Hello! I am a new pool owner and new to this site! I am not sure who else to ask as my local pool store is probably quite sick of me by now lol. In short: my issue is constantly dropping FC levels despite all other normal tests (salt, CYA, etc) and increasing from 40% to 70% with multiple rounds of shocking. How I do I know what is wrong with my cell? I'm suspecting user error (lol) bc all my lights on the cell are green and when I turn on "superchlorinate" the FC jumps up dramatically.
More background if it helps:
We moved into this house (in FL, in case that matters) in the middle of May. We kept all the previous owners settings (40%, 8h run time) and did no maintenance of the pool for 2 weeks (no tests, no chemicals, no cleaning). In that time, there was constant direct sunlight on the pool during the day, no rain, and high bather load (husband and I went in daily and had ~10 person pool party). We got it tested after 2 weeks and all tests were 100% normal (FC 3.0). Then we got 2 weeks of torrential rain and actually had to drain the pool a bit. All the tests were off then and we added CYA, salt, and shocked the pool. Thought we were back in the clear as everything normalized. But FC kept dropping. We shocked again and increased percentage to 60%. Back to zero. Now, we basically are either shocking or running "superchlorinate" for 24h once a week to keep it clear. This has been ongoing for all of June.
From Tuesday to Wednesday this week: we ran 24h "superchlorinate" and got level from 0.5 to 4.5 at 1 pm on Wednesday (with home test). After 1 pm, pool ran until 6 pm at 70%. Started again today at 10 am, again at 70%. Tested at 1 pm today and was 2.0. I just feel like it is dropping so fast for such a high percentage!
The pool store says we need to increase run time to 10 h but the previous owner said he always keeps it at 10-6 pm for the past 10 years lol. And we personally had a solid 2 weeks of sun + high bather load that was maintaining perfectly at 8h run time and 40%. I would be inclined to just buy a new cell but "superchlorinate" seems to work, indicating it should be working yes??
Other tests recently done: CC 0, pH 7.4, TA 80, CH 395, CYA 60, Salt 3400, no phosphates. I have already cleaned the cell and had a technician come out to look at it and he said it looks fine.
If anyone has any suggestions i would greatly appreciate it! Thank you!
More background if it helps:
We moved into this house (in FL, in case that matters) in the middle of May. We kept all the previous owners settings (40%, 8h run time) and did no maintenance of the pool for 2 weeks (no tests, no chemicals, no cleaning). In that time, there was constant direct sunlight on the pool during the day, no rain, and high bather load (husband and I went in daily and had ~10 person pool party). We got it tested after 2 weeks and all tests were 100% normal (FC 3.0). Then we got 2 weeks of torrential rain and actually had to drain the pool a bit. All the tests were off then and we added CYA, salt, and shocked the pool. Thought we were back in the clear as everything normalized. But FC kept dropping. We shocked again and increased percentage to 60%. Back to zero. Now, we basically are either shocking or running "superchlorinate" for 24h once a week to keep it clear. This has been ongoing for all of June.
From Tuesday to Wednesday this week: we ran 24h "superchlorinate" and got level from 0.5 to 4.5 at 1 pm on Wednesday (with home test). After 1 pm, pool ran until 6 pm at 70%. Started again today at 10 am, again at 70%. Tested at 1 pm today and was 2.0. I just feel like it is dropping so fast for such a high percentage!
The pool store says we need to increase run time to 10 h but the previous owner said he always keeps it at 10-6 pm for the past 10 years lol. And we personally had a solid 2 weeks of sun + high bather load that was maintaining perfectly at 8h run time and 40%. I would be inclined to just buy a new cell but "superchlorinate" seems to work, indicating it should be working yes??
Other tests recently done: CC 0, pH 7.4, TA 80, CH 395, CYA 60, Salt 3400, no phosphates. I have already cleaned the cell and had a technician come out to look at it and he said it looks fine.
If anyone has any suggestions i would greatly appreciate it! Thank you!
I think this makes perfect sense - for some reason, I just wasn't believing I could still have algae after adding 2.5 gallons of chlorine.. lol I see now the required levels to SLAM are much higher!!