Zero chlorine in closed pool

[Envieddesigns]

Good day all,
I’ve closed the pool a little over two weeks ago and in doing a checkup on my water the chlorine is zero. Temp 60. So I go about adding chlorine to the water? In all my 17 yrs I’ve never checked the water after closing and this year I thought I’d keep an eye on it to avoid it from turning on me by March-April like it did on me last yr.

 

[Bperry]

Good day all,
I’ve closed the pool a little over two weeks ago and in doing a checkup on my water the chlorine is zero. Temp 60. So I go about adding chlorine to the water? In all my 17 yrs I’ve never checked the water after closing and this year I thought I’d keep an eye on it to avoid it from turning on me by March-April like it did on me last yr.

Yep. Get chlorine in there assuming you’re testing with one of the recommended test kits.

 

[Mdragger88]

Do you have a submersible pump/cover pump? If so use that to mix liquid chlorine up & brush the area well. Obviously avoid the cover & pool surfaces.
Before hand you may also wanna use the pump to mix things up before grabbing a sample. Perhaps the water has stratified and there’s some still in there.
Looks like you closed with 15ppm unless you’re lc was degraded. You didn’t log a result after your last addition.

 

[Envieddesigns]

Do you have a submersible pump/cover pump? If so use that to mix liquid chlorine up & brush the area well. Obviously avoid the cover & pool surfaces.
Before hand you may also wanna use the pump to mix things up before grabbing a sample. Perhaps the water has stratified and there’s some still in there.
Looks like you closed with 15ppm unless you’re lc was degraded. You didn’t log a result after your last addition.

Thanks, I do have a submersible sump pump, with a short hose that acts like a snake when I dump it in the pool, I don’t put a cover on my pool over the winter so I usually don’t get much of debris since we don’t have trees. Maybe some minor leaves from neighboring trees which I pick out. Yes I didn’t notate my last water test or 3, I had checked it a few days after that 2gal dump. And I threw in the poly quat. We have one of those odd 3 day warm ups tomorrow being the third days and I thought let me check the chlorine. I know it’s not significant enough for the water to warm up but thought I’d check. I do have to return two empty 5 gal drums. Not sure if I should bring a 2.5 gal from pool store to use for now until the water freezes up or just buy some at the grocery store.

 

[Bperry]

Thanks, I do have a submersible sump pump, with a short hose that acts like a snake when I dump it in the pool, I don’t put a cover on my pool over the winter so I usually don’t get much of debris since we don’t have trees. Maybe some minor leaves from neighboring trees which I pick out. Yes I didn’t notate my last water test or 3, I had checked it a few days after that 2gal dump. And I threw in the poly quat. We have one of those odd 3 day warm ups tomorrow being the third days and I thought let me check the chlorine. I know it’s not significant enough for the water to warm up but thought I’d check. I do have to return two empty 5 gal drums. Not sure if I should bring a 2.5 gal from pool store to use for now until the water freezes up or just buy some at the grocery store.

If you dosed a large amount of chlorine and then polyquat you have have destroyed the polyquat which used up all that chlorine you had. Having test results you can share is super helpful in giving advice though. If you have them, post them.

 

[Mdragger88]

The norm is fc 1/2 way between slam & target before adding polyquat. As mentioned higher fc levels will just deteriorate the polyquat quickly.

 

[Envieddesigns]

The norm is fc 1/2 way between slam & target before adding polyquat. As mentioned higher fc levels will just deteriorate the polyquat quickly.

Ok I went back to my ring camera to check when I did what. So Oct 9th is when I put the chlorine in. I can remember that testing next day I was at 12 FC. I let that circulate and didn’t put poly quat in until Oct 15. My FC then was 4ppm. I don’t think I sacrificed the poly quat.

 

[Bperry]

Ok I went back to my ring camera to check when I did what. So Oct 9th is when I put the chlorine in. I can remember that testing next day I was at 12 FC. I let that circulate and didn’t put poly quat in until Oct 15. My FC then was 4ppm. I don’t think I sacrificed the poly quat.

If you lost 8ppm chlorine in three days at this time of year that’s suspect for algae. I’m losing maybe 1ppm per day right now and it’s high 70’s here.

 

[ajw22]

Adding chlorine on top of the PQ60 will degrade and eat up the PQ.

If you want PQ protecting your pool over the winter then leave it alone.

If you add chlorine then you should add additional PQ60 when you will no longer add chlorine for the winter.

 

[Envieddesigns]

Can I take a water sample and check for cc even though the fc is 0?

 

[Texas Splash]

Can I take a water sample and check for cc even though the fc is 0?

Any water testing now will be questionable since your system has been down (closed) for a couple weeks now.

 

[Newdude]

Can I take a water sample and check for cc even though the fc is 0?

As said above, don't trust unmixed water.

To answer the question, FC being consumed makes CCs. With 0 FC there is no process/reaction going on so there won't be any CCs either. Unless the CCs haven't burned off yet, say, you hit zero FC last night and the sun hadn't come up yet.