Cloudy Water Problem / Flocc didn't help / Please Help!

[deathcharge]

Hello all. I hope you all can get me on track.

I have a 24 foot pool with an algae problem that I took care of with two 1 gallon jugs of Kem-Tek Algaecide and Clarifier. All the green appears to be gone but water is very cloudy. I can just see the bottom but barely. So I been using lots of shock and even a gallon jug of liquid chlorine and then another bottle of clarifer by itself! I assumed there were lots of suspended dead algea in the water? My liquid test kit only tests for chlorine and ph. The chlorine side was really really yellow (high chlorine) and the ph side had no red at all meaning my ph is real low.

So I take some water down to my pool store and he confirms I have low ph and No Alkaline. I asked him about a flocc and he said yeah I could flocc it. So I spread out the whole bottle of flocc evenly all over the pool surface using a spray bottle and ran my sand filter on recirculate for about 2 hours to mix it up then turned the pump off and let sit for 24 hours. The flocc did absolutely nothing; the water is cloudy as ever.

Now the PH Plus and Alkaline I bought, the pool store advised me to hold off adding those till After I flocced. He said the flocc would take everything out so add the ph and alkaline after I flocc and vacuum to waste.

What's going on here? The fact that the Ph and alkaline are so low, would it be preventing the flocc from working?

Any Help I would really appreciate! Thanks ahead of time!

 

[woodyp]

We'd really like you to posts the actual test results..even more, we'd like you to order one of the test kits we recommend so you can properly care for your pool.. Impossible to slam your pool with a basic OTO chlorine tester. Welcome to the forum. No reason you can't raise your PH now. Got a CYA level?

 

[Casey]

Welcome neighbor! I'm in Washington Co!

Do yourself a favor and break free from the pool store! Order a TF100 XL test kit (there is a link in my signature) and read tell ABC'S of Pool Water Chemistry and How to SLAM your pool.

If you're ready to take control, we're here to help! You gotta do your homework though!

 

[Charlie_R]

First thing: You need to stop trusting pool stores to help you clear your pool. That is not their job. They exist to separate you from your money when it comes to water maintenance.

As Woody said, you will need a very good test kit. The best value for your money is the TF-100, with the Taylor K-2006 close behind.

Next, you need to start reading in Pool School. See the large button in the upper right of every page here.

Start with the ABCs of water chemistry, then how to properly SLAM your pool. Shock Level And Maintain.

 

[Richard320]

Welcome!

What is happening is that you are at a stalemate with the algae bloom. You kill most of it, clouding the pool with dead, bleached algae carcasses, but the survivors reproduce and you repeat the process the next day. All the bleach you poured in to do battle died for nothing. The floc will be trying to gather up the dead while the battle is still raging.

What you need to do is kill the enemy, all of it. Knock it down and kick it again and again. Never let it get up or even catch its breath. That is the Shock Level And Maintain Process. You have the shock level part down, but not the maintain. Winning one battle does not mean you've won the war.

If you follow those directions explicitly -- and that includes scrubbing ladders, steps, behind light fixtures, you will rid yourself of the algae. And if you then maintain your pool the way we teach in Pool School, you may never have to go through it again. The "weekly shock" will be a thing of the past. It'll be a couple minutes a day and half an hour a week to vacuum. That's it.

The bad news is, to do things the way I described, you need the proper tools, namely, a proper test kit. You can read this article or just skip it and go here and get the TF100 and the XL option, since you will use a lot of the reagent doing a SLAM.

Some inspirational reading, if you remain unconvinced:
http://www.troublefreepool.com/threa...ool-is-winning
http://www.troublefreepool.com/threa...ark-Green-Pool
http://www.troublefreepool.com/threa...st-give-up-Can
http://www.troublefreepool.com/threa...glorious-swamp!
http://www.troublefreepool.com/threa...28-TFP-Success
http://www.troublefreepool.com/threa...gross-numbers) Look at posts 36 & 37!!

 

[deathcharge]

Hello everyone and thank you for your responses and the welcome!

I looked at the test TF100 XL test kit for $81 and BBB method ( one fellow used over 40 gallons of bleach! )

I started thinking to myself I've had a pool for many many years with no trouble just keeping the skimmer filled with chlorine tablets. I never ever took a reading of any chemical levels! This all seems pretty overwhelming with all these readings and 55 gallon drum of bleach (exaggerating!) This is the very first problem I've had across years of problem free clear water. No disrespect to all knowledgeable people here as I believe your methods work fully. However isn't there a lazy man's way of achieving the same or next to same result? An 80$ test kit of which I probably won't even be able to read the results from pushes me away. Some of the amazon reviews said they were somewhat technical people and it was still a pain to get a reading and understand.

I just want my water clear as it has been for approx. 20 years and I never had to even grasp the idea of CYA . FC. CC, and so on. By the time I buy the test kit, gallons of bleach, take 100 readings, adjust this and adjust that. couldn't I just drain my pool and refill? Seems like a lot less complicated and frustration free; that way I can resume my lifetime of blissful ignorance towards pool chemistry.

 

[Smykowski]

Welcome to the forum!

You have to decide what you want to do. The good kit is an upfront investment that will pay for itself many times over. But if you aren't willing to learn, it won't work, and you won't get much help from us. Our philosophy is to understand your pool and what's going on in it, then fix only what needs fixing.

I don't mean to be harsh, but once you learn a bit, TFPC is the easy way. The pool store (or in your words, the ignorant way), is merely guessing, crossing your fingers, and hoping for the best.

 

[diehardcowboy]

I'm pretty new here, just ordered my test kit, so definitely not an expert, but I'll give an guess that your cya is near 0. I just had the same problem, algae out the wazoo, and kept shocking and shocking, backwashing...still kept coming back, and the walls of the pool weren't looking too pretty either. My test strips said the cya was zippo, so I went and bought some, put in in a sock near the skimmer and it seems to have made a difference already. Also, I don't know about sand filters, but when I my Kreepy Krauly has sucked in a bunch of dead algae I have to backwash the filter, because the algae is still in the filter. You can even see the green stuff when the backwash is going on in the siteglass in my filter thingy. Good luck. BTW I've had my pool for over 20 years also and just used test strips and chlorine, but I'll bet I wasted alot of money over the years. Love this site.

 

[poobears]

No one here is going to tell you that this way is the only way, of course you can do other methods. But as you are finding out most have their limits and eventually you are opening your wallet more than your pool. If you don't want to put the time into testing and the initial treating, then 5 minutes or so a day to keep it up this is not the method for you. I bet you have spent way more than $80 on pool store supplies and left you with an unusable pool. If water isn't very expensive for you and you don't have a massive pool draining and refilling is an option but eventually you will be right back where you are now when your levels build up. You might get lucky and have several years of clear water or you may be doing a redrain and fill by the end of the season, no way to know.

You have to do whatever is best for you, good luck with whatever you choose. Just keep in mind no one here can help if you go the pool store route, you'll need to consult with them since they will be the ones telling you what to put in it.

 

[bridgman]

I started thinking to myself I've had a pool for many many years with no trouble just keeping the skimmer filled with chlorine tablets. .... However isn't there a lazy mans redneck way of achieving the same or next to same result?

What you have been doing (tabs and not much else) is the closest thing to that lazy man's way, and it does work for a while until CYA levels build up and things go bad. At that point you either spend a ton of money and probably end up draining/refilling anyways, or just drain & refill as soon as problems appear.

Note that depending on pool construction & water table level doing a full drain refill can cause other problems -- I *think* this is why people end up spending a ton of money at the pool store rather than just draining/scrubbing/refilling when things go bad.

So... I'll define "lazy man's way" as using tabs & not much else, doing a partial drain/refill at least once per season to delay problems from CYA buildup, and either doing a full drain/refill or giving your wallet to the pool store if/when things finally go bad.

If you live relatively "up north" (which you do) where your pool season is shorter and water is cheaper that might be OK, but for folks with longer seasons, more expensive water or pools which can't be emptied without risk of damage the idea of draining & refilling when problems happen (which they will) isn't really practical and TFPC starts to look mighty attractive.

I guess the closest thing to a "middle ground" would be to add an SWG (salt water chlorine generator) to your pool, which would take care of day-to-day chlorine requirements. You would still need to test regularly and tweak occasionally, but honestly you should be doing that with tabs as well. It depends on the range of water quality you're willing to put up with.

Anyways, as others have said it's a bit of an either-or between TFPC and pool chemical industry practices (referred to as the pool store way). The pool store way works most of the time but eventually you'll have problems, although if you have leaks or heavy splashout or do a partial drain/refill every season you can go a long time between problems. If you want to stop the problems from happening, TFPC is probably the easiest way to do that but it does require a bit more attention because you are preventing problems rather than reacting to them.

re: your current situation, sounds like the shock has killed a lot of algae so your filter will eventually get that out, problem is that you *probably* haven't killed it all so it will keep growing back. My understanding is that algaecide doesn't generally help much with killing a bloom once it has started -- at this point it's really a matter of keeping a sufficiently high chlorine level long enough for every last bit of algae to be killed. Having a good test kit makes that a predictable process -- otherwise all you can really do is "nuke it from orbit" -- throw in a ton of chlorine and hope it was enough, then keep repeating if it wasn't (filtering out a ton of dead algae every time). Since you've been using tabs and CYA is probably really high already, liquid shock would cause you fewer problems in the future.

The folks here are really knowledgeable and happy to help, but since all of the "good experience" is based on accurate test results it's really hard to help without them. Pool store testing seems to vary widely depending on the store, the day and the person doing the testing. At best you get a knowledgeable person using the same type of kit the folks here are recommending, but generally the accuracy (and hence usefulness) of the results is a lot worse.

Don't know if this helps or makes things worse

 

[woodyp]

Hello everyone and thank you for your responses and the welcome!

I looked at the test TF100 XL test kit for $81 and BBB method ( one fellow used over 40 gallons of bleach! )

I started thinking to myself I've had a pool for many many years with no trouble just keeping the skimmer filled with chlorine tablets. I never ever took a reading of any chemical levels! This all seems pretty overwhelming with all these readings and 55 gallon drum of bleach (exaggerating!) This is the very first problem I've had across years of problem free clear water. No disrespect to all knowledgeable people here as I believe your methods work fully. However isn't there a lazy man's way of achieving the same or next to same result? An 80$ test kit of which I probably won't even be able to read the results from pushes me away. Some of the amazon reviews said they were somewhat technical people and it was still a pain to get a reading and understand.

I just want my water clear as it has been for approx. 20 years and I never had to even grasp the idea of CYA . FC. CC, and so on. By the time I buy the test kit, gallons of bleach, take 100 readings, adjust this and adjust that. couldn't I just drain my pool and refill? Seems like a lot less complicated and frustration free; that way I can resume my lifetime of blissful ignorance towards pool chemistry.

Thanks for stopping by. Good luck!