have been SLAMming, but water is still cloudy and slightly green

[debthemom]

I have been keeping the level at or above 10 for five days but the water color and cloudiness hasn't changed, and i have dumped about 25 bottles of bleach in there. I made sure the ph and total alkalinity were good before I started, i vacuumed and brushed before starting but its hard when you cant see the bottom. i vacuumed again today and i can see cloudy light brown sediment at the bottom but it just seems never ending.

my pool is 18000 gallons. sand filter.

 

[Richard320]

I have been keeping the level at or above 10 for five days but the water color and cloudiness hasn't changed, and i have dumped about 25 bottles of bleach in there. I made sure the ph and total alkalinity were good before I started, i vacuumed and brushed before starting but its hard when you cant see the bottom. i vacuumed again today and i can see cloudy light brown sediment at the bottom but it just seems never ending.

my pool is 18000 gallons. sand filter.

Welcome!

The problem, as I see it, is that you aren't taking CYA levels into account. If you have no CYA (which is very unlikely as almost all chlorine tablets and pucks and a lot of "shock" contain it) your shock level is 10 FC. If CYA is 30, 12 FC. At 40, 16. All the way up, you should be maintaining the FC at roughly 40% of what CYA is.

So let's say you're like the supermajority of pool owners and have been chlorinating with tablets. You could easily have CYA levels in excess of 100. Even 200. When I took over my pool, I was somewhere in the 220-240 range! So if you're at 100 CYA, 10 FC is more of a love tap than a knockout punch.

The solution is outlined in this article: SLAM Process It's not so different than what you're doing already.

And take heart: even people who follow the SLAM Process perfectly don't always have clear water after five days. A tip: remove as much organic debris as you can, even if it means vacuuming blind.

 

[debthemom]

thanks, but I was a good girl and read pool school first. my CYA was at zero. I actually tried to bump it up a little bc i read (in pool school) that the optimum is 30-50, and i had a little bit of stabilizer left over so i added that, but it was a very small amount, so i also threw some pucks in the skimmer and floater, this was saturday, and long story short the CYA stayed at zero. So as i understood it, the chlorine at 10 was shock level and i have been keeping it there until this morning, when i shut the pump off, let it settle for about 4 hours, and then turned it to waste and started vacuuming, until the water level got too low (below the skimmer and then it seems like its putting a strain on the pump even with the vacuum hooked up) so then i added more water and came in here and emailed you. so i haven't added any chlorine today, but up until the last time (last nite) it was at 10. i bought the basic chlorine from walmart, no additives. as i said before, i got my ph and TA squared away before i started. pool is vinyl btw.

Welcome!

The problem, as I see it, is that you aren't taking CYA levels into account. If you have no CYA (which is very unlikely as almost all chlorine tablets and pucks and a lot of "shock" contain it) your shock level is 10 FC. If CYA is 30, 12 FC. At 40, 16. All the way up, you should be maintaining the FC at roughly 40% of what CYA is.

So let's say you're like the supermajority of pool owners and have been chlorinating with tablets. You could easily have CYA levels in excess of 100. Even 200. When I took over my pool, I was somewhere in the 220-240 range! So if you're at 100 CYA, 10 FC is more of a love tap than a knockout punch.

The solution is outlined in this article: SLAM Process It's not so different than what you're doing already.

And take heart: even people who follow the SLAM Process perfectly don't always have clear water after five days. A tip: remove as much organic debris as you can, even if it means vacuuming blind.

 

[Donldson]

Welcome to TFP!

If I may ask, what test kit are you using to test the water? Just want to make sure you have an accurate CYA reading.

With virtually no CYA you lose a lot of chlorine during the day to sunlight, that is just wasted chlorine which is part of the reason we recommend getting the CYA level up to 30.

 

[Richard320]

thanks, but I was a good girl and read pool school first. my CYA was at zero. I actually tried to bump it up a little bc i read (in pool school) that the optimum is 30-50, and i had a little bit of stabilizer left over so i added that, but it was a very small amount, so i also threw some pucks in the skimmer and floater, this was saturday, and long story short the CYA stayed at zero. So as i understood it, the chlorine at 10 was shock level and i have been keeping it there until this morning, when i shut the pump off, let it settle for about 4 hours, and then turned it to waste and started vacuuming, until the water level got too low (below the skimmer and then it seems like its putting a strain on the pump even with the vacuum hooked up) so then i added more water and came in here and emailed you. so i haven't added any chlorine today, but up until the last time (last nite) it was at 10. i bought the basic chlorine from walmart, no additives. as i said before, i got my ph and TA squared away before i started. pool is vinyl btw.

Excellent! You're a rare individual, to read before posting.

Keep doing what you're doing, then. Once you've got stuff off the bottom, things should improve. If you're just down to drifts of stuff rather than a layer of compost, you can vacuum to filter and backwash. Saves water.

There's also the possibility of adding DE to your filter. It would be like setting window screen on top of chicken wire. It'll strain a lot more stuff out, so only do it when you're going to be around to watch the pressure and backwash. It can load up really fast.

 

[debthemom]

Excellent! You're a rare individual, to read before posting.

Keep doing what you're doing, then. Once you've got stuff off the bottom, things should improve. If you're just down to drifts of stuff rather than a layer of compost, you can vacuum to filter and backwash. Saves water.

There's also the possibility of adding DE to your filter. It would be like setting window screen on top of chicken wire. It'll strain a lot more stuff out, so only do it when you're going to be around to watch the pressure and backwash. It can load up really fast.

What is DE? Diatemecious Earth? I'm a little reluctant to put any more particulates in there...I didn't mention before but two weeks ago (before I divorced my pool store) they told me to flock it -- total disaster -- took four days to sink to bottom, the people at the store gave me at least three different versions of the directions, and then the vacuuming up to waste caused so much water loss --- so far this year i have probably spent $300 at the pool store, plus the water bill, and i'm ready to kill those people...they had me adding stuff before regulating ph and TA -- also hardness -- so before i started slamming (due to reading pool school) i made sure the TA and ph and hardness were good. I 've been trying to add the chlorine in the evening mostly to keep the burn off down...plus my pool does have some shade.

Also, re the suggestion about the CYA, what should I add to up it without it getting too high? Stabilizer?

I'm using test strips. But i have the drops too, so i could test that way. also, i was thinking the same thing about the cya, so i plan to take a sample to the pool store today to get tested there, then buy some stabilizer and use their results but not their crazy advice.

 

[Richard320]

What is DE? Diatemecious Earth? I'm a little reluctant to put any more particulates in there...I didn't mention before but two weeks ago (before I divorced my pool store) they told me to flock it -- total disaster -- took four days to sink to bottom, the people at the store gave me at least three different versions of the directions, and then the vacuuming up to waste caused so much water loss --- so far this year i have probably spent $300 at the pool store, plus the water bill, and i'm ready to kill those people...they had me adding stuff before regulating ph and TA -- also hardness -- so before i started slamming (due to reading pool school) i made sure the TA and ph and hardness were good. I 've been trying to add the chlorine in the evening mostly to keep the burn off down...plus my pool does have some shade.

Also, re the suggestion about the CYA, what should I add to up it without it getting too high? Stabilizer?

I'm using test strips. But i have the drops too, so i could test that way. also, i was thinking the same thing about the cya, so i plan to take a sample to the pool store today to get tested there, then buy some stabilizer and use their results but not their crazy advice.

Skip the DE, then. The money would be better spent on a proper test kit and then you won't ever have to set foot in a pool store again unless you need some odd bit of hardware or they're having a great sale on pool toys.

For raising CYA it depends on what the test results look like. If there's no cloudiness, consider it zero. If it is visibly cloudy but not much 10. If the black dot goes a little grey, 20. 30 and above should be measurable. Even if you call it zero when it's 10, and add CYA based on that, 40 CYA is still a reasonable level to perform a SLAM at.

 

[debthemom]

Skip the DE, then. The money would be better spent on a proper test kit and then you won't ever have to set foot in a pool store again unless you need some odd bit of hardware or they're having a great sale on pool toys.

For raising CYA it depends on what the test results look like. If there's no cloudiness, consider it zero. If it is visibly cloudy but not much 10. If the black dot goes a little grey, 20. 30 and above should be measurable. Even if you call it zero when it's 10, and add CYA based on that, 40 CYA is still a reasonable level to perform a SLAM at.

So you are saying the test strips suck, is that right? Good to know. I somehow got sucked into buying flock at the pool store, and forgot to get the stabilizer, so I guess I will have to go back tomorrow. So no to the flock, in your opinion? My test kit with the drops doesn't test CYA, thats why I bought the test strips.