Cloudy water?

Jump to latest Follow Reply
C

crs16

0
Gold Supporter
Jun 21, 2011
78
Albuquerque, NM
My husband mentioned last night that the bottom of the pool seemed a bit "cloudy". I think he is right, there is a milkiness to the water so that when I look at the bottom of the ladder it just seems a bit foggy.

We've had the pool about 2.5 weeks. No problems until now.

My numbers as of this morning were:
FC 8.0
CC 0.5
PH 7.5
CYA 60
The only things I've added to the water are bleach, muriatic acid (initial to bring down pH), and CYA.

I did do an overnight test last night. The FC dropped from 9 to 8 this morning. I went ahead and added bleach to shock level and will continue to add bleach today and do another overnight test tonight.

I do wonder if it might just be a problem filtering? The loss of 1ppm of FC though bothers me. We haven't backwashed the filter yet, it has only risen about 2psi since we started using it. The pool store said to backwash weekly, the manual I think said every 2 weeks or when psi rises 8 to 10 over the clean psi, which it hasn't yet.

I guess the real question is, do you think I'm overreacting to the cloudiness and loss of 1ppm overnight?
 
Did you have more swimmers than normal? I don't think you are overreacting, a dulling of the water or cloudiness that wasn't there before are things to watch for. I don't think you are wrong to bring it up to shock level, but the experts will probably to be along shortly to give you better guidance.
 
Thanks dattia. I figured it would be better to fix it now then just ignore our gut feeling. We've only had one day that we didn't swim and most days we have a variety of 4 to 12 year olds over.

I had been wondering the last two days but figured it was kids kicking up dirt, we have a crushed fill and pea gravel around our pool, so we vacuum every 2 or 3 days. Even now when I added the bleach I brushed the bottom and the water became much more milky.

The kids are just disappointed they can't swim today. :hammer:
 
Good for you for following your gut! Much easier to deal when you catch things early.

And you did not hesitate to shock. :goodjob:

When you turn off the pump does the gauge go down to zero?

When new sand was added to the filter, was the sand rinsed before starting to filter?

What is your clean filter psi reading?
 
Thanks for responding butterfly. :-D

The pressure goes down to 0 when turned off. When the sand was first put in we backwashed and rinsed. The original psi after cleaning was 5, right in the middle of their green zone. It is now up to 7. It has been going up slowly, but the last 2 days I have noticed the pressure rise from 6 to 7.

I've been brushing the bottom regularly today and I can see a lot of dirt in the wrinkles along the bottom of the liner.

About time to check FC again...
 
Pressure is holding steady at 7 psi. After I brought the FC up to shock (24) the last two hours I've checked the FC has dropped each time to 21.5. So I've been adding bleach according to the calc to bring it back up to 24. So not a huge drop considering the sunny climate I live in.


Hopefully I caught this in time. I have kids coming over on Thursday, I'd hate to tell them no swimming.

And if I remember correctly I should not put the solar cover on at night while shocking, correct?

Brrr the water is getting colder by the minute! :lol:
 
Well that was nasty. I have a question, the last time we backwashed I just watched the water coming out the hose. There are 2 glass circles on the filter, am I supposed to be watching through one of those?

Anyway, backwashed (and it was really dirty), and rinsed. Turned back to filtration and the psi is back down to 5.

Do you think the filter was a problem even though the pressure didn't get up to 10 psi above normal?
 
You don't want to wait 'til your psi is 10 over your clean psi.
Since an increase of 2 psi apparently captured a bunch of dirty something that came flushing out, maybe 2 psi over clean psi# should be the max with this gauge. dunno....

Did you notice a difference in the force of the water coming into the pool? Was it diminished?

Maybe your gauge is faulty. Does it go to zero when you turn it off?
(I seem to be asking that q often lately :mrgreen: )

Do you have a variable speed pump? If yes, is it on low or high?
 

Enjoying this content?

Support TFP with a donation.

Give Support
I did not notice any difference in the water returning to the pool, but there may have been a difference.

I backwashed for a while before the water was coming out clean. It was really disgusting.

Yes the psi drops to 0 when the filter is off. Our pump is not a variable speed pump, as far as I know it is only off or on. :-D
 
So I tested this hour and I am still at shock (FC=24). The water is looking clearer, though I can still see some stuff floating in it.

I'm beginning to think it was a combination of something starting to grow (the FC had fallen to 3.5 twice in the last week by the time I checked in the evening) and the dirty filter.

But I'm happy to see that the bottom doesn't look milky now.

Whew.
 
Sounds like things are getting better.

I've been brushing the bottom regularly today and I can see a lot of dirt in the wrinkles along the bottom of the liner.
Click to expand...
Do you have some kind of dish for the kids to step into to clean their sweet pudgy little feet before they get into the pool?
You can talk with frogabog about this! She is a champion of cleaning their little feet first! :goodjob:

....the FC had fallen to 3.5 twice in the last week by the time I checked in the evening
Click to expand...
:shock: Okay, now I know you will have that under control. Each night you will raise your FC up to what, 7 or 8?....after you are done shocking, of course :)

We have learned that if your DH says the pool seems cloudy, start the shock process :goodjob:
 
So far so good. Pool looks crystal clear, husband vacuumed this evening and the shock level I added just at sunset is still holding.

With any luck it will be the same in the morning and I can let the FC level drop during the day. Then my kids will be happy once I let them back in the pool. :whoot:
 
Butterfly said:
Do you have some kind of dish for the kids to step into to clean their sweet pudgy little feet before they get into the pool?
You can talk with frogabog about this! She is a champion of cleaning their little feet first! :goodjob:
Click to expand...
OK... made me chuckle there, tyty!

And then I thought about my 13yo's size 13 feet... pudgy still but not very little! (poor kid was born with Fred Flintstone feet)

I've come to the conclusion that it's dirt falling from the air and surrounding trees that's causing the dirt in the bottom, and subsequent "not perfectly clear" water post swim in our pool (put a solar cover on last week, and the dirt on top of it after a whole day was all I needed to see to narrow it down). We don't have a sand filter though and apparently poor filtering is to be expected. OP might want to do the DE thing I read about here if the issue isn't solved w/shocking. 1c of DE till next backwash, correct?

I can say however that I haven't seen a single grass blade in the pool since we started the forced foot wash plan.
 
Thanks frogabog. I really hate what we have down now. We are slowly adding flagstone around the pool. I'm hoping once that is done it will decrease the amount of dirt in the pool. Most of our dirt seems to center around the ladder, which is why I tend to blame the dust clinging to feet. I might try a tub under/by the ladder entrance if it continues to be a problem.

However, I still lost 3ppm overnight. So on to the second day of shocking.

Someone shoot me now please. :hammer:
 
I posted some images of our ladder setup and pumps in another thread but I'll put up the ladder pic here for you.

Basically the outside feet sit in a small kiddie pool filled w/water (chlorinated w/tri-chlor in the floater). The kids practically HAVE to step in the water to use the ladder. It's not foolproof but much much better than the small tub we had employed in previous years which allowed the kids to make the choice not to use it. Spending the summer constantly getting on their case to wash feet before going in the pool was not fun. It is much more pleasant this way :~}

Kiddiepool.jpg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Thread Status
Hello , This thread has been inactive for over 60 days. New postings here are unlikely to be seen or responded to by other members. For better visibility, consider Starting A New Thread.
Top Bottom
Back
Jump to latest Follow Reply