SLAM - Chlorine levels off the charts. Is that ok?

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KHURD306

Member
Jun 19, 2023
8
Philadelphia
Pool Size
8500
Surface
Vinyl
Chlorine
Liquid Chlorine
Hello! I am trying to SLAM (horrible dark green pool for about a week). Had very high CYA so had to drain about half the pool (8500 gallons). We were using chlorine pucks in the pump chlorinator. Finally back to good CYA and was recommended by our “pool guy” to shock. We were really at a loss on what to do at this point after a week. Now the pool is still closed thick murky green, CYA is 50 but chlorine is registering off the charts possibly 30+ (i find these testers to be tough to read lol). Is that ok? Do i just keep running the pump? I have it on recirculate. It’s been a week and I’m exhausted of all this. It’s only our second year with the pool and we just want our son to swim 🤦🏼‍♀️. Thanks for all of your help. This site has been great!
 
Have you considered just totally draining the pool and starting over? 8500 gallons is half or 8500 gallons total?
 
PoolGate said:
Have you considered just totally draining the pool and starting over? 8500 gallons is half or 8500 gallons total?
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8500 total. its 12x24 oval. I have definitely considered this. If I don't see any improvement by tomorrow I think will be our best option. I'm very frustrated b/c we were reco'd to drain 3/4 and we did...but I think we should have done the entire thing b/c the algea issue never went away. Silly newbies! Again we used the chlorine pucks and kept having an issue with our CYA getting way too high. We will be using liquid chlorine from now on.
 
KHURD306 said:
Hello! I am trying to SLAM (horrible dark green pool for about a week). Had very high CYA so had to drain about half the pool (8500 gallons). We were using chlorine pucks in the pump chlorinator. Finally back to good CYA and was recommended by our “pool guy” to shock. We were really at a loss on what to do at this point after a week. Now the pool is still closed thick murky green, CYA is 50 but chlorine is registering off the charts possibly 30+ (i find these testers to be tough to read lol). Is that ok? Do i just keep running the pump? I have it on recirculate. It’s been a week and I’m exhausted of all this. It’s only our second year with the pool and we just want our son to swim 🤦🏼‍♀️. Thanks for all of your help. This site has been great!
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What are you using for shock? If you're at 50 CYA, you don't want to use pucks or powdered dichlor anymore. 50 is a good level and those products will add more CYA and you'll be stuck in the same place you already were.

What are you using to test? For chlorine it is recommended that you use a FAS-DPD test. They can be found on tftestkits.com or elsewhere. It's super simple to read, can't mess it up and it's really to only consistently accurate way to test. CYA testing via the pool store is also incredibly inaccurate. You can see this yourself by bringing three samples in three days in a row...

What is your pool made out of? Plaster, fiberglass, vinyl liner? Either way, the high chlorine is probably fine for now. It's not like you're swimming in dark green water anyway. I would add enough liquid chlorine (bleach) to your pool to add about 5ppm per day until your test kit arrives. Once you have some good accurate numbers to go by, we can help you make more informed decisions about what to add and what to do.

You say your pump is on recirculate...you have a sand filter? It should be on filter, otherwise it is not filtering the water. You should run it 24/7 until you've cleared your algal bloom.
 
tikoh said:
What are you using for shock? If you're at 50 CYA, you don't want to use pucks or powdered dichlor anymore. 50 is a good level and those products will add more CYA and you'll be stuck in the same place you already were.

What are you using to test? For chlorine it is recommended that you use a FAS-DPD test. They can be found on tftestkits.com or elsewhere. It's super simple to read, can't mess it up and it's really to only consistently accurate way to test. CYA testing via the pool store is also incredibly inaccurate. You can see this yourself by bringing three samples in three days in a row...

What is your pool made out of? Plaster, fiberglass, vinyl liner? Either way, the high chlorine is probably fine for now. It's not like you're swimming in dark green water anyway. I would add enough liquid chlorine (bleach) to your pool to add about 5ppm per day until your test kit arrives. Once you have some good accurate numbers to go by, we can help you make more informed decisions about what to add and what to do.

You say your pump is on recirculate...you have a sand filter? It should be on filter, otherwise it is not filtering the water. You should run it 24/7 until you've cleared your algal bloom.
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Hello! I am using the reco'd test kits. I think my chlorine is so high that I can't seem to really see a difference. its dark pink...even if I do the dilution method LOL. so to me its "off the charts".
 
KHURD306 said:
Hello! I am using the reco'd test kits. I think my chlorine is so high that I can't seem to really see a difference. its dark pink...even if I do the dilution method LOL. so to me its "off the charts".
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Sorry, meant to say we did use powdered shock a few days ago but have not since. we have gotten rid of the pucks and bought liquid chlorine now.
 
Can you detail how you are doing the FAS-DPD test? It would be very unusual for a pool to have a chlorine level that high for over a week with no additional chlorine added, and still be murky green with no improvement. So I would like to rule out testing error.
 
KHURD306 said:
Hello! I am using the reco'd test kits. I think my chlorine is so high that I can't seem to really see a difference. its dark pink...even if I do the dilution method LOL. so to me its "off the charts".
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So just to confirm, you’re doing a 5ml sample and it takes over 30 drops?

Have you done a CYA test?
 

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Here are my two latest readings. First is FC, second is TC. This test only takes 5 drops of two different solutions, 5 drops of a 3rd solution for the TC reading. CYA is around 50.

I feel like such a dummy with all of this. I may be committed before I have clear pool water at this point LOL. I also just remembered we have a sand filter.
 

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Something is a bit off here, your signature indicates you have a TF-100 test kit, but you are showing pictures of a DPD tester that comes in a Taylor k-2005 test kit. Why the discrepancy?

The TF-100 comes with an FAS-DPD chlorine test that uses drops to turn the DPD solution from red to clear to get a more accurate and precise reading than the DPD color matching. It can accurately test FC up to 50 ppm with 0.5 ppm granularity. That DPD tester cannot.
 
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Donldson said:
Something is a bit off here, your signature indicates you have a TF-100 test kit, but you are showing pictures of a DPD tester that comes in a Taylor k-2005 test kit. Why the discrepancy?

The TF-100 comes with an FAS-DPD chlorine test that uses drops to turn the DPD solution from red to clear to get a more accurate and precise reading than the DPD color matching. It can accurately test FC up to 50 ppm with 0.5 ppm granularity. That DPD tester cannot.
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I apologize! I was pasting from another signature and did not update that part. Do I need to order the other test to be able to clear up the pool? I will if I need to but I also may just drain the Dang thing at this point too. ugh.
 
If you have a k-2005 then you can just add the FAS-DPD test to bring it to spec.
tftestkits.net

FAS/DPD Chlorine Test Kit

tftestkits.net tftestkits.net

Yes, you need an FAS-DPD test to perform the SLAM Process, but even if you decide to drain instead you will still want to have it available for accurate testing. The DPD test is fine for regular checking but you need to be able to test to a higher degree of precision to find problems when they are still small and stamp them out before they become big problems. The ability to perform the Overnight Chlorine Loss Test, for instance, is immensely valuable to staying on top of anything that might pop up.
 
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tikoh said:
You say your pump is on recirculate...you have a sand filter? It should be on filter, otherwise it is not filtering the water. You should run it 24/7 until you've cleared your algal bloom.
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Ditto this. Otherwise even if you kill the algae, you’re just moving dead algae around.
 
magiteck said:
Ditto this. Otherwise even if you kill the algae, you’re just moving dead algae around.
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thank you. We have been using the advice of the guys that installed our pool. They say recirculate until the algae is cleared so we're not putting algae into the filter. I'll turn the filter on now...I have nothing to lose at this point. Thankful its going to be a rainy weekend so my son isn't constantly asking to go swimming. if we don't see improvement in the next couple days I think we'll drain and start over ugh
 
KHURD306 said:
thank you. We have been using the advice of the guys that installed our pool. They say recirculate until the algae is cleared so we're not putting algae into the filter. I'll turn the filter on now...I have nothing to lose at this point. Thankful its going to be a rainy weekend so my son isn't constantly asking to go swimming. if we don't see improvement in the next couple days I think we'll drain and start over ugh
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Put it on filter...Ugh I wish I could ask that pool guy where he thinks the algae is going to go!

If you drain all the way, your liner is going to shift, and you'll never get it back the way it was. It's a bad idea. Take that time, effort, and money and get your pool clean. Buy the test kit asap as it'll help get you make good decisions.

In the mean time, keep adding bleach, keep brushing, and run the pump on filter 24/7. There's a decent chance that your algae is mostly dead if your chlorine levels are that high and that it just needs to be filtered out. You can't accurately measure pH with FC that high, but do you know what it was before you started?
 
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