No free chlorine, trouble balancing

[aylad]

You are being what we call "pool-stored".

1. Stop using unchlorinated shock, and tell us what the actual ingredient is.
2. Tell us what the actual ingredient is in the Turbo shock that you're adding.
3. Tell us what the actual ingredient is in the "other stuff" you're using.l
4. You can save your money on the Bacquacil Alk up, and just use plain baking soda to raise your alk. In fact, in your case I would use Borax washing soda (same grocery aisle, but I think the box is orange/yello) because it will raise both your TA and your pH at the same time.
5. Your alk and pH are not that far off--a minor adjustment will get them right, but the pH will read falsely high when the Cl is above 10.
6. Part of your chlorine loss is due to sun, since you have no measurable CYA in the water. I would add approximately 3 lbs of stabilizer to a tube sock or old knee hi and hang it in front of your return so it will start dissolving.
7. IN the meantime, get a good drop-based kit and do your own testing instead of relying on the pool store to test and sell you stuff.
8. Stop throwing random stuff at the pool trying to clear it up, you're only going to make things worse. Get 6 gallons of plain, unscented bleach (WalMart generic Ultra Bleach is just fine) and add it to your pool, pouring slowly in front of a return so it won't splash and the return will help disburse it. That should take your FC up to 15 ppm. Test 2-3 times daily to keep the FC at 15 until the water starts to clear. For reference, each 1 1/2 quarts will raise your Cl by 1 ppm. YOu're going to lose a lot to sunlight until you have some stabilizer in the water, and it will take up to 4-5 days for it to register. In the meantime, the more consistent you are about keeping the chlorine at 15, the quicker it will break down whatever the demand is in your water. When you can test at night after the sun goes down and test again in the morning before the sun is on the pool and have no chlorine loss overnight, then you can let your chlorine drift back down to normal--which will be determined by your CYA at that time.


By the way, welcome to the forum!!!

Janet

[Watermom]

When Janet says you are being "pool-stored" she's not kidding! No wonder you are confused. You are getting told to throw everything but the kitchen sink in there!

Just a correction on #4. The washing soda is not Borax washing soda. I think you'll find "Arm and Hammer Washing Soda."

You are going to need to be extremely diligent in your testing and dosing with bleach to clear this up. Like she said, 2 to 3 times a day (and even more than that is ok if you can manage to do it) you need to test your water and shock it back up to 15 with bleach.

A good test kit that we recommend, if your pool store doesn't have one, is the Taylor K-2006 or K-2006C. The "C" is basically the same thing with larger bottles of reagents. Here is a link to a place that seems to have good prices for their kits.

http://www.amatoind.com/taylor-k2006-test-p-555.html

http://www.amatoind.com/k2006c-taylor-test-p-263.html

Hang in there. We'll help you get this pool going. Welcome to the Pool Forum!

[aylad]

Just a correction on #4. The washing soda is not Borax washing soda. I think you'll find "Arm and Hammer Washing Soda."

Thanks for catching this--I had 3 children standing at my elbow with a LONG list of "Mom, can I's?" at the time and got in a hurry.....my bad!!

Janet

[CarlD]

Sapphire:

Listen to Jan and Lisa! As long as you keep going in to that pool store they are gonna keep selling you junk. Sometimes it will be useless, sometimes it will make things worse, and sometimes it will an expensive package of something you can get really cheap like the "Alkalinity Plus" for an insane price. The pool store lady was right--the "Alkalinity Plus" HAS something baking soda doesn't--a highway-robbery price.

Washing Soda raises pH and Total Alkalinity. If both are low, it's good stuff--and it's the same as the fancy pH increasers that pool store lady will sell you--far cheaper.

Pool maintenance is simple, and even clearing up pool problems usually is simple too. But letting you know that is NOT how pool stores make money.