Chemicals great, pool cloudy

[davida7]

FC=5
CC=0
pH=7.8
TA=110
CH=260
CYA=30

My SW pool has been great all summer. About a week ago, I noticed it was cloudy--mainly in the deep end. Chemicals looked great (see above) but the CYA was low for TFP guidelines for a salt pool, so I added stabilizer to get it to about 80. A few days later it was still cloudy, although FC never seemed out of range. So, I picked up some shock at Walmart and brought FC to 22 (CC still 0). Next day, FC still almost 20 so I turned the SWG from 90% to 20%. Next morning=GREEN POOL! Without testing the water, I threw in more powdered shock and the next day, FC 20 with CC 0. Ph was a little high through all this (maybe 8) so I added MA. Brought it to 7.2. It's back up again but my ph always creeps up.

Well, I'm mystified. My water is still pretty green so I guess I will use the SLAM process, but I don't know how this happened. I've had issues a couple of times with algae, but only when my SWG board went out. Everything was going along fine when the cloudy issue surfaced and then everything went south. Any ideas what brought this on? And am I right to start Slamming this afternoon?

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Butterfly]

Yes, start the SLAM process.

You may need to adjust the CYA number (to calculate/use for shock level) if the powder shock was stabilized (usually dichlor). You can use the PoolCalculator.com "Effect of Adding Chemicals" section, near the bottom, to compute the addition.

 

[chem geek]

It also sounds like your bottom circulation may be very poor. You can see if pointing a return downwards helps improve circulation.

 

[davida7]

Yes I saw that bringing it to 21 wasn't enough with the CYA at 80. I will do the overnight test tonite to see what happens

Also never thought about the jets for circulation. I have the dual drain but recently changed some things on one of the deep end jets. Maybe that's my original problem.

Thanks so much for the replies. I'll let you know how things go.

 

[davida7]

Well, I passed the overnight test but water still green. Needed some titrate for chlorine so I went to Leslie and took some water with me. They actually used Taylor test kit and got close to the same results I had with mine, but said my FC was only 15. So I got more bleach and added. I am now at 34. Water still looks bad but maybe a bit better. I'll keep working it.

Question: I have a sand filter and I'm running pump continuously. Will the filter catch the dead algae if I keep sweeping? Or do I HAVE to vacuum to waste?

 

[Tanner M]

The filter should indeed catch all algae if it is working correctly.