Can't clear up the cloudiness

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R

rhett

0
Aug 31, 2012
4
Charleston SC
We have inground pool that is shaped like a stop sign. It holds 9,000 gallons of water. We have maintained it for 12 years with no problem. This summer about 2 months ago we started with Metal
stain, when treated with Leslie's pool treatment. It would go away and come back in a day or two.
Then the pool went cloudy. We were told after checking chemicals that we had a chlorine lock. WE treated with heavy shock (6) lbs super-chlorination and then 3 lbs 24 hours later. never cleared up.
We drained the pool to about 2 feet and replaced with fresh city water. We had a reading of good
alkalinity and good ph but no chlorine. We shocked with 1 lb on super chlorine, and started running
2 tablets in the chlorinator per pool store. Did not look as cloudy. readings were:
Free Available Chlorine - 4
Water PH 7.8
Total Alkalinity 100
Cyanuric Acid 40
Calcium Hardness - 90

Pool store said we needed to bring up Calciul Hardness to 200-400ppm
told to put 15 pounds of Hardness Plus and in 3 days put another 15 pounds

Pool Has been running 24 hours a day. The reading above was taken yesterday. As of today our
pool looks coulder than before! My husband had just changed the return jets up several months
ago, after reading a post from you, I had him go adjust the jets to the bottom of the pool! We
do not want to drain the pool again. Any help would be appreciated. (We have to drive a long
way to even get to the pool store. Thanks
 
How did you get your test results? Pool stores are incredibly unreliable. If you have been using powdered/puck/solid chlorine you have been adding a lot of CYA so I would expect your CYA to be higher than 40. As you have more CYA you need much higher levels of FC.

If you are getting algae you will have to shock your pool, the shock process is listed here:

pool-school/shocking_your_pool

To shock properly, if your CYA is really 40, then you need to keep a FC level of 16 at all times, until

1) your water is clear
2) your CC is less than .5
3) you lose less than 1ppm FC overnight

You should only use regular household unscented bleach (like clorox) so that you impact your other chemical levels as little as possible. You will also need a test kit that has a fas-dpd test which lets you measure chlorine levels to 50. The two recommended tests are the TF 100 or the Taylor 2006 test
 
Thanks. We cannot get decent strips from Lowes or Walmart. Have to go back to Leslie's ( only pool store close.) How much Clorex should we use if we are showing no chlorine and we have 9,000 galloons? As of today our test strips are reading no
chlorine.
 
I don't trust the walmart strips for chlorine at all. I have some of them (from before I found this website, don't judge me). They never show any chlorine. Doesn't matter what the level is: 1, 5, 10, it always says none. They are a few years old, so that may explain this, but I believe they were always like that.
 
Once you have a dependable test kit, post the test results here and we will get you going. We need test results for FC, CC, CYA, pH, TA, and CH.
 
rhett said:
Thanks. We cannot get decent strips from Lowes or Walmart. Have to go back to Leslie's ( only pool store close.) How much Clorex should we use if we are showing no chlorine and we have 9,000 galloons? As of today our test strips are reading no
chlorine.
Click to expand...

go to the pool calculator.com, enter your pool size. Enter 0 for FC and enter a target chlorine. This will tell you how much chlorine you need to add if you have 0 FC. Also note that mfg just recently switched from 6% bleach to 8.25% pretty much across the board, so make sure you enter the right percent of bleach.
 
Today went to pool store. Got new test strips. Water test as this am:
FAC-0
TAC-0
PH-7.6
TA-190
CYA-100
Calcium Hardness-190

Chlorinator is off - water looks clearer today. Having people over for a swin. Pool guy
said to shock it tonight - 5 bags of super cholination. Then wait 24 hours and add 3 bags of shock. He said leave chorinator off! We will see.
 

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Personally, I would not swim in that pool. As the other posters already mentioned, do not rely on pool store testing/advice, and do not rely on test strips. You need to purchase a good, reliable test kit as recommended here: Test Kits Compared
And you need to study up on shocking your pool. It is a process, not a product.
The Shock Process
All of this information, and much more can be found in pool school :)
Pool School
 
Welcome!!!! :wave:

So far you have ignored all advice. Add only bleach for now, do not use test strips as they are not reliable AT ALL. If you swim in an unsanitary pool (no chlorine!!!!) then you run the risk of giving your guest swimmers ear, bacterial infections, etc.

Not sure if you have a vinyl pool or not. If vinyl, your calcium hardness if fine...unless you have water heater.

Just add bleach. Add, repeat as necessary. Nothing else. Run pump 24/7.
 
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