good FC/CC/CYA but hazy water

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Diver

Diver

0
May 5, 2011
482
South of Boston
I'm a 3 year pool owner. First year after learning a ton on this forum I had a breeze handling the pool. It couldn't had been easier.

Last year I replaced a motor on my superpump to a 2 speed. The wet end stayed the same. When the FC levels would get closer to the lower end I would get hazy water. It also happend when filter pressure was on a higher end so the GPMs were lower.When I was runing pump on high, I wouldn't back wash at those numbers yet and things were fine. I guess on lower speed the flow is more affected by lessed raise in the pressure.

So I attributed my problems to lack of water mxing and having some areas with lower levels of FC. It happend this year again. This time filter was just backwashed, so the GPM drop was minimal.

I checked the FC in 5 different spots, incluing some 3 feet under. They all were fine. Still hazy water. Here are the numbers:

CYA - 30
FC - 3.5 at 11 am today, 4 yesterday at 7pm. I usually get 0.5-1-1.5 ppm drop per day depending on sunlight amount. 80% of the pool is covered with solar cover.
CC - 0
Borates ~25-30
PH 7.4
TA 70
CH 140
Temp72

For my CYA the good range is 2-6. With filtering on high speed I touched the lower end of the range on multiple occasions without any hiccup. Borates might've added some extra protection.

With lower speed filtering I feel that if i let it drop below the middle of the range (4ppm in this case), I'm flirting with troubles.

I will stick with keeping it at higher end of the range from now on. But I'm wondering if someone sees something wrong with my approach and can offer me some advise.

Thanks!

P.S. I think my pool is a bit smaller than I think since I've been overshooting the numbers here and there. Old owner told me it was 27k, but I calculated it to be about 30k. So I used this number. We had Andrea drop a lot of water 2 days ago and now it's full to the brim. I introduced 11.6 ppm of chlorine (72 oz of 65% CalHypo) and instead of brining the level from 3.5 to 15.1, it brought it to 16ppm. That's after 15 minutes of mixing on high.
 
Cal Hypo often contributes to some cloudiness (but usually dissipates). An easy, cheap experiment is to switch to Clorox for at least 2-3 days and see if that has any effect......it certainly won't hurt.
 
the FC levels were coming down from 6ppm to 4 ppm in a 2 day span and i got the haziness today (3rd day), so it's unlikely that cloudiness was caused by cal-hypo - it would appear sooner. also i only see this on low range FC readings. and i never had it while my filtering was on high speed, even though i used cal-hypo almost exclusively.

what's the mechanism behind cloudiness caused by cal-hypo - chemical or mechanical? since i go thru the filter i assume all the inert material that is not fully soluble will be captured by filter media (DE in my case).
 
i wonder if my CYA is higher that it appears .. this would explain my situation. on high speed the distribution of the FC is better and it suppresses any potential algae growth. low speed filtering might leave some spots FC deprived and it could trigger a reaction. but wouldn't i see some some CC readings? i have nothing registering at all.

the black dot test is somewhat subjective. i stand with my back to the sun when i do the test.and i can fill the tube pretty much all the way up. which is 30ppm. if i turn to the sun i could see it even better..
 
2.5 hours of filtering on high at shock level. FC came down from 16ppm to 14.5ppm. 1.5 ppm drop in 2.5 hours in full sun. so it appears that there is something in the water consuming chlorine. there is a trace of CC now. maybe a 0.25ppm. water is looking better now.
 
i think i know the answer to my problems, at least for this time. 2 days ago i noticed dramatically lower reading of FC. I got 2.5 instead of expected 4. the same was yesterday. the same time I notice the drops of the chlorine titrant to be large. hence less drops and lower reading.

i believe the readings that i get now are more true. i had 2.5 FC and my pool is ok, which is in line with my CYA levels.

not sure what changed, maybe what i was wearing or maybe somehow i grounded either myself or the bottle and the static charge was gone.

anyway, i'm gonna use a wet wipe before titration to get more consistent results.

hopefully someone will find this post helpful too.
 
i guess i spoke too soon. FC was at 2.5 yesterday and a hit of haze again. my filter pressure was on a high end, but i don't know if it was due to a nascent algae bloom at that point or if nascent algae bloom was due to pressure being up before that.

i'm going to increase the filtration time and keep FC above 4ppm. it sounds like it's due to lack circulation and spots with lower FC.
 
I had a similar problem last year. I fought algae, fought algae, and fought algae. I could keep my water sparkling clear, but every time I shocked I got dead algae fall out. I maintained shock level until there was no unusual chlorine demand, and when I returned the pool to normal levels, within a week, I had dead algae again when I shocked. To make a long story short, I finally found the problem. Pink algae had begun to grow in some ridges on the bottom of the steps of the ladder. I got rid of it, and the problem went away.
 

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I pulled my ladder out to see if it makes any difference. I found 2 small green algae (?) rings on the rubber plugs that cap the ladder pipes and that brace the ladder against the liner. It was on the part of the plugs that goes inside. I would imagine there is no flow of the water there. Not sure if this could be a kindling source of algae for me or not.

Another thing that I started to worry about is my solar cover. It’s on its 3rd year and is extremely water logged. It actually bends the reel with the water weight when it’s rolled up. There is usually a good amount of organic debris on top of it that goers in when cover is removed.

The cover covers about 80% of my pool (I part of the L) and usually stays put on week days. My wife removes small part of it so she can swim with our daughter and I remove it on Saturday morning and put it back Sunday night. When I put it back it has a slimy feel to it and water in it is a bit frothy. When it’s rolled in the water inside seems to reach boiling temp since there is a lot of steam when I unroll it and the reel is painfully hot.

First year when my pool maintenance was trouble free was the first year for the cover and it was in a good shape. 2nd year when I started getting haziness problem the cover was in worse shape and it continues to deteriorate further this year and I keep getting the issues. 2nd year was also the year when I switched to slow speed filtering, so it could combination of things or one thing masking the other.

So do people have any issues with solar covers being a potential algae growth triggers? Any suggestions on how to deal with it? Keeping FC levels higher than it should be seems to be working for me regardless of the source of the problem so I might just continue doing that.

I haven’t let the levels fall closer to the normal range after I pulled the ladder out. I might try that for the sake of experiment.
 
well, i don't have to do this experiment any more. yesterday at 5.5 ppm of FC (25 ppm of CYA) the water started to show first sign of haziness again.

i removed the cover and I'm going to go for a while without it. I saw small clumps of something yellow on the bottom of the cover. it was soft and it felt apart when I touched it and i could easily wash it off - it wasn't attached to the cover at all. i saw it before and I was under impression it was clumps of pollen. But now with my hazy water problem I start to wonder if it's yellow algae? I don't know what it looks like, but judging from description, can it be it?
 
Removing the solar cover as a test is a good idea.
Many people have had solar covers that, as they aged, became algae condo communities. It would not be a surprise if that was the case in your pool.

Also, as it seems you do tend to keep your FC at a fairly minimum level, you haven't a lot of wiggle room, nor extra protection. So it's possible the recurring haze could well be a nascent algae bloom which is just barely being kept from increasing.

In the Search box above, type: CYA Chart
Check it for the appropriate CYA/FC levels.

You'll have this issue handled in no time!
 
toofast, i'm bumping my CYA slowly right now using trichlor tablets, but i don't think it's a problem. i measure my FC daily at the end of the day. It was 5.5 ppm yesterday at 6 pm and 7 ppm day before at 7 pm. so 5.5 was the lowest during 23 hour period. if my CYA was too low and caused my FC to drop too low I would see at the end of the day. that doesn't seem to be the case.
 
if anything my symptoms suggest that i might have a higher CYA and my levels of FC are not sufficients. But then 5.5ppm FC being too low suggest that my CYA might be as high as 70 ppm, which is definitely not the case.

must be the cover :) i will see in a few weeks.

it kinda sucks if it's my solar cover. i like having my pool above 80F.
 

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