Pool Opened Green, turned white Cloudy will not clear

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Now that you have you test kit.......and I don't know how much chlorine you have put in recently to get that high I would highly recommend doing the OCLT (overnight chlorine loss test tonight). It will give you more practice at doing the tests and begin to give you an understanding of what is happening in your pool.....combined with an understanding of what is in pool school regarding shocking and ABC's of water chemistry.

But......that's me. I'm an over-tester.....because I want to confirm and understand. When I had gestational diabetes my Dr. Had to tell me on numerous occasions to not check my blood sugar so often ( I guess she thought it was causing me stress) but I just wanted to understand what foods had what effects. Same today with my pool.
 
Smykowski is giving you sound advice, if you drained half your water and that brought your CYA down to 60, then you would have had a lot of difficulty maintaining shock levels prior to your drain when you were at 120. Having read this web site for the past year (since I inherited a pool) having too high CYA is an extremely common problem.

Also, be sure you did the CYA test properly as it can be a difficult one at first. I usually pour the solution back and forth a few times and take the average of my results, and best advice from the extended test kit directions is to do the test in the afternoon, back to the sun, with the tube at waist level. It can make a difference.

I usually only test FC and PH frequently and can get those done in a few minutes, you will too once you get the hang of it. Keep things at shock level while you brush and let the filter do its work.
 
joshs2000ss said:
mihalakj said:
Ok, so got the test kit, and let me tell you - doing the full test sucks. it takes about 1 hour to complete if done carefully.
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You will get much quicker at it. Plus, you don't do the full test each time. Did you get the stirrer?
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You'll get much much much quicker at it! I use the speed stir and it takes me about 10 mins. to fully test my pool and hot tub. One thing that helps me is i use my original CYA reagent bottle, with the little squirt tip on it, to collect a water sample, it's holds enough for all the tests and rinsing, and it allows me to fill the containers to the appropriate levels very quickly or a drop at a time.....
 
1. FC: I find it hard to believe that your FC is actually 45ppm. How many drops did it take to turn the solution from pink to clear? For a true reading of 45ppm you would have used 90 drops.

2. pH: High FC levels contribute to false HIGH pH readings but you're getting a LOW reading. This means your pH is likely much lower than 7.2. This could be your main problem. Do you have any readings from a simple 2-way kit or even the pool store from before you added any "shock" products?

mihalakj said:
Ok, so got the test kit, and let me tell you - doing the full test sucks. it takes about 1 hour to complete if done carefully. Here are the numbers I recorded from the test:

FC = 45ppm
CC = 0ppm
TC = 45ppm
TA = 110
CH = 520
CYA = 60
pH = 7.2

What next?
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I can't wait to see how this saga ends. I am swimming upstream with 7, 646 gallons of cloudy water. Opened up to a green pool, but what's weird is that when I pull a water sample from my pool, it looks crystal clear. I have vacuumed twice and brushed it once. Reading this, I will brush more often. Did a few backwashes for only a minute or so and have good flow. I took some reading midafternoon and will resume with evening tests.

I think the most important ingredient in this whole mess is patience. And you won't find that at the pool store either :wink:

I hope it's simply a waiting game for both us.

BTW, keep in mind that stores are now selling smaller bottles of heavier concentrated bleach, like 8.25%. If you use the pool chart, make sure you adjust the % correctly.
 
I just did battle with an algae bloom. I only used the BBB method, and the algae was gone in three days (meaning I passed my OCLT). I'm 6 days in and my water is still cloudy. I had to replace the lateral assembly on my filter, and then picked up the wrong size sand, so my water looks like milk right now. My point is that a little patience and a good understanding of what you put in your pool will carry you a long way from all these problems. Hang in there, keep testing with the TF-100, adjust as necessary (the pool calculator is my life saver there) and it will all work out in the end.
 
josh, yes got the stirrer

jesse - yes 90 drops! heres a pool store reading from before I put in most of the shock (the 18 lb motherload)
free Cl 9.49 ppm
total Cl 10.55 ppm
combined Cl 1.06ppm
pH 7
hardness 231 ppm
alkalinity 60 ppm
cyan uric acid 91 ppm
copper 0 ppm
iron 0.1 ppm

The good news is the water seems to be clearing. I can make out the main drain fairly clearly now and it seems to have gotten clearer each day since I did the 1/2 drain refill. I think the first few days it was cloudy enough to obscure it that low, but about 2 days ago I went out and could see it. Today I can see it better, its not crystal clear, but looks pretty good.

I'm going to do an OCLT tonight and tomorrow morning.

So how did my CYA get so out of whack? Is it because I put in the pucks when it had just turned from green to white? What would cause my CYA to get that high in the first place? CYA is stabilizer right? I can't remember the last time I put any of that in my pool.
 

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All of that has stabilizer in it, which adds to the cya level in your pool. Try shocking with plain old 6% bleach -that raises your FC without adding more stabilizer. Next step is to get your cya down...which means replacing some of the water or backwashing and refilling regularly. Unless you want to have to keep your FC higher... The pros here can direct you better than me on that.
 
karmazrevenge said:
All of that has stabilizer in it, which adds to the cya level in your pool. Try shocking with plain old 6% bleach -that raises your FC without adding more stabilizer. Next step is to get your cya down...which means replacing some of the water or backwashing and refilling regularly. Unless you want to have to keep your FC higher... The pros here can direct you better than me on that.
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Can you still find 6% bleach? Best I can find now is 8.25%, in 3.78quart jugs. Not a big deal, just curious.
 
the frustrating part of these long threads is the new helpers don't read it all (its to be expected I suppose)

i'm at 64 CYA and 45 ppm FC right now (other numbers bandied about on this page were from before I drained the pool 1/2 way & refilled it). So if i'm 64 CYA and 45ppm FC, my understanding is draining isn't necessary, but I do need to do a OCLT to see if all the algae is killed.
 
mihalakj said:
the frustrating part of these long threads is the new helpers don't read it all (its to be expected I suppose)

i'm at 64 CYA and 45 ppm FC right now (other numbers bandied about on this page were from before I drained the pool 1/2 way & refilled it). So if i'm 64 CYA and 45ppm FC, my understanding is draining isn't necessary, but I do need to do a OCLT to see if all the algae is killed.
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Yep. Doesn't matter if FC is 10 or 100, you still have to pass the tests.
 
Your pH reading at the pool store was 7.0 with a FC of 9.2ppm
Your own pH reading was 7.2 with a FC of 45ppm.

Doesn't anyone else find it strange that the pH only went up 0.2 with all that extra chlorine?
 
[/quote] Can you still find 6% bleach? Best I can find now is 8.25%, in 3.78quart jugs. Not a big deal, just curious.[/quote]

I just bought 5 jugs of 6% bleach at my local kmart. I have seen the new "concentrated" bleach on the shelves though.
 
That was a repost of results from before he did a drain/refill and added the majority of the shock products. We were trying to figure out what the original pH was. It didn't help much because even at "9.49ppm" FC pool store reading the pH was probably reading high and not accurate.

karmazrevenge said:
I did read the whole thread. The last post you made said your cya was 91 ppm, not 64. Anyway, listen to Richard320....he's a pro and has helped me tons.
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Ok, sorry I guess I wasn't clear, 94 CYA was before the drain 1/2 and refill and was a pool store number.

Question on the morning OCLT, does it have to be before sun up? how long after sun up? Is 30 minutes correct? I believe that's what I read.
 

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