Need help before draining

[rayh78]

Ordered a test kit. The one I have only goes up to 5.0
Could run another sample to the pool store but think it will be about the same.
Been about 2 1/2 days now. And pool is back to being just as cloudy as when I started and before draining 75%.
I guess the mistake was not draining the rest of the way.
Added a gallon of bleach today to try and shock it more.
How long should I wait, before biting the bullet and re - draining the pool but 100% this time?
Hate to waste the water again but the weather is suppose to be overcast the next couple of day and maybe my best time so liner does not dry out. Can drain in 2 hours but take about 12 hours to refill.

Thanks

[aylad]

Adding a gallon of bleach is only raising your FC by 8 ppm. If you look at my post #6 in this thread, your shock level with CYA of 50 is 15-18 ppm, sustained until you can go overnight without losing any chlorine overnight. This requires testing in the evening and again in the morning. If you let the chlorine levels come back down before then, you're not going to clear up the algae that I'm sure is trying to grow, and will have a cloudy pool all summer. You say you added a gallon of bleach to "shock it more"--what chlorine level did you start with before adding the bleach? If you're not testing the water, and maintaining the high chlorine level, it's not going to clear. Fixing water problems isn't an overnight project--it takes awhile for the water to get in the shape it's in, and it usually won't fix overnight.

You can drain/refill water if you want to, but if you continue to improperly chlorinate it, you're going to end up with cloudy water again. Do you have a working gauge on your filter? Does it rise as the pump is running? When is the last time you cleaned the filter?

Janet

[Watermom]

You can use a dilution method to force your kit to read higher. Not super accurate, but better than nothing while you wait on your good kit to arrive.

Testing Without a Good Kit

Test the chlorine this evening (when the sun is off the pool) using the dilution method. Then, add enough bleach to get back to a chlorine level of 15-18 as Janet mentioned above. An hour later, retest your chlorine again using dilution. Tomorrow morning within 2 hours of sunrise, test it again. Report back with how much chlorine you lost overnight. Try and keep the chlorine level at 15-18. The more consistently you can do this, the quicker you can clear up the pool.

Run the pump 24/7 and clean the filter as needed.

All your other readings look fine. I don't think you need to drain. If you can keep the chlorine level high enough and be consistent in doing so, you should be able to clear it.

EDIT --- looks like Janet was posting while I was typing but as you can see, our advice is similar.