Hello! I'm new and my pool water is green and cloudy

[sandrapippa]

My pool water is cloudy and a little green - it was dark green yesterday, I'm running the filter 24/7. It's a 20,000 gallon in ground gunite pool, has a Pentair Whisperflo 1 hp motor, and Triton II sand filter, Pac FAB mutiport.

We struggle with algae every year, opened the pool late this year so it is fierce! I already put 10!! bags of shock from Costco between yesterday and today, forget that, didn't phase the dark green water, started reading online again like I do every year, went back to the A&P for bleach, done that years before, too. So I put in 7 gallons of bleach total today, the water isn't dark green, only slightly green now, but cloudy. Only trouble is, I can't get a reading above 0 on the Free Chlorine. Here's what shows on the test strips:

PH: 7.8
CC: 10 ppm
FC: 0
Alk: 180
CY: 30

I know it may be cloudy for a while, but should I add more bleach for the Free Chlorine? Third trip to the store today.

Thanks so much!

Sandra

 

[Bama Rambler]

While test strips are atrociously wrong, it appears that it's all you have. You really need a good test kit, but let's go with what we have.
If the FC won't rise and the CC is really 10 ppm, you appear to have ammonia. Just keep adding about 10 ppm FC in bleach to the pool about once an hour until you get a FC reading. You can use the pool calculator to figure out how much bleach you need to add to put 10 ppm FC in the pool.

 

[sandrapippa]

Thanks, Dave. I do have test kits, they're all out of the chemicals for the chlorine, but I will remedy that shortly. I appreciate your response.
Sandra

 

[sandrapippa]

Once I get the FC right and the algae under control, what do you think of using alum to clear the cloudy water? A pool guy did it once here, successfully, the pool had to sit unfiltered for a day, but the alum coagulated all the debris and it was vaccumed out in one fell swoop. I tried to do it myself once, but my success wasn't as great. Any advice?

Thanks.

 

[Bama Rambler]

That's the problem with flocculent. Sometimes it works, but most times it doesn't.

The first thing you need to concentrate on is shocking your pool the proper way until you pass the OCLT.
Once you've done that, I bet your pool clears up nicely.

 

[sandrapippa]

OK, gonna trust you. Got more bleach just now, ordered the super test kit yesterday, hope it comes by Tuesday or Wednesday!

P.S. I will post a warning on your site, if you think I should, to beware of Clorax "no splash" bleach. It says "regular" but it has some kind of additive, now I have foam in my pool along with the algae. Geez....

 

[Lazypoolowner]

No splash bleach contains sodium xylene sulfonate, a thickener often found in shampoos. While I'm a pool noob, I don't think you should be putting that in our pool.

 

[chem geek]

As noted in the Pool School article What is BBB?, "When buying bleach at the grocery store, you want the unscented stuff, NOT the stuff with fragrances, thickeners, etc. Just plain old chlorine bleach!" In this thread, we should have told you regular unscented bleach -- not splash-less or bleach that says "outdoor" of "high efficiency (HE)". See this post for more examples of what is OK and NOT OK to use. Brands other than Clorox are fine to use, but the same rules apply and one should be careful to look for ingredients since the concentration of off-brand bleaches can be quite low and have a lot of excess lye in them -- usually off-brand "Ultra" bleaches are OK (if not splash-less or outdoor, etc.).

I posted a reminder thread on the forum the mods look at so thank you for pointing out the problem. The foam will dissipate in a few days or a week at most.

 

[RobbieH]

To add to what he said above, I've found plain Clorox at Costco for pretty much the same price as store brand stuff. The good thing about Costco is I'm betting that Clorox is fresh too, it hasn't been sitting around.

 

[sandrapippa]

Thanks for the info on the bleach. I knew not to get bleach with fragrance, my husband bought this, we didn't realize there would be additives, didn't see "no splash", but I buy as generic as possible usually.

I have the FC at 10 now and will follow the advice to keep it that way, and check in the morning.

Thanks so much!

 

[sandrapippa]

Test kit arrived. Pool no longer green but still cloudy.

Test kit arrived! Here are my readings:

CYA = less than 20, maybe 0 (I could always see the black dot after 20, even though I filled it all the way, so I'm assuming it is really low)
FC = 7
PH = 6.8
CC = 1.5
TC = 8.5
TA = 60
CH = 230

As a reminder, we were struggling with algae and have been adding chlorine bleach to keep it under control since last Friday. Pool is not showing any green, just very cloudy - Chlorox with the additive for "no splash" didn't help, live and learn. But it looks like we need CYA!

Thanks so much!

Sandra

 

[sandrapippa]

I can't figure out how to post a question! I'm so sorry to be dumb about forums, but I am new to them, too. I posted a question, thought I did, earlier but even though I got a message it was submitted, I don't see it. I wonder if someone could tell me the easiest/best way to post a question. I have my signature, etc., did post one question as a new user, but go lost. I received my test kit and want to post results and ask a question. Please help, thanks!