cloudy 3 weeks now

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luv-n-it

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Mar 12, 2009
16
Houston, Texas
I have been in the process of clearing my swampy mess of a pool for the 4rd week now. I have been maintaining my shock level on a constant basis for the same amount of time, keeping it from going below the 25ppm shock level to threat this algae. I started shocking at 30 - 40ppm and is now at 25 - 30ppm. My only problem is that it is still cloudy and I hardly notice any change in the water getting better. Here have been my readings so far:

I have a 24' AG pool.

FC=25
CC=0
PH=7.4
TA=125
CYA=90
CH=130

Is my calcium to low that I may need to add some? I am working on lowering my cya at the current moment and see if this will also help.

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
I am starting to get frustrated with my pool water! I never had it take this long in the past using the BBB to get my pool cleaned up after the winter. It usually takes me a couple of weeks at the most to get my pool crstal clear. But not this year for some reason.


SD
 
The process you describe should have cleared up the water by now. I see two possibilities, either you filter is not working correctly, or your water test results are wrong.

On the filter, have you been backwashing/cleaning the filter regularly during this process? Does the backwash water look dirty? Are you sure that the main valve is set on filter? Does the pressure gauge reading on the filter change? How long has it been since the sand in the filter was examined or replaced.

For testing, what kind of test kit do you have, or where are you getting your water test results? Have you done a test for overnight FC loss? How confident are you of the CYA reading? Does the PH really read 7.4 while the FC level is 25 or higher? Or is that PH reading from before you started shocking?

If you have an above ground pool with a vinyl liner, your CH level is fine right where it is.

Yes, it is a very good idea to lower your CYA level. However, at the FC levels you describe, you should have been able to kill the algae even with a CYA level of 90.
 
I have a Taylor FAS-DPD Test Kit of which have been using this for 3 years now without any problem before. I puchased a new sand filter last spring, therefore my filter is very new for it to be the sand being old. When I installed the new filter, It never gave me problems before with filtration. I backwash once a week, being that the water was a swamp to start off. My pressure readings stay at 10 to 20. Even have tried adding D.E. to see this will help the filter as well.
My PH was very low when I started shock treatment, therefore I added Borax to bring that up to where it is at the current time.
I do notice the FC drop from the evening to the morning hours that I retest. It lowers from 30 down to 25.5ppm. This has been going on for several days now. Is this that there is algae still present in the water and has yet to be killed off?
 
Three years is getting old for a test kit, unless you have replaced the reagents at some point. Depending on how much heat and sunlight the reagents have been exposed to, they might be going bad by this point. The FAS-DPD chlorine test reagents are some of the most sensitive to aging. Taylor recommends replacing everything after one year. None the less, the reagents can still be good after three years, but they could also have gone bad. Chances are you are alright, but this is an area of concern.

You can double check how the FAS-DPD chlorine test is doing by measuring the FC level, adding a known amount of chlorine, allowing it to mix in, and then checking to see if the FC level went up as much as it should have. Perhaps you have already done this.

The overnight FC loss tells you that there is still algae alive in the water.

I am concerned that the PH might still be way too low. When you test the PH while the FC level is very high, you normally get a reading of 8.2, regardless of what the actual PH is; because of interference from the high FC level. The PH would have to be very very low to get a PH reading of 7.4 while the FC level is above 25.

You should be able to get some idea if this is happening by adding two drops of R-0007 (thiosulfate) to the sample before adding the PH indicator reagent and then check to see if the PH reading shifts dramatically lower. The thiosulfate will raise the PH a little, reducing the accuracy of the test, but it will also neutralize enough of the chlorine to eliminate the interference.
 
Thanks for your suggestions on my regeants being old. I did get a new batch of the Titrating and also the reagent to test my CYA. But I have yet to replace the others. I did not realize the reagents would go bad that quick.
I will replace the other reagents and will keep my pool at shock level, being that the FC goes down over night still. It may just be that the CYA is too high, therefore taking the chlorine longer to kill off the algae.
thanks for your help and your info is taken into account as well.
 
luv-n-it,
I backwash once a week, being that the water was a swamp to start off. My pressure readings stay at 10 to 20.
Click to expand...

Your response was just a little unclear. Are you backwashing when you see a pressure rise of about 25% or more? If you are killing algae, your filter should start to catch it and your pressure will rise. In a pool with a lot of algae, this can take place in just an hour or so at first and then sucessively longer but, at the least, you should see enough pressure rise to backwash daily and get the junk out of your pool.

You may be doing that already but I couldn't tell for sure from your post. :-D
 
I started out backwashing everyday at the beginning when I started to clean the pool, which was about a week. I have cut back on backwashing to doing it every other day or even until the 3 day, being that the pressure usually stays at under 20.
I have read different suggestions on the forum about when to backwash. Some people recommend not to do it so often and also have read others state different. So I'm really not sure how often to backwash at this point.
 
It is best to backwash frequently when you are fighting algae, and infrequently when you are trying to get optimal water clarity.

When you are fighting algae you want good circulation and to remove the fairly large algae particles as quickly as possible. Frequent backwashing and thus low filter pressure gets you the best circulation and the fastest removal of large particles.

When you are aiming for the best possible water clarity, you want the filter to be somewhat dirty. The dirt accumulating in the filter has finer particles than the sand, so it will filter out small particles more effectively than sand alone. The water circulation will be a little slower, but that is not normally a problem (as long as the filter pressure doesn't go up too much).
 

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I suspect that with an above-ground pool with no floor drain, that the circulation near the bottom is very poor. Though brushing to stir up the water might help, this is one of those situations where a flocculant could do some good, assuming you can vacuum to waste (which is very likely in your case). Certainly, try to see what longer filtering and more backwashing does, including some brushing, especially if you notice the backwashed water looking dirty. But if things don't improve, the last resort treatments (i.e. a flocculant) will most likely work.
 
I really didn't want to resort to using a floc treatment, rather would have wanted to clear this up just by the use of adding bleach. But by the looks of things the way they have been, I may have to break down and use a floc treatment and see if this will help my situation better.
I have maintained shock levels no lower than 25ppm, as a matter of fact, this morning when I checked it my shock level was at 45ppm. Therefore, I know that there is enough bleach in my pool to kill off what ever organisms there is left in there. I have been adding bleach on a constant basis daily.
I appreciate any and all suggestions from those who have responded on this topic. I am going to give the floc treatment a try and hopefully this will help clear this up.
 
There isn't really any point in doing a floc treatment until the FC remains the same overnight. As long as you are losing chlorine overnight, there is still algae growing in the water. Floc won't help if there is live algae.

I still suspect that the PH is low and that is aggravating the problem.
 
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