Spring Opening after Winter Pill, Free Chlorine over 25 ppm and will not come down

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Spaz163

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Oct 8, 2017
6
Mandan, ND
This is the second year now after using the winter pill that I have had issues getting the chlorine level back to normal come spring. Last year I ended up removing half of the water in my 15000 gallon pool in order to get it back down. FIrstly, why is this happening and how can I prevent it from happening. Secondly, how can I resolve this now without removing 7500 gallons of water or more. The winter pill has worked well for three years now keeping my water clear come spring but this super high chlorine level in the spring that I can't seem to get to come down is a major issue. I do not know the exact number of the free chlorine in the water because once I had added 50 drops to the sample I figure there was no point in going farther.

I use a Taylor FAS-DPD kit for testing and we use a SWG.

So far what I've done this spring was add salt to get back up to 3000 ppm, I made the mistake of adding CYA before checking the chlorine and I brought the PH up from 7.0 to 7.6 with one box of borax.

I greatly appreciate any assistance on this issue.
 
The FC will fall naturally. Sun shining on the pool surface will consume it. Don not add any CYA until your FC falls to within the target range.

I have no idea what a 'winter pill' is ------------
 
I don't think that the pill contains any chlorine.

Are you sure that you're doing the chlorine test correctly?

Verify the procedure and make sure that you're using the correct reagents and run the test to completion

If you want to use less reagents, make a test sample of 1/2 pool water and 1/2 distilled water. Mix well and test the sample for chlorine and multiply the result by 2. Run the test to completion.
 
Thank you for the responses!

The FC was approximately 5 when the pool was closed last fall before the addition of the winter pill.

The tests are being completed correctly with the proper reagents that are not expired. Thank you for the tip on reducing the amount of reagent being used.

I have had the pool uncovered for one week now without adding more cya. And have not seen any reduction in the FC, however, I am not testing above 25 ppm. I have also exchanged out about 25% of the water over the past 3 days.
 
Those things don't have chlorine in them, even if they did they aren't large enough to hold enough chlorine to raise the FC by that much.

That leaves three possibilities in my mind:
1. Something in the pill is interfering with the test
2. The reagents are bad
3. Testing error

Regardless of what is causing it, if you closed with 5 ppm FC and haven't added additional chlorine, you do not currently have chlorine in the pool. Do you have one of those yellow OTO color match chlorine tests? If so, run a sample through there and see if you get any reading.
 
The pill doesn't contain chlorine. So, where would any chlorine come from?

What type of cover do you have?

Do you have OTO reagent that you can use to test the chlorine?
 

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Also think interesting we are on different sides of the world and we are opening pool at similar time! :) Ambient outside temp is not good here though! Still frost at night At times.
 
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