no chlorine

[kwenghofer]

No matter how much shock or chlorine I add to my pool, my test kit says there is no chlorine (free or combined) The stabilizer level is fine, there is no visible algae. I'm also having problems with keeping my ph up.

[Pooll]

Are you using drops, tablets or strips to measure the chlorine? Often excessive chlorine levels can result in the "bleaching" of the reagent so the test shows nothing but there is too much chlorine in reality.

Low pH causes the chlorine to turn to its active form (hypochlorous acid) too quickly, and it burns itself out or gases off very quickly. Check your alkalinity level to try find the cause of the low pH.

If the pool was recently opened the pool water may have a high chlorine demand and a few more shocks may well "saturate" the water and fulfill the chlorine requirements.

[Rick]

I am also having problems with chlorine but my understanding is that the acid level is too high in my water. This will keep the chlorine from showing up on your testers. They tell me that I need to empty some of my water and add new to see if that will bring it down. My question is does anybody no of any other way to do it with empting water out.

Thanks

[pk4217]

Rick, like Pooll said, TA might do the trick, check it first.

[jb14]

One of our neighbors is also having the same problem and the pool store found that the water was high in phosphates. I'm not sure what treatment they prescribed, but it might be worth having your water tested for that, which is something our pool store doesn't normally test for.