Help me with this cloudy water!!!

[FloridaKnitter]

Hi Everyone!!
I am so OVER our pool right now and am desperately seeking help.

We have lived in our house for almost 6 years now and have had issues over the years, but usually hired a company to help out when it got bad and then took care back over, but never really learning what in the world we were doing. I found your website and have decided that this time, we need to learn what the heck we are doing, so we can properly care for our pool from here on out.

We live in Central Florida and when it was time to start swimming this year, our pool was a very dark swamp green. We took water samples to our local pool store and have added all of the things they suggested: liquid chlorine, powdered shock, ph stuff, algaecide, etc. It is no longer green, but incredibly cloudy and just won't clear. I'm pretty sure there are a bunch of leaves in the deep end, but we can't seem to get them out because we can't see them. Last weekend, in a desperate attempt to clear the pool, we added floc, planning to vacuum to waste. The water did get a little more clear, but was still cloudy. We vacummed to waste all of the debris we could see, added some powder shock and ran the pump without the filter in it to circulate the chlorine, didn't use the filter because we weren't sure how much floc was still in the pool and didn't want to ruin the filter. Alas, it is still cloudy and we can't swim yet.

Here is my plan: as soon as I finish my post, I am headed to our local Leslies to purchase a test kit. I will test and post our numbers once I get back home.

Is it safe to put the filter back in and run it that way? How do we tell if there is still floc in the water, it has been right at a week since we added it.

I am just very overwhelmed and don't know where to begin. Please help!!

Thanks!

 

[JasonLion]

Welcome to TFP!

Very very few of the Leslie's stores stock a test kit that we recommend. The Leslie's Chlorine FAS-DPD Service Test Kit is good, but take care as they tend to push whatever they have on people claiming it is the same when it isn't really the same at all. You might want to get them to test the water for you and pick up something cheap to use while you are waiting for an actually good kit to be delivered.

If you added floc a week ago then it has long since done whatever it is going to do and can now be ignored. Yes, you can put the filter back in at this point. Floc doesn't work when you still have live algae, which you most likely do.

Anything you can scoop up off the bottom with a leaf rake is worth getting out. If you run the leaf rake over the bottom blind and come up with leaves, then keep doing that until you stop getting any more leaves.

A soon as you have a full set of test results you can make a plan about how to tackle the clean up.

 

[FloridaKnitter]

Thanks a bunch for your quick reply!! We just put the filter back in and the pressure is low . That sounds like a good plan - cheap kit to tide me over until the good one gets here.

 

[FloridaKnitter]

never mind - pressure seems okay now

 

[Butterfly]

Hi FloridaKnitter and welcome to TFP

You have come to the right place to take control of your pool. We will take good care of you.
Lots of our members have all been there/done that and can lead you to your new trouble-free pool

As Jason said, we need test #'s.

You can read about the test kits we recommend in Pool School. I highly recommend duraleigh's TF100 which many of us use(link in my sig).
It is the best bang for the buck and the customer service is excellent!
duraleigh also owns this web site, so as someone recently said, you are kinda feeding the hand that is helping you :lol:

You can entertain us (and give you a comparison) by posting some before and after pics!

 

[tigerucla]

Hi FloridaKnitter. I'm a newbie too and the folks here at FTP helped me turn my swamp back into a pool. Here's my thread, including pictures:
swamp-conversion-how-long-to-pass-overnight-cl-test-t31771.html

I followed this thread and it worked, but it took some patience- turning-your-green-swamp-back-into-a-sparking-oasis-t4147.html

Once I got the proper test kit, I started shocking with liquid chlorine. The first day it went from green to cloudy white. I felt then like it would be clear in no time. But it took about 12 days of keeping the FC at shock levels before I got a positive overnight test. During that time, i was running the pump 24/7, brushing daily and cleaning the filter cartridges 1-2 times a day. The cloudiness took awhile to clear up. It took about 10 days for me to be able to barely see the drain at the bottom of the deep end. By the end of the second week, I had a crystal clear pool.

So, get the test kit, keep the FC at shock levels, run the pump, brush, clean the filters as much as needed and be patient.

Good luck!

 

[FloridaKnitter]

OK! Here are my numbers -
FC=0
TC=0
CH=120
CYA=0
TA=100
pH=7.4

I went ahead and put in 2 jugs of chlorine. I bought 15 lbs of Hardness Plus ( i know I need more but the guy at the pool store said I didn't have to put all of it in at one time, that the 15 lbs should be enough to at least get me started). I know that I need to do something about the CYA, but I'm not sure if I can do that and the calcium at the same time, or which should be more important. The pool store guy said that the bigger problem was the calcium. I bought a cheap testing kit until I can get the more expensive one. I'm not completely sure at what level on the test I should add more chlorine (if it drops below what number?)

 

[chem geek]

Don't worry about the calcium hardness right now. That's something that can get addressed long term. Much more important is the chlorine level and the CYA level. I wouldn't necessarily trust the CYA test readings until you get your own good test kit, but if your FC level drops quickly during the day and not so much overnight then your CYA is probably too low. So you can get some pure CYA (aka stabilizer or conditioner) at the pool store, but don't add too much. Just add 30 ppm worth for now by hanging it in a sock over a return with the pump running or in the skimmer basket (you can use an old T-shirt in the skimmer basket, if you like, since that works as well). Keep the pump running 24/7 until the CYA dissolves and until the pool clears.

Maintain the FC level at 12 ppm once you start adding some CYA to the water. Alternatively, if you prefer, you can buy some Dichlor instead of CYA since that will add both chlorine and CYA at the same time. For every 10 ppm FC of Dichlor, it also increases CYA by 9 ppm so you'd use Dichlor to keep the FC up at 12 ppm until you've cumulatively added around 30-35 ppm FC over the next days. You can use The Pool Calculator to calculate dosages.

 

[FloridaKnitter]

My husband added the calcium that I bought yesterday this morning before I woke up, so it's in the pool. I tested the water with the crappy test that I got a Leslie's to tide me over and am having a hard time distinguishing between the colors, but it doesn't measure as high as I need it to. I am assuming that to keep the chlorine at 12, it would be pretty dark yellow, which it isn't. I don't think the pool store is open today, so I can't get it tested there. I think I will get some bleach at Wal-mart and use the pool calculator. Can I still add the CYA with the calcium having been added today?

However, when I checked the pump this morning, it looks like water isn't circulating from the bottom drain. Our pool is around 9 feet deep. I don't have a rake that long. I suppose I could dive down and try to grab things, but that really freaks me out, not being able to see the bottom. Is that safe to do?

I feel like I am just grasping at straws right now.
Thanks a million everyone for all of your help so far.

 

[JasonLion]

You should get a pool leaf rake with a proper pole and get what you can off the bottom.

If you have some chlorine free water, typically distilled water, you can use the simple chlorine test to get an approximate chlorine level even at high levels. Mix one part of pool water with two equal parts of chlorine free water, test that, and multiply the result by three.