New Pool - Cloudy Water

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J

Jbro

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Jun 16, 2018
59
Concord, NH
Hello, and thank you in advance for your help. I just had a pool installed and I'm trying to figure things out with the water chemistry.

Test results (K-2006 Kit):

pH: 7.3
Total Alk: 60
Calcium Hardness: 50
SI: -1.2
FC: 1.4
CC: 0.2
CYA: No reading (I asked a pool place to calculate stabilizer required to reach 30 and I'm adding it right now with the sock method)

Pool is 8600 gallons 18' diameter with a sand filter. There seems to be plenty (maybe excessive) power in the pump/filter as the return is extremely strong and the water circulates very well.

We filled it last Wednesday and the pH was low according to the cheap test kit so I web surfed and added 2 pounds of baking soda. (I see that wasn't correct now that I found this site.)

Water was clear, but when we turned the pump on for the first time it blew tons of cloudy sediment into the pool. I assume that might be common for a brand new sand filter? It doesn't seem to be blowing anything out now. (It lasted a couple of minutes like that, enough to make the pool very cloudy.)

Anyway, I've been running the filter and the cloudiness has only cleared up slightly. I've shocked it twice just to get chlorine in it until my kit arrived. I also have a floating chlorine tab thing bobbing around with one tablet it in. (I will stop this once I get going on liquid chlorine because I don't want to keep adding CYA.)

Today I added 1 cup of DE through the skimmer as per instructions on this site hoping it would help.

A few questions:

1) Any suggestions to help clear the water?
2) Do the test numbers look ok?
3) The SI suggests the water is out of balance, but I'm not sure what to do to fix it.
4) The FC is in the "ok" zone on the cheap tests kits and per the pool store, but per the chart I found in pool school once the CYA is at 30 my target FC should be 4-6 - which is above the "safe" zones according to other web searches. Am I reading something wrong?
 
Re: New Pool - Cloudy Water

Welcome to the forum! :handshake:

What type of pool is this? Vinyl, gunite, fiberglass?

With new sand you would get some dust. probably could have alleviated some if by washing through the filter out the drain hole or starting it in Rinse, but no big deal now.

Great job on the test kit. Is it the C model? Or the one with 0.75 oz bottles of reagent? If the small one, get FAS-DPD and CYA reagent refills now. You can order them from TFTestkits.net

Test numbers are fine depending on your pool type. See Pool School - Recommended Levels

Keep your FC in the target level based on the [FC/CYA][/FC/CYA]. The pool industry does not fully accept the science behind the FC/CYA relationship. So they continue to state very low FC. You will get algae in their ranges.

Can you fill out a signature for us? See Pool School - Read This BEFORE You Post

Take care.
 
Re: New Pool - Cloudy Water

Thank you for your response. The pool is an AG with a vinyl liner. I got the smaller test kit because I read in a northern climate with a short swim season the larger one would go to waste. I will order the refills. I will also fill out my signature shortly.
 
Re: New Pool - Cloudy Water

Great! So with an AB ground pool calcium hardness is not relevant on the low side. No need to worry about what Taylor calls Saturation Index. We use CSI and is calculated in PoolMath.

Get your FC up to 3 ppm now. Then depending on where your CYA lands (the 'shock' and pucks had CYA in them, unless one or both were cal-hypo) follow the [FC/CYA][/FC/CYA].

If your cloudiness does not go away very soon, I would suggest a Overnight Chlorine Loss Test to see if you need to SLAM Process.

You might be interested in Trouble Free Pool School and Pool Math

Take care.
 
Re: New Pool - Cloudy Water

The pool place said my CYA was at 10. I told them I wanted to bring it to 30 and they sold me just under 2 pounds of stabilizer. That should be done dissolving by morning so I will test tomorrow and do the overnight chlorine loss test overnight tomorrow. (I'll toss in a bag of shock now as it's my only way to add chlorine fast, and then I'll go hunting for liquid chlorine tomorrow.)

Thanks once again for your help!
 
Re: New Pool - Cloudy Water

Realize that no test can measure a CYA of 10. So I would suspect it was 0.

See what the test says as you have been adding solid chlorine that has CYA in it.

Take care.
 
Re: New Pool - Cloudy Water

Interesting. I was surprised it was 10 because so far before the 2 pounds of stabilizer today the only source of CYA was 2 bags of shock and a 1/4 dissolved puck. However, the rest of the test results they provided were actually very close to the results I got from my test kit. I'll test CYA in the morning and see if I can record a result. I'll also endeavor to figure out how to use pool math.

Edit: just to be clear, I couldn't get a CYA result with my new test kit as the scale only went from 30 up. However, less than a quarter of the stabilizer was dissolved so no real surprise there. I didn't realize that no test could measure 10. I figured the pool store had a different test available.

Thank you!
 
Re: New Pool - Cloudy Water

Good progress overnight! It's not perfectly clear but I can see the bottom again and seems to be getting better by the hour.

I've worked with Pool Math and realized the pool store only sold me enough CYA to bring it to 25, so I'm not going to bother testing until I can get some more CYA in there.

I'm off to find liquid chlorine (probably easiest for me is 10% stuff at Walmart) and will aim for FC of 3-4, assuming CYA of 25 for the time being. When is the best time to regularly test and add chlorine? Should I do it in the evening after the sun goes down?

I've ordered more reagents for CYA and FAS-DPD tests.

Will do the overnight chlorine test tonight.

Anything else I should be doing for now?

Thank you all so much for taking your time to help. I've learned a lot in just a few days since I found the forum.
 
Re: New Pool - Cloudy Water

Bring your CYA up to 40 or so after you pass the OCLT.

Be aware that your daily FC at its lowest point should be within the target range as shown [FC/CYA][/FC/CYA]. So when you test, you should have the target level of FC remaining in your water. You then add enough LC to raise your FC to equal the loss you will see over the next 24 hours.
 
Re: New Pool - Cloudy Water

Ok I'll target CYA 40.

The last 2 times I added shock by the next day the FC was down to 1.5-2. Last night I added shock (for the last time now that I understand how to use liquid chlorine) because FC was only 1.4 and now at 11:30 am my FC is at 12. I tested twice. I guess the CYA makes a big difference!
 

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Re: New Pool - Cloudy Water

I completed the OCLT and had zero overnight FC loss. FC = 9

I've finished adding enough CYA that PoolMath calculations say it should be at 40 - will test that after work to confirm.

Still fighting cloudy water. Now I'm starting to suspect the installers didn't set up the filter properly.
 
Re: New Pool - Cloudy Water

All day here in the 90's and sunny and the FC only went down from 9 to 7. My target FC according to the chart is 5-7. Should I let it ride one more day without adding liquid chlorine?

Cloudiness is slowly getting better, but very slowly. I hit backwash pressures for the first time and just backwashed and added some more DE. Hopefully will see some more improvement overnight.
 
Re: New Pool - Cloudy Water

I ended up not adding chlorine yesterday and FC is still at 6.5 tonight from 7 last night. Guess I'll let it ride another day without a chlorine addition.

The pool has cleared up quite a bit more since yesterday. I think a few more days and it will be completely clear. I guess I just needed to be patient and also maybe backflush sooner/more often.
 
Re: New Pool - Cloudy Water

Bump - guess I could use some more advice. Every time I think the pool is clearing up, it seems to be temporary and it just won't get there. We finally just noticed that it actually gets cloudier after swimming. I think particulates are settling on the bottom, making the pool look more clear, and then when we swim and disturb the bottom they get swirled back into suspension.

The filter hardly seems to be doing anything. After backflushing it registers at 15 psi and it will run for days without increasing. If I put as little as 1/2 cup DE in the filter it immediately goes to 20 psi within an hour or so.

The pool never went without chlorine since it was filled last week, although it did get low for a day or two between shock additions before I got stabilizer into it. (Now I'm on bleach, only used shock to get chlorine in it until I figured out the TFP methods.) However, I've already passed OCLT and see no other signs of algae issues. I'm going to do another OCLT tonight just to be sure. I'll also grab a full set of test results in the morning.

Any ideas? Is it possible the filter was set up wrong by the installer? Something just seems weird about how long it's taking to clear when I don't think I had an algae bloom. The cloudiness came from starting a new sand filter and blowing sediment into the new water because the installer told me all I had to do was turn it on when it finished filling. He never mentioned rinsing the sand.
 
Re: New Pool - Cloudy Water

Settling is bad. You want the “stuff “ kicked up so that your filter can pull it out if suspension.

You could try letting it settle and then doing a vacuum to waste. Can you verify the type of sand the installer used?

Can you post post a picture of your water?
 
Re: New Pool - Cloudy Water

Test results from OCLT (FC completed in the morning @ both resolutions since I was also doing CC and wanted more accuracy):

FC last night = 6.0
FC this morning = 5.5 and 5.4
CC = 0.2
pH = 7.4
CYA = 50
 
Re: New Pool - Cloudy Water

Your water doesn't look bad, but it's obviously not TFP clear. Seeing as how your CYA has increased since you first filled it, the [FC/CYA][/FC/CYA] shows your ideal FC range between 6-8. You've been right in that area for a while, although you noted using pool store "shock" products in the early stages. You're passing the OCLTs, so the clarity issue would still seem to be related to filtering. You mentioned the pressure gauge, but how is water flow? Are you receiving good return pressure at the jet(s)? Is the suction port/skimmer pulling water in well? Also, what type of bleach are you using? It's regular/plain right? No indications of anything with extras like polymers, fabric treatments, or anything like that?

And just in case ... for the FC testing, you can just use a 10ML water sample with one heaping scoop of power and mix. Count drops until clear and divide in half (i.e. 20 drops = FC of 10).
 
Re: New Pool - Cloudy Water

Thank you for your response. The water flow is extremely strong at the return and the suction is strong at the skimmer. I have to shut the pump off to get the skimmer basket out, otherwise just flipping up the little gate at the skimmer for a second causes the pump to suck in a huge amount of air. Definitely no problem with flow. And I've been running it 24/7 except when swimming.

I'm using the 10% bleach from Walmart that is packaged for use in pools. I made sure to get it from the displays on the floor inside the store rather than from the garden center which is outside. When I add the calculated amount my subsequent FC test results are consistent with expectations, so I think the bleach is good. I bumped FC up a bit this morning to account for CYA of 50 rather than 40.

Thanks for the heads up on FC testing. I've been using the 10ml test except when I want the CC reading. I think it's better to use the 25ml test for the CC reading so that you can measure in .2 rather than .5 increments.

I'll call the pool store when they open to inquire about the sand.
 

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