Newbie with weird white cloudy water + mystery powder

[drierdan]

Hello all

Sorry if I don't include all pertinent information in my post... but

I have a plaster pool (4 years since new plaster) aprox 10,000 gallons

and every time I add liquid chlorine It immediately creates a weird white cloud. after that a white powder appears and coats the entire bottom of the pool.

At one point it went unnoticed and it coated my entire filter with a concrete like substance

Is this calcium in the water? I know our water here in San Diego is very hard, but no one in my area has this problem

Any help would be welcome

Doug in San Diego

 

[Butterfly]

Hi Doug,

Welcome to TFP

Please post a full set of test results and how they were obtained.

Here's a link to Info needed to give the best advice.

 

[Bama Rambler]

As Butterfly said, we'll know a lot more if you can give us a full set of test results and how you got them. Read the link she provided and post back.

Here's what we're looking for.
pH
FC
CC
TA
CH
CYA
And any other you can provide.

It kinda sounds like algae but we'll know more when we see the numbers.

 

[PoolGuyNJ]

Was this pool ever a Baquacil pool?

Scott

 

[drierdan]

Ok guys

Sorry for the delay - I only had a red and yellow test kit

So Here are my test result from a 6-way test strip (not much better Im sure)

Total Hardness - Off the scale high
Total Chlorine - about 1.5 ppm
Free Chlorine - Off the scale high
PH - About 7.8
Total Alkalinity - Off the scale high
Stabilizer - Off the scale high

No it was never a Bacquil ??? pool.

My gut tells me I need to drain off some water and add new water.

 

[mynewpool]

Ok guys

Sorry for the delay - I only had a red and yellow test kit

So Here are my test result from a 6-way test strip (not much better Im sure)

Total Hardness - Off the scale high
Total Chlorine - about 1.5 ppm
Free Chlorine - Off the scale high
PH - About 7.8
Total Alkalinity - Off the scale high
Stabilizer - Off the scale high

No it was never a Bacquil ??? pool.

My gut tells me I need to drain off some water and add new water.

I would guess for now since you only have strips, take a large sample of water to a pool store and have them test. This is not the best way either, but should be able to give you numbers. Do not buy anything they try to sell you. Come back and post the results and I am sure they can help you from there.

I would suggest to get you a good test kit at home so that you can start to test on your own.

I got the TF100 kit and it works great. You can pick it up here.

http://tftestkits.net/Test-Kits-c4/

Good luck.

 

[Butterfly]

Yep, what mynewpool said

 

[JasonLion]

With both "Total Hardness - Off the scale high" and "Total Alkalinity - Off the scale high", you are probably seeing calcium clouding in the water and calcium scaling in the pool. To move forwards effectively you really need a good test kit, as others have mentioned. Once you have that, the first step is to lower your TA level down to something reasonable as soon as possible.

 

[geekgranny]

With both "Total Hardness - Off the scale high" and "Total Alkalinity - Off the scale high", you are probably seeing calcium clouding in the water and calcium scaling in the pool. To move forwards effectively you really need a good test kit, as others have mentioned. Once you have that, the first step is to lower your TA level down to something reasonable as soon as possible.

If it is calcium clouding the water it will take what seems like forever for it to clear up. Much POP needed. I had a lot, so much so that it took 24/7 filtering with my big new Quad 80 DE (using cellulose) for about 2 weeks to get it all out. It was a week before I noticed much difference. One morning I could see the bottom drain. And then it was significantly better each day. Took another week to totally clear.

See this post. This was still how much I had after a week of filtering. Scroll down page to see video.

http://www.troublefreepool.com/i-m-still-not-seeing-the-bottom-t18969.html

gg=alice