Water cloudy

[Patricio]

Hello again everyone. happy Halloween. After have an initial honymoon period with BBB I am now starting to have cloudiness problems. I am in a very remote area and I fill my pool from a hand dug well. The water going in seems to have a very fine silt which my sand filter cannot seem to get out. Coagulants seem to be the thing that worked before I embarked on the BBB method. Is it ok to use them again. The problem is they put a weird floating stuff in the water that takes a little time to filter out. Also the vacuuming to waste after using them is very water intensive. In pool school it has an article about adding DE to my sand. Is that an option? Also, has anyone ever used the glass replacement for sand (http://www.ecosmarte.com/hydrox.html) that ecosmarte sells. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated, i'm getting weary of cloudy water.

 

[Johnny B]

From what I've read hear, TFP generally does not advise coagulants but there are a few instances. Lets wait for a pro to chime in.
Sure, the DE in the sand filter is fine to try.

 

[257WbyMag]

Please post a set of test results for us to see that include FC, CC, CYA, CH, pH, and TA.

 

[Richard320]

I'm with Weatherby. A full set of accurate test results will tell a lot. High CH and high pH can make the water look dull and cloudy. So can low FC - it might be just enough to keep an algae bloom in check and the dead, bleached-out algae can cause cloudiness.

If the water clears when the pump is off and it has time to settle, then adding DE to the sand filter should help. But if there's a chemistry problem that needs to be addressed first.

 

[Patricio]

Thank you all for replying. Here is the latest test results taken at 11:30 central time 10/28/11, minutes ago.

PH 7.2
FC .5
CC .5
TA 85
CH 130
CYA 50

THE free chlorine is low because I did not add chlorine last night. I have been keeping it at 3.5 and the cc has been consistant at .5. The cya level seems to be up from my last test but I have only added bleach and water. The pool level was getting pretty low so over the course of the last 12 hours I have added about 1500 gallons. I would think that would make the cya go down so the only thing that I can contribute the rise to is operator error on the first test.
Two days ago i opened the sand filter and with my garden hose and stiff tube rinsed the sand for about a half hour as per pool school. That night I circulated the pool for 12 hours and the next morning (yesterday) the pool was still cloudy.
On monday of this week I read the article here about the possibility of algae being suspended and just not getting killed or filtered out. So on Monday night I took the pool to shock level 16 as per pool calculator and circulated for 24 hours. The FC returned to 3.5 and the CC never got above .5.
In describing the cloudiness I can still see the bottom of the pool but the water just looks dirty and doesn't have any sparkle. At this point the only thing that I can contribute that to is that the water going in is dirty. If I run the water in a white 5 gal. bucket from the hose it looks slightly grayish. silt? I don't know, but it used to filter out with a product called Clarit sold here in Mexico.
Well thats where I'm at this morning, I hope we can figure it out.

Thank you all again for your advice and help.

Patricio

 

[JasonLion]

Letting your FC get low like that is an invitation for algae to start growing. When algae is just getting started it will give the water just a slight haze that is hardly noticeable. With CYA around 50 you want to keep FC between 4 and 8, and never allow it to go below 4.

You may need to shock the pool, or you might be able to just raise FC back up to where it needs to be normally and leave it at that.

You might also want to try adding a little DE to your sand filter, see instructions in Pool School.

 

[Patricio]

Thank you Jason, I appreciate your taking the time to help me. i will give those things a try. Muchas Gracias