Cloudy Water

[dirtdog]

I went up to the cottage for a couple days and upon my return the water has become fairly cloudy in my pool. It is not that bad and we still swam in it.

The pool was covered for 2 days and it was very hot over the weekend, we think the pool pump stopped circulating water because we had a power outage and the breaker tripped. We have a chlorinator in the pump house so I assumed the chlorine level dropped because of the lack of circulating the chlorine. Seems to me that the chlorine all evaporated.

The test strip reads 0 FC, I turned the Chlorinator on high and added a litre of bleach on sunday also put the pump on full speed to circulate the water, it hasn't cleared up so I added another litre of bleach today to see if it starts to clear. How long should it take to get the FC level back up...assuming by CYA level are at the proper level ? I assume if it is taking to long my CYA is too high and I should start draining some water tonight and shock with more bleach. I also have not put my solar cover back on since Sunday, should I be covering the pool to avoid the sun from burning up the chlorine when I shock ?

I used Power Chlor from Biogaurd when I opened the pool and it cleared up in 1-2 days as it was slightly cloudy....my issue with that is if I use it again my CYA will go higher, does the Power Chlor have stabilizers in it ?

I haven't yet invested in a test kit because they are so expensive in Canada but I know I should. These test strips really suck ! I will be looking at ebay, to bad the TFTestkits are not available in Canada

Any recommendations would be greatly helpful,

Thanks,

 

[tim5055]

Without valid test numbers is impossible to make any recommendations.

The "BIOGUARD® MAINTAIN POWER CHLOR" MSDS says it's 71% Trichlor, so yes it has stabilizer in it.

 

[dirtdog]

Totally understand, lets assume my CYA levels are adequate at 50ppm how long would it take for the chlorine level to rise...or would I need to SLAM or shock the pool to bring it up and then decrease to bring it to a reasonable level ?

For the past 2 summers pool has been crystal clear nice water until now, I find it hard to believe that is 2 days I have an algae problem but I could be wrong.

If I do decide to slam the pool with bleach should I just regular Clorox ? How do I calculate how much I need ?

Sorry for the dumb questions, I am just terrible at figuring out the chemical side of things...lol, I want to at least make an attempt to clean things up while I wait for a test kit to be delivered....I guess I could just take a sample in to a pool shop to get some temporary results.

Thanks,

 

[tim5055]

Read the directions on SLAMing your pool in the How To section of Pool School and I think you will have a better understanding of how we deal with cloudy water. The test kit is key. While the Taylor kits are wildly expensive in Canada, you could try looking for a LaMotte 7022.

 

[dirtdog]

Awesome, thanks Tim. I am looking on Ebay for a good kit but most of the vendors don't ship to Canada...ugh !

I will search for the LaMotte

 

[dirtdog]

on another note, I didn't see anything about keeping the pool cover on when doing the SLAM, should I put the solar cover during the day while at work to avoid the sun burning up the chlorine ?