Well...ya just burst me little bubble...but actually it is what I have suspected. Now for the rest of the story...
Prior to purchasing the house we had the home inspection and the pool inspection. The pool inspector was really good and taught me a lot about my systems, but not much about the chemical side of things. At that point it was nice and clear and looked really good. By the time we bought the house a few weeks later and then started performing repairs (as I said earlier it was a divorce sell and the husband had to evict the ex-wife so he could sell the house so we had to repair walls, paint, and perform a lot of maintenance) the pool had turned green. I bought a cheap test kit for CL and Ph and started trying to get it in the right "color levels." That is when I realized my chlorine level was too low and something was not functioning properly because the tabs were not dissolving in the tube. I dropped a couple in the skimmers and found the stuck valve on the bottom of the tube. Everything I add or do from this point in the story comes from the pool store "expert."
May circulation was not correct because there were 4 broken nozzles so I replaced them all, rebuilt the ladder with new steps, hardware, and bumpers/pads (only had one step left and no escutcheon rings or pads) and added new baskets in the skimmers, pump and net/sock thing in the pump basket. One light functioned at the home inspection, but by the time we moved in neither worked and the ground fault was tripping. I bought new light seals and replaced the incandescent bulbs with 250W wet rated LED flood bulbs. They worked marvelously for a week and then the ground fault started tripping again. Isolated the problem to the fixture in the deep end and replaced it with a new unit using the same LED bulb. I added a timer switch to the circuit and now the lights come on in the evening and stay on until we head to bed. Nice pleasant glow in the backyard.
Back to the water. During all this work, the water went from green to cloudy. I dumped in some Super Flox to drop the sediment and stopped all the pumps for a couple days to let it settle out. I vacuumed to waste all the stuff that fell to the bottom and added back a ton of water. I then took a sample of water to get analyzed to find out exactly what I needed. The results came back "good" but chlorine was a bit low. There were a lot of numbers on the analysis I did not understand (and still don't), but he said things were not bad, so I took it at that and added more chlorine via tabs. It was still cloudy and I could not see the bottom unless I let everything sit still and then it cleared up. If I started the Pentair it would get cloudy again. Something very fine was on the bottom and the filter could not seem to extract it no matter the # of backwashing. Add more water...vacuum to waste...back flush system...add Super Flox...rinse and repeat. Frustrated, I put the pool under a service contract. The first time the pool service guy came out, he added POUNDS of all kinds of stuff. Baking soda, and bottles of algicide, phosphate remover etc. Fortunately the chemicals are included in the service agreement or that would have been rough. However, it looked better, but was still cloudy. Add more water...vacuum to waste...back flush system...add Super Flox...rinse and repeat (seeing a pattern here yet?) I stopped using the Pentair because all it did was stir stuff up and make it cloudy. Without it running, I could actually see the bottom.
Last week I requested the service guy to vacuum to waste incase I was doing something wrong. I came back in from being out of town and there was "sand" on the bottom that would kick up when we walked or I brushed the bottom. I complained he did not vacuum because it was still here and so again I vacuumed to waste on Sunday (added more water) and it really cleared up. I could consistently see the bottom finally. However, a couple days ago when he came back, he stuck a brush in the pool and it kicked up clouds from the bottom. I had made sure I was home this time and told him to stop moving it around and get out the vacuum and get the sediment out of my pool. He complied and vacuumed to waste yet again. When he was finished, he proclaimed the sediment was sand from my filter and I need to get a sand change or I would continue to have this problem.
So, here I am with a pool that looks nice (unless I run the Pentair) and fine white sediment appearing out of nowhere (that my sand filter cannot remove) and now I find out that the guys I am paying a nice weekly fee are making things worse.
Ok...now that my bubble as been burst, someone pick up the pieces and slap some knowledge on me please.
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I will go get a full panel test today and post all the numbers so someone can tell me what I am really looking at...