Famous Chlorine

[aylad]

waskydiver is correct in the following: 1)you probably do need to shock your pool--the continued low chlorine may just be due to something organic that's using it up too quickly, and shocking will take care of that. Raise your Cl to 20 for at least a day, then let it drift back down, but to no less than 5 ppm. 2) Forget all the chems the pool store is trying to sell you, including phosphate remover and Pristine Blue. Pristine Blue is a whole other nightmare that you can read about in the Bacquacil forum, and phosphate remover is just the latest and greatest idea designed to separate you from your money. 3)you do need to stop using the pucks in the chlorinator because your CYA is high enough. Keep in mind that the higher your CYA gets, the higher your baseline chlorine level has to be, and you already have to maintain it at least 5 ppm. There are some exceptions to the recommendation to keep your CYA low, but 50 is high enough that you're if you're already having problems keeping your Cl registering, you're REALLY gonna have problems keeping your Cl high enough for high CYA levels.

However, I'm with Watermom when she says you need to get your pH up ASAP--I"d start with about 4 cups of Borax, dissolved as much as you can in water and then poured down the skimmer. Wait a couple of hours, retest for pH, and then repeat the Borax until you're getting a pH of 7.2-7.6.

Janet

[CarlD]

I concur. You can fix problems with the water later--but too low pH will do PHYSICAL damage to your liner.

Levels of FC for maintenance and shocking for various levels of stabilizer are listed here, in our Best Guess table.

http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthread.php?t=365

Carl

[CarlD]

WaskyDiver,

I'm not sure I can agree with your advice. I certainly would NOT want to put tap water in my pool that's pH 6.5--and I wouldn't want to drink it! I believe acid rain has a higher pH than that. A pH of 6.8 or less can damage your liner.

Generally, I would agree with advice against too much chemicals, but when it comes to Borax and Muriatic Acid, again, I must disagree. Borax raises pH, that's true, but it also adds borates to the water, and Chem_Geek has found that higher borate levels may inhibit algae growth and are fundamentally harmless. And since Muriatic Acid is Hydrochloric Acid, it adds nothing negative to your pool water as long as it doesn't lower pH too much.

There is generally no reason to worry about a T/A of 120 unless you are having real problems maintaining a constant pH.

However, your advice about striving for progress, not perfection is well in line with what we generally advise: use LESS of any chemical than you think you need because adding more is easier than getting rid of something.

[gfritz1]

ok all my helpers update from where I am now.
By aerating assume you mean running pump 100% with cover off ? Have been doing
Have shutoff the chlorinator so no tabs in the system
Yesterday morning added (1) 4lb 12 oz box Borax and (4) 1.42 6% Bleach
Checked at 4:00 and the ph was still very low which is what you all had concern. Added another 4lb 12 oz ------------ 2 hours later still low PH . Added another 4 lb 12oz last night
Check this morning as pump has been running all night using my kit

Chlorine .5
PH 6.8
Alkalinity 170
Hardness 210

Using test strips I had the PH actually might just be approaching 6.8

Does all this make sense ? Assumes as you all had concern my PH was extremely low and after adding almost 15 lbs of Borax still is low . Assume getting PH is still the priority .Out of Borax so will wait for feedback then make a run.Have 3 Bleach but will also hold waiting advise.Water is still crystal clear and with warm PA weather my pool is 82 .Never this early this nice in Western pa

Waiting for next steps

[CarlD]

Get yourself a cheap OTO kit from KMart, WalMart or any pool store and re-test your pH. Don't trust the strips for that!
The OTO kits are pretty accurate when chlorine levels are low (like yours) and get more Borax! They cost $5-$9--no more. If your WalMart has the HtH 5-way drop test kit, even better. It's the best cheap kit out there. Of course a proper FAS-DPD test kit which ranges from $50-$80 is better, but you have to order those.

At this point in time you need to make sure of your pH--and if it's low you'll need one to two boxes of Borax to get it up. If, however, you are reading the strips wrong (and it's VERY easy to do, I assure you) the OTO will give you a much more accurate read.

You need more bleach in your pool as well.

[gfritz1]

I did use a brand new HTH 6 way test kit with the reading of 6.8 this morning .I just used the strip to see what they showed . So will go get more Borax and hit it again .What do you think on Bleach - will add the (3) 1.42 I have so 4.2 gals

[CarlD]

Bleach and liquid chlorine are the same thing in different concentrations.

The Rule of Thumb:
1 Gallon of bleach/LC will add EXACTLY its concentration to 10,000 gallons of water.

So if you add 1 gallon of 6% bleach to 10,000 gallons of water, it will add 6ppm to your FC.

If you double the water, you get half the effect.

Double the concentration (to 12%) and you get twice the effect. (12% adds 12ppm to 10,000 gallons).

Figure accordingly to get to your target FC level.

[chem geek]

Definitely add more 20 Mule Team Borax to get the pH up to at least 7.0 though preferably to 7.2 to 7.5.

Are you starting to get FC readings yet? 0.5 isn't considered a solid reading. If you add chlorine and still aren't getting FC, then I suspect you may have had bacteria convert CYA into ammonia over the winter. Given the low pH, I suspect you were using Trichlor pucks and probably had a CYA level when you closed the pool last year.

If you want to estimate how much chlorine it will take to clear the possible ammonia, you can do a bucket test using 2 gallons of pool water and add chlorine where 1/4 teaspoon of 6% bleach is 10 ppm (1 teaspoon is 40 ppm) until you measure FC that doesn't drop significantly over an hour. You could also get an inexpensive ammonia test kit from a fish/pet/aquarium store though the bucket test is more definitive since there can be more for chlorine to consume than just ammonia.

[gfritz1]

My test kit only measures TC so am I out of luck until get the Taylor 2006???????

I checked my 3 inch chlorine and what was being used was BioGuard Silk Tabs which are tri-chlor as you suspected

Walmart was out of bleach in the 1.42 size tonight so did just add

(1) box Borax to try to raise the PH a little more towards a solid 7.3-------OK ?

(6) 3 quart bottles of 6% bleach.Did you notice all the bleach is now only 3 quarts when you think your getting a 1gal? It was 6%.Hopefully in morning will have more.

Any advise for the attack in the morning ??? I iwll look for response from Ben or Watermom or Chem Geek or Carl or anyone as this thing has me consumed . I had the same problems the last two years and only way to get out of it was a partial drain . It is very expensive as they hit you on the water which is not bad but then the sewer like they are treating the water .

Am about to order Taylor

Waiting for advise

[chem geek]

You should most definitely order the Taylor K-2006 kit you can get at a good online price here. You'll want to test your CYA level as well as the other levels. Any pool store test, especially for CYA, is essentially useless -- they are almost always wrong. In the meantime, why don't you do the bucket test I described to get an estimate of how much chlorine it's going to take to clear your pool.

If your CYA level is through the roof, then you'll need to do at least some partial drain/refill. If it's not, then it may just take a lot of chlorine which the bucket test will tell you.

As for whether you want to continue to add chlorine in the morning, that's up to you. Basically, you only have two choices -- add a lot of chlorine or dilute the water. Any other oxidizer other than chlorinating liquid or bleach is going to cost you more. Dilution will cost you the water and sewer costs though even a partial dilution could be helpful -- it depends on chlorine vs. water/sewer costs. A bucket test will at least give you an idea of how much chlorine you'll need.