlorine daily until the test kit arrives. Nothing else.

When your kit arrives, follow the SLAM process. Link-->SLAM Process
 
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Hard to believe you have CC. I know water companies add it, but an hour with the sun shining on the pool surface it should be gone.

If you really have CC, it can irritate their eyes.
 
mknauss said:
Test the FC and CC of your tap water (what you filled the pool with).
Click to expand...
I will when I get home. I am really confused as to how my total chlorine got so high. When I tested my FC yesterday, it showed up slightly darker red than the 5ppm level on the test kit. I tried diluting the pool water to test, but it didn't seem like I got a comparable reading so I'm not sure I did that right and, thus disregarded the results. Apparently Taylor has a video on it, so I'll watch that and perform the test again when I get home. I may just go ahead and purchase that FAS/DPD test for chlorine as well from TFTestkits.
Is it possible it's misreading something else? Interestingly, after I added the bleach on Sunday, my cheap test strips began registering bromine(!?). The strip readings have been saying bromine is increasing to the rate at which the total chlorine has been raising. I have been ignoring that. It's just weird because the strips did not register any bromine on the tests before adding bleach.

The sun is out bright here in Washington today, so I'm interested to see what the chemistry looks like when I get home this evening.
Is this possible?: Unexpected chloramines in tap water -> 1st shock increased those chloramines -> 2nd shock was not 10x the level of then existing chloramines -> added chlorine increased/converted to chloramines due to not reaching breakpoint.
If that's the case, and the reading is correct, it would appear my breakpoint is now 150-200ppm for a 2000 gallon pool. Though SLAM would have me bring levels up to 12 ppm... until problem resides? My concern is that every time I've added Chlorine thus far, it appears to have increased my CC.
 
With a 2000 gallon pool, if you get odd chemistry results, you dump the water and start over.

I would not trust that kit to provide accurate CC readings.
 

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