I suspect that one of our friends children pooped in the pool. If all my chemicals are properly maintained and I am not seeing any combined chlorine when I test am I ok Orr is there an action I should take?

Question:

I suspect that one of our friends children pooped in the pool. If all my chemicals are properly maintained and I am not seeing any combined chlorine when I test am I ok Orr is there an action I should take?

Answer:

If we are discussing formed stool, you are probably ok. However, if it is not solid, you may want to consider raising up the free chlorine level close to 20 ppm for around 24 hours to make sure you have killed the protozoas that can be present in loose stools like cryptosporidium and giardia. These are somewhat chlorine resistant and even though your combined chlorine levels show ok, you can still have a lingering problem as these contaminants take much longer for chlorine to kill and they do not show up as combined chlorine.