TFP Newbie! Milky water now after starting to shock.

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nognielsen

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Jun 11, 2012
23
Hey everbody, so happy I found this site! Good riddance pool store.

I have a 22k gallon inground plaster pool that came with the house I bought last year (pool about 10 years old I think) DE filter and inline 320 Chlorinator.

So I started seeing traces of green on the walls and floor not a ton but still any is not good right?... I took the water to be tested and it had ZERO cholrine in it! CYA was 40 according to the pool store which I know might not be accurate after readng other threads. I've ordered a fancy test kit, hopefully it will be here soon.

I was so perplexed why my chlorinator was not working? The water would fill up when I turned it up to 5 and I had recently replaced the check valve... Then I checked the the little plastic grate inside the unit at the bottom where water flows back into the line and it was totally clogged with deposits, I used a wire brush to free all the deposits. I was only using 1-1.5 pucks a week. I think I should be going through ALOT more than that each week. Also, I think I've learned this unit is more for just maintaining chlorine and that now I need to bring out the bleach to get things under control. (I have powered "shock" but as I understand it that has CYA so that will bring my CYA up if i use a bunch of it, so my best bet is good ole bleach!)

So I've poured in some bleach since (2 gallons) and unclogged the chlorinator and turned it to "5" and the water has gone milky/cloudy which I assume means things are dying, chlorine is working. Pump is running much more than normal to hopefully get things churning and filtered.

My 2 questions for all you experts...
Does my process/statements above make sense, am I misunderstanding anything?
Until my test kit arrives which I know is the most important thing here... can I continue to add bleach to stay in front of the algae? or should I wait till the kit comes to add anything

So glad I found this place!
 
Alright so I got a Taylor k-2006

So I'm not sure if I'm doing this right... but here goes

FC = 2
CC = maybe close to .5

CH = 300? took 30 drops to go to blue...

TA = 100-110

PH = 7.6

CYA= 40

So I've gotten most of the milkiness out of the water, however there's still a few bits of green lurking on the walls (I've brushed it off each day) just a tad in indentations of the plaster. I'm guessing I need to shock and shock often. I've bought lots and lots of bleach and my chlorinator is locked and loaded and opened full.

Looks like from pool calc I need to sustain about FC of 15...

Do I need any more stabilizer? I'm thinking my pucks in the chlorinator will naturally add it over time.

Thanks for any positive feedback!
 
Do I need any more stabilizer? I'm thinking my pucks in the chlorinator will naturally add it over time.
Click to expand...
No, do not add more stabilizer/CYA. Also, stop with the pucks or your CYA will soon become too high and other problems will follow. Use bleach/liquid chlorine - no ill side effects.

Save the pucks for vacation :)

[shock:2x28rsr0]You need to shock your pool.[/shock:2x28rsr0]

Have you found the PoolCalculator.com yet? Welcome to the forum :wave:
 

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just thought I post some more experience, I've been shocking each evening bringing FC up to 15 and then in the morning its down to about 5. However the water is an amazing blue I haven't see in months... I thought it was clear before it got cloudy, but obviously I was wrong. (first Spring with the pool) The water looks amazing! I'll keep shocking until I pass the OCLT test.

My question is, once I pass the test, won't my FC be way high since there's nothing left for it to oxidize? (at or close to shock level) Will it just go down by itself with sunlight and time? Can I swim in a pool with a FC of 15?

This water looks absolutely amazing!
 
nognielsen said:
My question is, once I pass the test, won't my FC be way high since there's nothing left for it to oxidize? (at or close to shock level) Will it just go down by itself with sunlight and time? Can I swim in a pool with a FC of 15?
Click to expand...
Yes, it will go down by itself, as you said. In fact, now is a good time to check it daily. It'll give you a fairly good indication of how many ppm you use per day, and you'll be able to estimate when it'll be down to your target level.

Yes, you can swim up to shock levels.

Dan
 
Okay, so I've gotten the pool under control from an algae perspective, however last week I went on vacation for 5 days, and turned off the polaris 280 to prevent it from filling up and getting stuck and what not(Pump still ran everyday for 8 hours). Bad idea. I get home and there are terrible brownish almost rust colored splotches all over the floor of the pool. (IG plaster) So I I'm thinking it was algae, and I start to shock, however, after much more research it appears that its probably Tannin stains? I do have a large oak right next to the pool. I've seen them before but never this many. I think we had a heck of a storm while I was gone and it must have put some more debris into the pool. Anyway, I rubbed a cholrine puck on some of the stains and they slowly went away after a few minutes.

Any other method to control these stains more effectively, or prevent them? Shock the pool? Can't cut down the tree, it's beautiful! I guess I just need to run the polaris even when I'm gone to get that stuff off the bottom...

PH 7.6
CH 300
FC 3.0
CYA 30
 
Thanks for the tip!

On a side note. I have a pentair 320 inline chlorinator... And I have it turned all the way up (5), but I still can't get the FC to stay in the 4-5 range unless i supplement with bleach almost everyday. I replace about 4-5 pucks a week in the chlorinator, and I know the check valve is working as water flows through it easily. Are those chlorinators not made to handle chlorination on their own? Or do I still have something nasty lurking most likely? I passed the OCLT test a few weeks ago, but I think I'm slowly getting back into trouble as the pool was slightly milky yesterday (no visible algae on walls or steps however just those annoying tannin stains) I got this pool with the house we bought last august, so this is our first full summer as pool owners!

Thanks for any advice.

PH 7.6
FC 3
CYA 30-40ish
CH 300
 
You can have the tree thinned out to reduce the leaves in the pool. It is OK to remove up to 30% of the leaves on a tree. Have a pro do it, they will selectively cut to thin out branches that are badly placed leaving the best and strongest branches intact. A good cut is one that only takes out the branch itself, not any of the trunk material. A bad cut that cuts the trunk will bleed and ooze, inviting pests and disease. After a good thinning, the tree will look better but it will be hard to tell what was removed. The tree looks better, not worse, like a good haircut. Watching a good crew can be like watching an areal ballet, amazing to see the rope work, how they lower large branches without hitting anything, roof or pool.
 
Alright, I have an tree trimming guy coming, thanks for the tip... Now for my next question. For weeks now I've haven't seen any algae in my pool and the water has been clear, however I can't keep my FC above 1 for any length of time. I'll shock up to 15 or so and then the next evening its back down to 1 maybe 1.5 I'm still new at this but I think I don't have much if any CYA. Confession: I've been using my pool store's test results for CYA (they always say about 40) as mine always registers so low I thought I was doing it wrong. I know everybody says the pool store is notoriously wrong on that test, but I didn't trust myself... I have the Taylor K-2006 and I do the test and as instructed but I fill the tube up and clearly can still see the black dot... So now it's making sense to me that possibly my CYA is so low that the cholrine can't stay in the pool... (I get about half sun throughout the day. I've done the CYA test at least 3 times over the last 3 weeks and the result is always the same. I get to the top of the tube and can still see the black dot. I was hesitant to do the stabilizer sock method as I know how hard it is to remove CYA... The only thing that is adding CYA are my chlorine pucks. I ocassionally use to use Cal Hypo but that doesn't contribute CYA does it?

Does this theory make sense?

Thanks for listening to my ramblings...

FC 1-1.5
CC 0
PH 7.6
CH 300
CYA - <10 (my testing number finally)
 
How many pucks (or lbs of pucks) have you used this season?

If you are using the 3" tri-chlor pucks, most weigh 7-8oz. If 8oz, each one would raise your 22,000 gallon pool 1.5 ppm CYA. If you have been using 5 a week, that would be about 7.5 ppm CYA each week.

**As a side note, this is what I think each puck is doing. (I'm not the best at pucks, so please someone correct me if my thinking is wrong.) According to the calculator, each puck would only raise your FC by 2.5. If you use 5 per week, that is raising your FC by 12.5. 12.5 divided by 7 days a week gives you 1.8 ppm FC per day. Most pools seem to loose 2-4 ppm per day, so this could explain why you are not getting a high enough FC. You would probably need to be using 8-9 pucks per week to maintain enough FC. And you can see how that will QUICKLY raise your CYA too high.
 
Yes that's why I've been hesitant to add stabilizer, but I go through about 3-4 pucks a week... I run my pump for 8 hours a day. I did try a different puck this year, (Sam's Club brand) I need to check the active ingredients again to see if it's inferior possibly to other pucks i've used in the past. (I bought them before I discovered BBB)

Thanks for the calculations this makes sense to me.
 

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