Unable to maintain chlorine levels

[medstudy]

Thank you for all your help so far. You are right, I am posting on 2 forums. I posted them at the same time because I did not know which forum is better since I have not even been to a pool forum until I started having this problem.

I have a Hayward sand filter. I dont know how old it is, because we just moved in the house, but my guess is that it is about five years old. It appears to be in good shape, however I do have a concern about it; I notice trace amounts of sand in the "view glass" during backwashing and I notice that my polaris is picking up very small amounts of sand. This makes me wonder if I have a sand "leak" and if so, if that contributes to my problem. My piping is fixed to the filter so it looks like it would take some sawing to get the filter apart to look in.

I did add some algaecide to the pool a few weeks ago. It was the over the counter Aqua Chem stuff that you buy at Wal Mart. Can that do it?

[duraleigh]

Medstudy,

You seem to be bypassing the advice to put chlorine in your pool. Is there a reason for that? Is your water still clear?

Nevertheless, I would suggest you raise your Cl in the evening to 30ppm. Then retest the next morning. If you have lost more than around 2-3ppm, you have lost it to organics in the pool and you must keep killing them.

Bring it back up to around 25-30 each evening 'til your Cl holds overnight and then let it drift down into 4-8ppm range. That cure the issue. To do this correctly you will need a test kit that tests Cl for levels that high and accurate calculations and dosage to obtain the proper level.

[medstudy]

I put 8 lbs of shock today. I checked the level about 2 hours later and it was >5.0ppm so Iam hoping I am there. I will let you know tomorrow. The water continues to be clear, I think because I am being active at putting the shock in.

[medstudy]

This morning the chlorine level was undetectable. I went to the Wal-Mart and bought 10 one gallon jugs of the generic bleach which is 6% sodium hypochlorite. I put in 6 gallons. We will see what happens!

[waterbear]

That should bring you up to 18 ppm chlorine....check your chlorine levels througout the day and if they drop add more bleach. You have to keep doing this until the chlorine is holding...it might take a lot of bleach.

[medstudy]

Just an update. I put 6 gallons of the 6%bleach in this am at about 10am. I rechecked the levels at 3pm and they were down to zero. I only had 4 gallons left so I put it in. It sounds like I am going to have to make another dash to the Wal-Mart

[waterbear]

Keep it up and you will find that you solve the problem!