no chlorine showing up

Janna · Postby **Janna** » Mon 18 Apr, 2005 10:09

I am so frustrated!!! I have a salt water pool. I have a problem with no chlorine showing up on the test when I know there is chlorine in the pool. I tested my test strips, they were fine. I put shock in the pool and them tested it, Still no chlorine. I have checked ph, alkilinity, conditioner, hardness, salt, everything is fine except no chlorine. Can you have too much chlorine so it does not show up??? Is there some way to test my water other then pool chmenical kits, test strips or taking it in to the pool store because I have done all that and they all say there is no chlorine when I know there is. HELP!! Janna

marko · Postby **marko** » Thu 02 Jun, 2005 18:23

I am having the exact same problem. At first I thought it was because my PH was way too low. So i brought that up yet still I get little to no chlorine reading after I have put a ton of it in. The only thing I can think of is that the pool is saturated and can't absorb any more solids. Other than that I give up. I put 4 gallons of shock in intitially when I opened it up and later the same day got a zero reading. Something is wrong but I can't figure out what.

Help me pleeeeeeeeasssssse.

k8e · Postby **k8e** » Thu 16 Jun, 2005 18:02

has anyone used fertilizer anywhere around you? i had the same problem and it turns out that fertilizer can get blown in the pool by dust and it neutralizes your chlorine. if you keep adding chlorine and test the water 2 times a day-keep adding chlorine until it shows a reading.

Jenna · Postby **Jenna** » Sun 19 Jun, 2005 23:05

I am having the same problem We put 4 gals of chloring in and 3 hrs later it showed just .5 all other reading are fine . This has been going on for a month.

ArizonaRalphie · Postby **ArizonaRalphie** » Tue 21 Jun, 2005 09:24

Me too. But I know I'm having trouble with the generating cell. Just dosn't seem to want to generate chlorine. Even set it on "super sanitize" for three days and NOTHING. See my other post of today.

Ralph

tommy · Postby **tommy** » Wed 29 Jun, 2005 04:52

In my opinion al your have the same problem okay you first need to test that
the chlorine in your pools i know that all you can't test the chlor with your test strips or with your test kits try to put a test tablet DPD 1 to your pools water if the tablet has a pink tail when it is going to the bottom means your pool water has excess stabilizator (ciyanuric acid) that the chlorine is not shown by test kits.
please making be sure test ciyanuric acid the chemical supplier could do it.
And the solution for this you need to drain some of the water of the pool the percentage depending on the the measurement of the stabilizator but half of the water will be good enough. If your water is really much call professionals they will balance it with some kinds of ionizers to deionize it.
I hope the answer will be helpful.

alexo · Postby **alexo** » Wed 27 Jul, 2005 23:56

I can't keep chlorine either. I finally drained the pool 'cuz the pool company suspected Nitrates or Nitrates and a test of the pool water at the local pet store showed both. After complete drain and refill, I don't have either nitrites nor nitrates but after ten days I still can't get any chlorine reading on DPD1 tablets. This after floating 20 1" chlorine tabs and adding about four pounds of shock.

Help!

tawnya · Postby **tawnya** » Mon 31 Aug, 2009 12:41

You need to have the water test for phosphate.......
If you are a salt pool and have no phosphate test the water coming out of the reture jet in the pool.
to see if your salt system is working. if you can't get a chor reading out of the reture jet something is not working in the salt system..
pools

srad · Postby **srad** » Tue 26 Jul, 2011 11:25

I was SO frustrated had the same problems for the last 2 years off and on. I would drain the pool and start over. This year I did something different. I took is a sample to have a $20 water test ran...found out that I had plenty of chlorine...just none of it was FREE chlorine. Bought an $8 gallon of Muriatic Acid and slugged the pool for 24 hours. DO NOT RUN YOUR PUMP! Now vacuum your pool. Then I added cyanuric acid and ran the pump for 3 days. DO NOT SHUT OFF YOUR PUMP. Last step added NO PHOS pool chemical and let it sit for 24 hours. Went out in the morning and it looked like a BOA shed it's skin in my pool. I spent one hour vacuuming it. Waited an hour and vacuumed it again. I have crystal clear beautiful water. Started my salt pump and one hour later had perfect readings. Bottom line...too much phosphorus was in the water, and that stuff is gross. All in all it cost me about $60 for the test and chemicals, but it is beautiful again now and the readings look GREAT! That was almost a month ago...one shock treatment a week and I run the chlorinator for 3 hours each day, don't shut off my pump/filter and haven't had a problem since.

TimboZero · Postby **TimboZero** » Wed 27 Jul, 2011 00:28

I had the same problem this year after a 12 week run of mad sunshine.

Several things can cause this (I am told) some mentioned above but , also so much chlorine that it bleaches out the tester colour before you can read it (can spot this by a short plume of colour from the tab as you drop it in that fades fast) , type of algaecide/clarifier/oxidiser used (e.g. might have hydrogen peroxide in them) which might bleach out the tester colour.

My best bet would be the excessive cyanuric acid (stabiliser) mentioned above , this can be tested with AquaChek strips or at your local pool store with a turbidity test. AquaChek will test up to 300ppm , turbidity test only up to 100ppm (without proportional dilution and good luck getting a store to do that for you). Some say that over 100ppm is ok, others say its bad but, basically it is like having too many players on a football field , the guy with the ball (the chlorine) will find it progressively harder and slower to reach the goal (bacteria etc) as the number of players (CYA in the water) increases. I believe it also screws with readings from both DPD tabs. As said the only cure to this is a drain off but confirm the CYA levels FIRST !

Postby **czechmate** » Fri 29 Jul, 2011 16:39

You guys are getting preoccupied with 5 year old questions.
BTW, the notion, that too much chlorine will bleach out test for chlorine level is absolutely absurd.
On the yellow dye as well as on red dye!

pcbatch · Postby **pcbatch** » Sat 31 Mar, 2012 19:57

will a dirty pool use up more clorine than a clear pool

daisy · Postby **daisy** » Fri 11 May, 2012 20:19

pcbatch wrote:will a dirty pool use up more clorine than a clear pool

Of course it will, it is working to try and clear the pool.

Peter Poolman · Postby **Peter Poolman** » Mon 02 Jul, 2012 10:12

Have you used any chemicals with bromide in them, such as Yellow Out? Once you get bromine in the pool it is difficult to get a reading on test strips. But you should be able to measure the chlorine/bromine residual using an OTO test kit (the yellow kit). If this is OK, don't worry. You have a bromine pool, and whenever you add chlorine, it automatically converts it into a bromine residual in the water.