Green to…teal?

[katie.e.mccall]

Hello all. I have a 22k galloon pool with sand filter and vinyl liner. We’ve owned our house for 2 summers now so I’m still learning the ropes. We left for a week vacation last week and despite shocking the pool (2lbs of the granular Clorox trichlor stuff) and leaving pucks in the chlorinator we came home to a DARK green swampy pool. I was at a loss to why this happened and before pulling my hair out I stumbled onto this website and read about slamming. Saturday (6 days ago) I tested our water (with Crud strips but that’s all I have currently) and it had low/no free chlorine,low/ no combined chlorine and low/no stabilizer. Ph was 7.2, hardness was fine and alkalinity was low-ok. I poured in two gallons of liquid chlorine, brushed the sides and bottom of the pool. I’ve run my pool robot daily. Next morning I tested and chlorine was higher but still low, so that night I did the same thing with the 2 gallons. Since then chlorine has remained “high” (they list 10ppm) which is the correct number according to the pool
Math app (figuring my cya is 20 since I don’t have an exact #). I’ve backwashed daily and have passed the OCLT (at least as accurately as I can figure- test strips read high at night and high next am). BUT the pool remains kind of teal/not blue and is cloudy like you can’t see the bottom.

Apart from getting more accurate test kit (which I’ve ordered), what am I doing wrong here/should I be doing differently? It seems like after 6 days there would be more improvement with SLAM levels consistently through that? Sand in our filter was changed last summer because we had issues with cloudiness. We run our filter 24/7.

 

[VinnyinNJ]

Hi and welcome!

The problem may be you have the wrong info from the test strips. Using Trichlor (Clorox and pucks) raises the CYA in a pool a lot so you may have more CYA in the pool than you think you do. Or you may not have enough. SLAMing requires adding chlorine regularly, if you tested in the morning and didn't add anything all day it may not be the same level once you add at night. At this point I would say until you get your kit to add enough chlorine (if you assume 20 PPM CYA) to maintain 10 PPM chlorine until you get your test kit and you get accurate numbers. If you can add some all day long, if not maybe in the morning, then when you can early evening and then before bedtime ... use pool math to estimate what the highest SLAM level should be and try to guesstimate how much chlorine you need.

Once you get your test kit, post a complete set of test results and better advice will be able to be given.

 

[Bperry]

Hello all. I have a 22k galloon pool with sand filter and vinyl liner. We’ve owned our house for 2 summers now so I’m still learning the ropes. We left for a week vacation last week and despite shocking the pool (2lbs of the granular Clorox trichlor stuff) and leaving pucks in the chlorinator we came home to a DARK green swampy pool. I was at a loss to why this happened and before pulling my hair out I stumbled onto this website and read about slamming. Saturday (6 days ago) I tested our water (with Crud strips but that’s all I have currently) and it had low/no free chlorine,low/ no combined chlorine and low/no stabilizer. Ph was 7.2, hardness was fine and alkalinity was low-ok. I poured in two gallons of liquid chlorine, brushed the sides and bottom of the pool. I’ve run my pool robot daily. Next morning I tested and chlorine was higher but still low, so that night I did the same thing with the 2 gallons. Since then chlorine has remained “high” (they list 10ppm) which is the correct number according to the pool
Math app (figuring my cya is 20 since I don’t have an exact #). I’ve backwashed daily and have passed the OCLT (at least as accurately as I can figure- test strips read high at night and high next am). BUT the pool remains kind of teal/not blue and is cloudy like you can’t see the bottom.

Apart from getting more accurate test kit (which I’ve ordered), what am I doing wrong here/should I be doing differently? It seems like after 6 days there would be more improvement with SLAM levels consistently through that? Sand in our filter was changed last summer because we had issues with cloudiness. We run our filter 24/7.

Wlecome! General consensus on what to do without a test kit is to add 5ppm worth of liquid chlorine each day until the kit arrives. That way it keeps things from getting worse and doesn’t do any damage.

A green pool generally isn’t cleared up in only 6 days especially without being able to test accurately. so time it’s not surprising.

Would also help to post a picture of the water. Teal colors might indicate copper contamination and those Clorox pucks usually contain copper so it may be related. Stay away from those in the future.

 

[katie.e.mccall]

Ok thank you guys. Turns out my dang CYA IS 72! Those Clorox strips were saying it was 20 consistently (feels REALLY scammy since all their products have CYA). Free and total chlorine today was 8. Pool is more blueish teal than it was but still super cloudy. pH js 6.7 and alkalinity is 40. I’m thinking I should backwash/waste and add fresh water to reduce my CYA?

 

[Bperry]

Ok thank you guys. Turns out my dang CYA IS 72! Those Clorox strips were saying it was 20 consistently (feels REALLY scammy since all their products have CYA). Free and total chlorine today was 8. Pool is more blueish teal than it was but still super cloudy. pH js 6.7 and alkalinity is 40. I’m thinking I should backwash/waste and add fresh water to reduce my CYA?

Post all your test results from the kit. CYA is measured in 10’s. So 50, 60, 70, etc.

 

[katie.e.mccall]

Sorry that was a weird typo. Here are results:
FC: 8
CC: 0
pH: 6.7
TA: 40
CYA: 70
CH: 150