Why does my water look DULL??

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L

laweatherred

0
Jun 12, 2010
147
Levelland Texas
Good Morning.....

Here are my test results from this morning...with the TF-100 kit....and really the first time I've done every step of the test.
Pool has been newly filled for about 2 weeks....has rained twice since....shocked once after the first rainfall.

FC=4
CC=0
TC=4
Ph=7.8
TA=230
CH=never could get a color change even after 75 drops(????)
Cya=60

So why does my water look DULL instead of sparkly?? Any suggestions would be helpful...thanks!@!@!

(I know I need to make some adjments to Ph, TA, and Cya....I just hope I can figure out exatcly how)
I have read all of the Pool Chemistry topics several times....just need a little reassurance. :?
 
If your numbers have been stable the few days then I would say it may be a lack of filtration prehaps coupled with lower FC at some point in the past..

I would manually elevate the FC on a one-time basis by putting in a couple of jugs of chlorine....say to about 10ppm, and then make sure I was brushing, cleaning, vacuuming very often and running the pump 24/7....Do everything you can to mechanically remove whatever is causing the dullness.
 
@duraleigh: yes, I went about one week without any chlorine...not knowing my SWG wouldn't kick on its own...and before being informed I should shock it...I bumped up the FC on this past Thursday night with 2 1lb bags of Chlor Brite shock....(thought about using bleach instead but was afraid).....I vacuumed on waste yesterday....mainly because my SWG was alerting me "High Salt"....anyway after adding water back to skimmer, the SWG worked fine.

@butterfly: I have not tested the fill water for CH....I will check out the Extended test instruction for how to do this.

Thanks!!

new respose...Chessie6...I'm not sure....with my SWG it reccommends having Cya at 70-80....so I really think it is too low.
 
Our water in the Panhandle sucks. :) Calcium hardness is crazy around here. I notice when my water lacks that "sparkle" that I'm high on my ph. Yours is on the upper side for your pool and your TA is really high, I would use the pool calculator to adjust those numbers and see if your pool begins to sparkle again. And your FC is too low so you might be in the beginning of an algae bloom.
 
Thanks mpacheco72.....

Ok so does it matter when I make those adjustments??...Morning, afternoon, night???

And what order to I make the adjustments??....FC, Ph, or Ta.....which order is best??

I thought my FC was good according to the Recommend levels table for SWG/vinyl pools.....maybe not though???

Can I just use bleach to raise the FC instead of the Chlor brite?? because I have to drive 30 miles to get any Chlor brite...
 
Please use bleach and only bleach! :) You'll find that your use of chlorbrite will put your other chemicals out of whack after a while. I would boost my FC with bleach (go steal your wife's!) and then after about 30 minutes I would start working on my PH and TA.
 

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mpacheco72 said:
LOL, this is the wife too! Don't you just love it. My husband thinks I'm a nut, because I keep at least 10 bottles of bleach at a time and because I love the chemistry aspect of it all. :)
Click to expand...

Yep....I just use the husband to help with plumping the filter and pump.....otherwise :blah:

(no offense to all the other husbands).....
 
Same here.....

Ok one more thought to the dullness of my water....

I just read on TFP that "metals" in the water can give it a greenish but clear appearance....

Could that also be my problem as my SWG still has the copper plate inside it......and I've been afraid to "unplug" it like I've read most people do???

And btw....lowered my pH today with dry acid and am now aerating over night to see what TA is tomorrow....was still at 230 with my last test this afternoon....

If anyone can answer this metal question that would be great!!! Thanks!!
 
You need to do an overnight chlorine loss test if you went a week without swg on most likely got something growing. If you loss more the 1 fc the you need to do a shock process as described in pool school
 
Thanks....did the overnight test and actually went from FC 4.5/CC 1 last night to FC 6/CC .5 this morning.....can it actually go up instead of down??? I did aerate my water overr night......

oh and used my Copper dip strip this morning at it was zero....so not sure about metals????
 
Dont worry about the copper plate in the SWG creating metals issues. If you had a copper issue your water would be bright green and crystal clear.

If your CH level really is somewhere in the 1000 range - then calcium clouding is a real possibility. The combination of high Calcium, high TA and high PH can easily cloud up your pool and cause additional problems - most notably inside your SWG cell.

Whether or not the cloudiness is due to calcium - you are a candidate for calcium trouble. I'd run the calcium test again in a 10ml sample size and post the results. Also run the test on your fill water and post that.

As a point of reference - I had calcium clouding at CH 1000ppm and the cloudiness took a week to fully clear after I dropped the PH to 7.
 
Okay....thanks....here are results from just now...

Ph...7.8 (which I know is high aftering aerating all night)

TA....180 (that's better from 230, right???)

CH....?????? (I don't know if I'm just totally stupid or what, but I can't seem to get this test result to work.....I followed the extended test method even altering it for the "copper" portion.....AND STILL NO COLOR CHANGE!!!....and that was after atleast 150 drops of R-0012....just stopped at that so that I would not use all of my reagent in one test....

PLEASE....WHAT NOW????

Oh and here are two pics of my pool water from just now.....may not look as bad as I think..

http://i1270.photobucket.com/albums/jj6 ... 77B2B3.jpg

http://i1270.photobucket.com/albums/jj6 ... 029ADA.jpg

Someone please let me know what you think.....Thanks!!!
 
laweatherred said:
Thanks....did the overnight test and actually went from FC 4.5/CC 1 last night to FC 6/CC .5 this morning.....can it actually go up instead of down??? I did aerate my water overr night......
Click to expand...

As I found out recently, yes. Doing a test on water that has not been mixed in awhile can give you inaccurate results. See my thread.
 

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