I've been fighting a cloudy pool for a month. One day it was clear as clean glass the next it was turbid. The first thing I did was run an over night chlorine loss test. The result was 0 chlorine loss between 9 PM and 5 AM. I took the valve off the top[ of the filter and used a water hose to clean the sand and it was incredibility, filthy dirty. I spent over 4 hours cleaning the filter and thought I had cured the problem. After a week the pool was still not clear it was better, but not like it had been. I ran another over night chlorine loss test and again there was no chlorine loss. To make a long story short I just about re-built the filter, added a valve to control the flow rate, ran two more over night loss tests (one lost 0.5 ppm and one lost 1.0 ppm), and still the pool would not clear up after almost three weeks.
Finally out of desperation I decided to shock the pool - loss test or no loss test. At 12:45 yesterday I added enough chlorine to bring the level up to mustard shock level, but went over the target of 24 ppm to 29 ppm. At 1:45 the FC was 23.5 a loss of 5.5 ppm. Since that time I have tested hourly except at night and the chlorine consumption has been between 1.5 and 4.0 ppm/hr and is still being used up at that rate. It's now been 33 hours and almost 30 gallons of Clorox later and the chlorine is still being consumed at 1.5 to 3.0 ppm/hr (good thing I just received more testing chemicals).
I'm not sure what to make of all this - the over night chlorine loss not showing a loss, now the pool is consuming chlorine like crazy and the bottom of the pool is loaded with a white powdery looking particulate that comes up in clouds when ever I brush. The O/N loss tests were ran when the FC was in the 4 - 6 ppm range could that have anything to do with the negative results? The only bathers in the pool have been the wife and I and that is not very often.
Is there anything else I should be doing besides keeping the chlorine level up, brushing the pool, and waiting it out?
Finally out of desperation I decided to shock the pool - loss test or no loss test. At 12:45 yesterday I added enough chlorine to bring the level up to mustard shock level, but went over the target of 24 ppm to 29 ppm. At 1:45 the FC was 23.5 a loss of 5.5 ppm. Since that time I have tested hourly except at night and the chlorine consumption has been between 1.5 and 4.0 ppm/hr and is still being used up at that rate. It's now been 33 hours and almost 30 gallons of Clorox later and the chlorine is still being consumed at 1.5 to 3.0 ppm/hr (good thing I just received more testing chemicals).
I'm not sure what to make of all this - the over night chlorine loss not showing a loss, now the pool is consuming chlorine like crazy and the bottom of the pool is loaded with a white powdery looking particulate that comes up in clouds when ever I brush. The O/N loss tests were ran when the FC was in the 4 - 6 ppm range could that have anything to do with the negative results? The only bathers in the pool have been the wife and I and that is not very often.
Is there anything else I should be doing besides keeping the chlorine level up, brushing the pool, and waiting it out?