Cloudy Water

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LowSL2

LowSL2

0
Jul 2, 2012
7
Brentwood, CA
Hi everyone. I've Been lurking on this forum for a while now. We bought a house with a pool back in June. It was a swamp and after reading tons of helpful topics on here I got it sparkling clear.

Now I have a problem that has me scratching my head. Last Saturday I noticed the pool getting cloudy. I sweep the pool regularly. And was checking chemistry with those test strips that everyone loves and with my OTO test kit. Here are my (inaccurate) numbers when the pool was cloudy with the test strips:

TC = 1
FC = 3
pH = 7.8
TA = ~120
CYA = ~40
CH = ~500

Checked with my OTO test kit too and TC and pH were the same with that test.

So thinking I was probably having an algae outbreak, I put in two gallons of 6% bleach and let the pump run 24/7. I watched it for a few days and the cloudiness didn't go away. So I pulled the filters out and cleaned each cartridge. They were pretty filthy. Which confused me more since pressure has remained unchanged at 10psi since I last cleaned the filters a couple weeks ago. So since I was done with the test strips I took a sample to Leslies to verify my findings. The guy there said that if I hadn't told him the pool was cloudy, he was going to say the water was fine. Here's their numbers:

TC = 5
FC = 5
CH = 300
CYA = 40
TA = 110
pH = 7.6
TDS = 1700

Since I needed a new kit, I bought the DPD test kit that tests FC, TC, CC, pH, TA. I didnt get the FAS-DPD because funds are tight this month (I had to use spare change just to buy this kit). So I've been checking the chemistry in the morning and at night. And my numbers are unchanged and the water is still cloudy. Water is flowing strong out of the eyeballs, pressure is constant at 10psi. I'm running the pump 24/7.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what I should do? I'm stumped.

Thanks!
 
Welcome to TFP!!!

I cringed when you said you bought the DPD test ... you really need the FAS-DPD test and ordering the K-2006 online could not have been much more (if at all) than what you paid to Leslies.

Given the cloudy water, you need to go through the shock process as described in Pool School. For a CYA of 40ppm (if you can believe that test since it is the one the stores seem to struggle the most with), the shock level is a FC of 16ppm. You MUST keep the FC at 16ppm until you pass the 3 tests to stop ... that is why you need the FAS-DPD chlorine test.

You can limp by if you dilute the water sample and use 33% pool and 66% distilled water for the DPD test ... and then triple the reading ... but you are going to loose a lot of accuracy and actually seeing a 1ppm change is virtually impossible.
 
Yeah...two gallons of 6% bleach in an almost 20k gal pool won't do much. That's only about 7, maybe 8ppm FC. You have to raise to shock level and hold it at that level until the water clears, overnight FC loss is 1ppm or less and CC is 0.5 or less. Jason gave you very solid advice.
 
Well, somehow you have to use 50% pool and 50% distilled water and then double the test reading
or like I said above
use 1/3 pool and 2/3 distilled and then triple the test reading.

The error comes in depending on how well you get the ratios correct.
 
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