never ending chlorine demand help

[Watermom]

Here is a little trick to make your test kit show a higher scale. (It does lose a little accuracy by doing this, but it will at least give you a ballpark figure.)

Since your chlorine level is reading above 5, which is the highest reading your kit can handle, you can use a dilution method. Take one part of pool water and one equal part of distilled water. Mix together and pour some into your test vial. Test as usual and then multiply the result by 2. If you find that you are still "topping out" the scale, go higher by taking one part pool water and 2 parts distilled water. Test with this and then multiply results by 3, etc. This will at least give you a ballpark number of how high your chlorine is.

PH at 7.2 is fine, but if it goes any lower, you'll need to add a little Borax to raise it. It must stay above 7.0 or it can damage your pool.

Since you said your cya (stabilizer) level is 60, you'll need to shock up to 20. (Go back and re-read post #2 in this thread where Janet gave you advice about shocking. If you will be very diligent about testing at least twice (and 3 is better) per day and each time, raise your cl level back up to 20, you'll get this pool clear. Keep running the pump and filter and backwash if the filter pressure rises by 8-10 psi over your clean filter pressure.

Hope this helps.

Oh -- by the way -- you don't have any bromine in your pool. You can just ignore the BR on the test block.

[cloudy water]

Ok how long do I have to keep it at 20 I havent gotten it there yet because it has been hot and the kids want in the pool so I havent gotten it up to 20 yet but once I do how long should I leave it there?

[Watermom]

Until you can go with not losing more than 1ppm of chlorine from sundown to sunup, you need to try and keep the sustained high cl reading.

[cloudy water]

Ok I seem to have the CL under control now but e hd a alot of rain and it turned bright green and smells like a lake? I broke down and got a alge destroer and have added about 4 gallons of bleach it is now to a light green but still smells of lake water? Oh I also added 4lbs of baking soda the CL is at about a 15 and ph is 7.2 filter has been running none stop I got in and vacumed and then brushed the walls and bottom I have no slimey spots so what do I do next? Thank You for the help

[Watermom]

Don't add things to the pool that you don't get advice about first here on the forum. I don't know what "algae destroyer" is but the only algae destroyer that really works is chlorine. Please post a complete set of current water testing results. (Did you ever get a good test kit so you can test your own water?)

Then, we'll go from there.

[aylad]

Don't put the algae destroyer in, if you haven't already. I made the mistake of using that stuff in my koi pond one year. NOt only didn't it help, but it made my water very foamy and killed most of my flowering plants AND the fish, even though it advertised that it wouldn't.

Stick with bleach.

Janet

[cloudy water]

ok latest pool store readings

TDS 1100
cya 0
tot chlorine 0.2
free CL 0
ph 7.9
tot alkal 138
tot hardness 309

now it seems I have no stablizer was wondering if there was a stabalizer that didn't come from pool store I have been putting bleach in bt nothing is stayig I guess because of stabalizer problems pool is very green agine and bleah is not helping???