I just shocked my pool and now its cloudy!!

[Double_D916]

I have a 13000 gallon plaster pool. We heated it up over the weekend and had quite a few kids swimming. I took a water sample to our local pool store today and he said I needed to add 1 qt of Muratic Acid to the pool, run the pool for 3-4 hours, then I needed to add 1 lb (1 bag) of Calcium Hypochlorite Shock, then run the pool for several hours more. I did all of this and now my water is fairly cloudy. This is the first time I have ever shocked my pool because it is a fairly new pool, about 2 months old. Will this cloudiness go away or do I need to run the pool all night? Not sure what to do here. Thanks for your help!!

-Dave

 

[BoDarville]

Welcome to TFP!

After adding calcium hypochlorite (a.k.a., cal-hypo) to a pool, it is common for the water to turn cloudy. It will eventually clear within the next couple of days. The good news is that this one dose will not harm anything. With that said, I would not get into the habit of using cal-hypo since it adds calcium to a pool and, more often than not, swimming pools have all the calcium they need if not more. Too much calcium can lead to scaling on pool surfaces. The white ring on pool tile is a common calling card of scale. We recommend plain liquid bleach without any fragrances or thickeners for chlorination. Bleach/liquid chlorine has no undesirable side-effects on the water.

The only way to know if your pool could use extra calcium is to test the water with a good test kit such as these Recommended Test Kits and see if your test results fall into the recommended ranges by using this tool: Pool Math.

 

[Double_D916]

Thank you so much for the welcome and for the reply!! I will begin using bleach for sure!

 

[Patrick_B]

Welcome to the forum Double. You're already well covered with Bo's advice, and things will line out shortly for you. Using bleach will give no bad side effects over time like other Chlorine sources can. Glad you found us.