Can't keep clorine level up.

[finaddict]

I have an 18' round intex pool with about 3 1/2 feet of water. I had an algae out brake. I killed the algae and removed it from the pool along with some of the water. I refilled the pool, adjusted the ph, added stabilier contitioner along with stabilizer tablets in floater and shocked the pool with 3 quarts liquid chlorine. I tested the water the next day and had 0 chlorine. I have since shocked the pool every night for the past 3 nights and still have 0 chlorine in my pool and now the water has a tent of green to it. Can some one PLEASE HELP me?

[Guest]

[quote="finaddict"]I have an 18' round intex pool with about 3 1/2 feet of water. I had an algae out brake. I killed the algae and removed it from the pool along with some of the water. I refilled the pool, adjusted the ph, added stabilier contitioner along with stabilizer tablets in floater and shocked the pool with 3 quarts liquid chlorine. I then added an algicide. I tested the water the next day and had 0 chlorine. I have since shocked the pool every night for the past 3 nights and still have 0 chlorine in my pool and now the water has a tent of green to it. And I run the filter pump 24/7. Can some one PLEASE HELP me?

[chem geek]

So, 18' I presume is the diameter so that with a 3.5 foot depth is 891 cubic feet or 6660 gallons. 3 quarts of 12.5% chlorinating liquid would raise the Free Chlorine (FC) level by 14 ppm, but perhaps the chlorine you are using is weaker, say 10%, or is bleach at 6% which would only raise the FC by 7 ppm. At any rate, depending on the amount of Cyanuric Acid (CYA) stabilizer you added, you might need more chlorine. You may have too high a CYA between the stabilizer you added and the additional Trichlor tabs/pucks. Do you know what how much weight of stabilizer you added?

I would just keep adding the chlorinating liquid until the chlorine holds and you need to do this several times a day -- not just once a day. The algae will use up the chlorine very quickly during a bloom so you need to get ahead of the algae, but we are shooting in the dark here for what chlorine level you need to maintain because we don't know your CYA level.

You also need to get yourself a good test kit, the Taylor K-2006 you can get from Taylor here or from Leslie's here or the even better TF100 kit from tftestkits here. With a complete set of numbers, people here can help you. I suspect your CYA levels are high which means it will take high chlorine levels to kill the algae, but exactly what chlorine level depends on the CYA level -- hence, testing is required. And I would not trust pool store's for that testing.

Richard