New filter, new pump, can't get pool to not be cloudy blue.

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ionizer

ionizer

Gold Supporter
Jun 7, 2016
254
Marlboro, NJ
Hello. I am new to the forums but a long time reader of other people's problems to see how they could apply to me. Unfortunately, no amount of reading of other people's problems this year seems to be helping me, so I have registered in hopes someone can help me. I hope my signature has all the important things needed and that my test results show all the info needed.

(1) Opened pool and was green and pump was dead. Sat for one week before new pump was installed.
(2) Installed new pump, managed to get pool from green to blue (25 lbs of super soluble), but never clear.
(3) Recognized that DE was coming into pool and filter elements were shot. Got an entire new filter because old filter didn't sell replacement parts and didn't want to risk more problems.
(4) Finally able to get all my levels ok (see below), but pool is still cloudy blue. Can barely now see the bottom of the deepend, but not really. Can see the bottom of the shallow end, but water is not crystal clear.

-I've finally confirmed I've vacuumed all the DE out of the pool (hand vacuum no longer pulls anything up) and no more green algae.
-I was running the pump at max speed 24/7 for like 3 weeks and doing backwashes - concerned I may have made the dead algae too fine?
Saturday my TC was 4.3 and FC was 3.9, but back to Monday/Tuesday it's down to 0.2 and 0.1 again
-Out of line chlorinator is set to "max" opening.
-Pump is now running on "schedule" as opposed to 24/7.

-Pool water is still cloudy. Not white cloudy, just blue cloudy. I attached an image showing how you can't see the bottom of the deep end, but hard to really show depending on whether sun reflects or not.
View attachment 49607

Measurements as of 1pm on Tuesday as taken by the pool store. They told me to add 3 bags of "burnout 35" and 1 bag of "oxysheen":

Saturation Index: -0.5
TDS: 1000
CYA: 103
Tot Chlorine: 0.2
Free chlorine: 0.1
ph: 7.5
Tot Alkalinity: 169
Adj Total Alk: 138
Tot Hardness: 56 (I know I need to bring this up, but i dont want to make the water cloudier at the moment, so I've held off)
copper: 0.5
Copper from products: yes
Iron: 0
Manganese: No

Thank you so much for your help, please also advise if there is a donation 'box' or some other means to support this wonderful forum.
 
Welcome to TFP :)

We can help but you will need to help yourself first :)

You need your own test kit, The pool store is giving you "free" testing and charging you hundreds of dollars every visit, not so free... I really love the TF100 but the K-2006C will work also (they are both the same but the TF100 gives you more stuff) See below link for test kits

take thos "3 bags of "burnout 35" and 1 bag of "oxysheen":" back to the store and get a refund, I bet it will really close to the cost for a test kit :)

while your returning those, stop by walmart and get 10% bleach/liquid chlorine "pool shock" from the pool isle 10 bottles
run by lowes and grab 2 gallons chem tech muriatic acid 20% baume

pour 1 gallon of bleach/liquid chlorine in your pool a day and brush until your test kit arrives, once you have it come back and post results

*** just a heads up, your CYA may be close to 100 or over 100, until you test we wont know.. You really need to be around 30 or 40 CYA and that means emptying water, and if around 130 CYA that is half of your water.. with that said people have done a SLAM with 80 to 100 CYA it just takes a lot of liquid chlorine..

This will also help with getting copper out of your water, I take it they had you use algaecide with blue in the name if I had to guess..

Read the links below, they will help you get through this with flying colors :)
 
cowboycasey said:
Welcome to TFP :)

We can help but you will need to help yourself first :)

You need your own test kit, The pool store is giving you "free" testing and charging you hundreds of dollars every visit, not so free... I really love the TF100 but the K-2006C will work also (they are both the same but the TF100 gives you more stuff) See below link for test kits

take thos "3 bags of "burnout 35" and 1 bag of "oxysheen":" back to the store and get a refund, I bet it will really close to the cost for a test kit :)

while your returning those, stop by walmart and get 10% bleach/liquid chlorine "pool shock" from the pool isle 10 bottles
run by lowes and grab 2 gallons chem tech muriatic acid 20% baume

pour 1 gallon of bleach/liquid chlorine in your pool a day and brush until your test kit arrives, once you have it come back and post results

*** just a heads up, your CYA may be close to 100 or over 100, until you test we wont know.. You really need to be around 30 or 40 CYA and that means emptying water, and if around 130 CYA that is half of your water.. with that said people have done a SLAM with 80 to 100 CYA it just takes a lot of liquid chlorine..

This will also help with getting copper out of your water, I take it they had you use algaecide with blue in the name if I had to guess..

Read the links below, they will help you get through this with flying colors :)
Click to expand...

hi cowboycasey. thanks for the quick reply.

I will look into the different test kits, but i do have a question about them. the specific items they measure seem to be:


  1. Chlorine Test (OTO)
  2. pH Test
  3. Chlorine Test (FAS/DPD)
  4. Combined Chloramines Test
  5. Calcium Hardness Test
  6. Total Alkalinity Test -
  7. Cyanuric Acid Test -
  8. R-7065 CYA Standard Solution test

For the most part, the test results I provided above in my initial post seem to provide all of those statistics. Can you help educate me on which ones above I might be missing that the test kit provides? Thanks.

also, is it standard to apply DE at 80% of original amounts when backwashing and rinsing? my filter is 6 lbs DE on initial charge, and the lady at the pool store told me only 3 lbs after backwashing. I see other posts on TFP that indicate 4.8 lbs (80%). is 80% the conventional wisdom?

- - - Updated - - -

PS: you mentioned my CYA may be over 100 or close to it...but the test results i showed said "103" Are you saying it's not accurate or is it possible you missed my results in the original post?
 
Thank you for questioning :) You are going to fit in just fine here...

Those are pool store results and they are at best 25% off, the CYA that you point out, here is just some info... using pool math http://www.troublefreepool.com/calc.html at the bottom you can see how adding different chem's do what..

So, you said the pool store had you add 25 pounds (400 ounces) of dichlor and that added the following to your pool

52 FC
47 CYA
lowered PH by 2
and added 42 PPM salt

So just this month you have added 52 or more CYA to your pool, that is not counting what you already had in there to begin with, and the "pool store" says you only have CYA of 103... I believe your CYA is above 100 to 150 or so... This also depends on how you were chlorinating your pool till now, were you using 3 inch tabs? if so, about 10 a week.. that raised your CYA by 10 each week you used them, so if you did that 6 months last year you added 240 PPM CYA

So now your CYA is close to 300, you have been backwashing and closed your pool so we can say your close to 150 CYA

This is why we use our own test kits, they have no idea.... :)
 
MarianParoo said:
Welcome. Casey is right. Bite the bullet and get the kit.
Out of curiosity, why did you choose the online name of ionizer?
Click to expand...

i've ordered the k-2006 kit, it is coming friday. however, in the interim im draining the pool to the bottom of the shallow end and then refilling it to hopefully drop my CYA level in anticipation that it was indeed high.

I chose the name Ionizer because it is the online nickname I've used since 1993 and a nickname I was given back in my little league circa 1987.

why do you ask? no, it has nothing to do with ionizers or ionization :p

- - - Updated - - -

cowboycasey said:
Thank you for questioning :) You are going to fit in just fine here...

Those are pool store results and they are at best 25% off, the CYA that you point out, here is just some info... using pool math http://www.troublefreepool.com/calc.html at the bottom you can see how adding different chem's do what..

So, you said the pool store had you add 25 pounds (400 ounces) of dichlor and that added the following to your pool

52 FC
47 CYA
lowered PH by 2
and added 42 PPM salt

So just this month you have added 52 or more CYA to your pool, that is not counting what you already had in there to begin with, and the "pool store" says you only have CYA of 103... I believe your CYA is above 100 to 150 or so... This also depends on how you were chlorinating your pool till now, were you using 3 inch tabs? if so, about 10 a week.. that raised your CYA by 10 each week you used them, so if you did that 6 months last year you added 240 PPM CYA

So now your CYA is close to 300, you have been backwashing and closed your pool so we can say your close to 150 CYA

This is why we use our own test kits, they have no idea.... :)
Click to expand...

ok, test kit on its way.
thanks for that calculator, that will be helpful.

will post again on friday.
 
pooldv said:
Alright, test kit on the way! Leave a foot of water in the shallow end when draining a vinyl pool so that the liner doesn't shift or shrink.

Yes, we do offer several options to support the forum and there are some nice perks with them. Thanks for asking, more here, CLICK HERE to Become a TroubleFreePool.com Supporter!!
Click to expand...


yes, I left about 10-11 inches before i started filling it back up...it is filling up now and looks a little clearer of course. deep end is still a bit not-crystal-clear looking which I am hoping I can simply determine amount of shock (without any stabilizer) that I will need and get it back to good by Friday night or Saturday!

thanks for the link ...i wish i had seen that earlier before ordering the test kit elsewhere. i only did so because it seemed the only guaranteed way to get it by friday.
 

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pooldv said:
Liquid chlorine or plain bleach is the best way to add chlorine to your pool without adding CYA. More here, Pool School - How to Chlorinate Your Pool

You can use that discount for other nifty stuff like a speed stir.
Click to expand...

My local pool store has liquid chlorine of course, but she said they also sell the 1lb packets that are sodium something vs. the ones i got at costco which are the di or tri-somethings that have stabilizer in them.

So my question is - if she has both liquid chlorine and the 1 lb granules that have less or no stabilizer in them, do you guys suggest one or the other upon refilling my pool and assuming my CYA level has hopefully significantly decreased to a respectable level (pending check on friday when my kit arrives)

PS: What is a speed stir?
 
MarianParoo said:
Use liquid chlorine or bleach. It's the same stuff, just in different concentrations.
Click to expand...

thanks...other than convenience, any reason to use granular chlorine?

also, if your CYA level is > 20 is there any reason you would INTENTIONALLY and KNOWINGLY use chlorine that has stabilizers in it? why don't big box stores (Costco/sams) sell pure chlorine granulars? is it cheaper to add stabilizers?

- - - Updated - - -

pooldv said:
Speedstir TFTestkits.net

Those questions are all covered in the link I posted.
Click to expand...

thanks....that seems a bit too scientific for me. Is swirling manually not sufficient?
 
That is how they bind the chlorine in pucks and granules to make it stable/solid.. They do sell chlorine but they call it bleach

manual is sufficient, it just makes it easier... I love me some speedstir :)
 
cowboycasey said:
That is how they bind the chlorine in pucks and granules to make it stable/solid.. They do sell chlorine but they call it bleach
Click to expand...

so yes, pucks aside, i recognize that will build up CYA over time, but in terms of "one a week shocking" - any reason to use granulars that they sell at Costco in 1 lb bags in bulk that have stabilizer in it VS simply keeping a ton of liquid bleach on hand and using liquid bleach instead?

im just trying to understand why, assuming CYA levels are "in range" I should or would use packets with stabilizer in them VS simply using liquid chlorine - can i not store liquid chlorine outside or something?
 
ionizer said:
so yes, pucks aside, i recognize that will build up CYA over time, but in terms of "one a week shocking" - any reason to use granulars that they sell at Costco in 1 lb bags in bulk that have stabilizer in it VS simply keeping a ton of liquid bleach on hand and using liquid bleach instead?

im just trying to understand why, assuming CYA levels are "in range" I should or would use packets with stabilizer in them VS simply using liquid chlorine - can i not store liquid chlorine outside or something?
Click to expand...

pooldv said:
Liquid chlorine or plain bleach is the best way to add chlorine to your pool without adding CYA. More here, Pool School - How to Chlorinate Your Pool

You can use that discount for other nifty stuff like a speed stir.
Click to expand...

Unless I am not understanding your question. It's better to store it indoors in the dark cool. Garage at least.
 
Mr Bruce said:
Unless I am not understanding your question. It's better to store it indoors in the dark cool. Garage at least.
Click to expand...

thanks you understood and answered 1 of my 2 questions.

Remaining question:

Why on earth do we (or in general) use chlorine granulars (specifically those with stabilizers), assuming one's CYA is "within range". Wouldn't it just ALWAYS be better to use liquid chlorine?

IS there a drawback? Do i have to wait longer to go in the pool? does it not last as long (negating the additional CYA in the granulars added each time)?
 
ionizer said:
thanks you understood and answered 1 of my 2 questions.

Remaining question:

Why on earth do we (or in general) use chlorine granulars (specifically those with stabilizers), assuming one's CYA is "within range". Wouldn't it just ALWAYS be better to use liquid chlorine?

IS there a drawback? Do i have to wait longer to go in the pool? does it not last as long (negating the additional CYA in the granulars added each time)?
Click to expand...
I'm with you. Whenever possible I use liquid chlorine,

But there are times when you cannot tend to the pool on a daily basis (i.e. Vacations), so to make sure the pool is properly chlorinated, pack a floater with pucks and be on your way. Over a few day period, pucks won't hurt anything if the CYA is low enough to start.
 
Husky25 said:
I'm with you. Whenever possible I use liquid chlorine,

But there are times when you cannot tend to the pool on a daily basis (i.e. Vacations), so to make sure the pool is properly chlorinated, pack a floater with pucks and be on your way. Over a few day period, pucks won't hurt anything if the CYA is low enough to start.
Click to expand...

So you refer to pucks as a sometimes event. However, I have an offline chlroinator (hayward with adjustable dial) that I always have 'on' to varying levels. Those pucks essentially are ALWAYS feeding my pool. In addition to that, I was under the impression I should be adding 2-3 bags of "SHOCK" to my pool (32k gallons) about 1x a week.

disclosure: My pool gets full sun exposure and really has no shade from the trees. as I am in NJ it is only open from May-Sept when peak sun periods are of course out (summer).

For the record, I don't have a "floater" - just the out of line chlorinator and my shock packs.

Am I doing it wrong?
 

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