ammonia problem

[Dave A]

Thanks for all the posts everyone. I have a 44,00 gal pool with ammonia so high that I have drained more than 60% of water and refilled and still too high to treat. Tonight I am draining my concrete pool as completely as I can and refilling. At our current water rates that will run me less than $200 and I get a clean start to everything.
I initially shocked the pool hard when it was to cloudy to see 18"down and then got the chlorine locked up and had no choice.
I checked into cost of adding 35% hydrogen peroxide to fix it, but that is well over $200 plus is very hazardous I guess.
My pool store says "The solution to pollution is dilution." Cute but my dilution didn't get it.
Good luck and thanks for the informative posts.

[NEOLAB CYPRUS]

I would suggest that you check whether you or the maintenance people are using sodium thiosulphate to reduce the chlorine. If so the chloramine concentration in the swimming pool will react the sodium thiosulfate and release ammonia. However in order to have chloramines in your swimming pool it means that nitrogen conatining compounds are entering your pool. Possible sources might be:
1. Urine from swimmers or other animals
2. To many swimmers - sweat.
3. Your water contains urine levels because it is contaminated or it contains high levels of nitrates.

if it is a private pool with not too many swimmers,I suggest that you check your tap water for total nitrogen.

[Jom]

We have had a similar problem. Our vinyl liner pool is registering very high for Ammonia (6 to 8 ppm).The water was cloudy when we opened up and instead of shocking immediately once the pool was opened we waited a couple of days. We have drained it thrice and there is only a marginal reduction of ammonia. The ammonia test looks more blue than green. The pool is absolutely clear and beautiful now and you wouldn't know that there is any ammonia present. We shocked the pool and put three chlorine tabs in the dispenser to clear it up after draining it three times. It is even retaining free chlorine which is really confusing. There was a fine layer of silt in the pool and the pool people are going to check where that is coming from. The ammonia test is so high though. The pool people recommended draining it twice more before they came out to get rid of the ammonia but the fact that we drained it thrice without any reduction leaves me wondering if that would help at all. Really confused! I thought that maybe we would drain it and have the pool guys treat it when half drained and then refill.