Cloudy Water

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D

derekyork

0
Jun 3, 2013
28
Clarksville Tennessee
Here is my problem. We had sand bags holding down our stairs and of course one of the bags started leaking and we had a mess. We have vacuumed multiple times, very slowly and the sand keeps coming back. Each time it comes back, its less and less. I bought some skimmer socks to try to trap more of the sand. Our water is also cloudy. We had almost two straight weeks of rain and storms and this week the sun has finally come out and the rain has ended.
Here are my readings...

FC 3.5
CC 0.5
TA 100
Ph 8.0 , redder than 7.8, not as red as 8.2. Checked twice
CYA 30

What do you think is causing the cloudy water? The sand still circulating or the high ph? I'm going to add some acid today to lower my ph. And I will be vacuuming once again also.
 
Hey Derek,

I haven't seen you before so let me say welcome to the forum.

The sand may have given you some cloudiness, and your pH is a bit high, but let's focus on your Chlorine first. It's easy to get distracted with other things, but this is really important and often a frequent cause of cloudy water. Usually because of, or being close to having an Algae bloom. You are a little low on FC for your CYA, and you have likely been too low recently, maybe even more so with the rain. It is really important not to let FC fall below target and stay or let that happen too often, for even short periods of time. This is where Algae will sneak up and bite you. Lower the pH a little as you mention, shoot for 7.5 or so. Bring your FC up to 5-6 and then let's run an OCLT to see what happens with your FC residual. You may need to complete a SLAM process. You can see the link in my sig for how to do the OCLT. Let's try that and see what happens.

As for your sand coming through, I have a dinky little sand filter and deal with that all the time. We have lots of blowing sand here too. I found out about Slime Bags this year and finally understood just how much was getting past my sand filter. You might try one if that persists for you. Lastly when you post back, please post another full set of numbers and please add CH to the list.
 
Sounds like your sand issue is getting resolved. Some folks with round pool have reported good succes of getting a bunch of folks in the pool all going around the perimeter the same direction. The resultant large whirlpool brings the sand to the center of the pool where it concentrates and be vacuumed more easily.

Hard to say about your cloudiness. How long has it been cloudy? How are you chlorinating? How long do you run the pump? You might get ready to SLAM the pool but let's get it narrowed down a bit before we suggest that.
 
That chlorine test was done after a full day of sun. I've been chlorinating to 5 each night, then 24 hours later its 3.5 the vast majority of the time. The weeks it was cloudy and raining the chlorine actually was 4 a few times. This is what I have been doing since June and my readings have always been spot on until I tested the ph last night. It has been cloudy since maybe last Friday. I only use bleach to chlorinate and run the pump 7 hours a day. I just added the acid during my lunch break. I also noticed even less sand then yesterday in the pool, so it it slowly going away. I also today just received Wanda the Whale vacuum so I'm throwing her in after work.

Two more questions...

If the cloudiness is caused by the ph, how long will it take the acid to lower the ph and the water to clear up?

Also if my average chlorine usage is 1.5 and I have been targeting 5, should I target maybe 7 and then let it fall back to 6 or 6.5?
 
Your cloudiness will not be caused by pH alone. It could be calcium being high in addition, but I think you should focus on Chlorine first. Bring it up a little, do the OCLT, and lets go from there. Until we can nail down whether or not you need to SLAM, we shouldn't speculate on a chemical reason for the cloudiness. I cannot tell you how many times I have had a cloudy pool over the years and brought it back to crystal with Chlorine and filtering alone. For the record, I have VERY high hardness, >700 CH and high TA >180 at seaons start. I have never had a cloudy time that filtering and chlorine didn't fix. I am not saying you don't have something mineral/chemical causing it, but I wouldn't say until we know about the FC first. If a SLAM is needed and it got you crystal clear, I would not be the least bit surprised.
 
Brushpup said:
Your cloudiness will not be caused by pH alone. It could be calcium being high in addition, but I think you should focus on Chlorine first. Bring it up a little, do the OCLT, and lets go from there. Until we can nail down whether or not you need to SLAM, we shouldn't speculate on a chemical reason for the cloudiness. I cannot tell you how many times I have had a cloudy pool over the years and brought it back to crystal with Chlorine and filtering alone. For the record, I have VERY high hardness, >700 CH and high TA >180 at seaons start. I have never had a cloudy time that filtering and chlorine didn't fix. I am not saying you don't have something mineral/chemical causing it, but I wouldn't say until we know about the FC first. If a SLAM is needed and it got you crystal clear, I would not be the least bit surprised.
Click to expand...

What number should I target for the chlorine? I'll do the OCLT tonight.
 
Let's take it to a solid 8 and see what happens. Thst should give us enough to have something to work with. If you go over a little, no worries, just make sure you have plenty of mix time and all sun is off the pool when you test.
 

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A thought about dosing....


I suggest retesting the FC level about 2 hours after you dose it to bring it up again. I have found that even though i dosed to get to FC 7, in actualty, the FC is 8. Then, when you retest in the morning, you'll be able to see if you really did pass the OCLT.
 
Raised chlorine to 10 last night around 8:30. Checked at 10:00 last night and it was 10.5
Tested this morning a little after 6 o'clock and it was a perfect 10.5 with no CC's. The acid brought my ph down but the cloudiness is still present.

Here are the complete numbers...
FC 10.5
CC 0
ph 7.5
TA 90
CH 100

The wife seems to think the water started getting cloudy after I backwashed last Saturday.
 
I see nothing in those numbers to indicate a clouding situation from calcium. Your OCLT was good too, no loss, no CC. If you backwashed until you had a clear stream, it shouldn't be coming from the Sand Filter. Was it ever cloudy before the sand bags leaked in?
 
Well, Im sorry to be of so little help. If it were me, I would keep the FC up, and make sure I didn't let it fall below target. If it then didn't clear with a couple of days with double filtering time, I would SLAM it.
If that didn't work, I would look into other filtering techniques like adding some DE to the SF, or a slime bag. Again sorry not to be of more help.
 
Are you running the pump 24/7? If so try shutting off the pump overnight and see if you have piles of debris on the pool floor in the morning. If you did not use pool sand in the sandbags they may have had dirt particles that are too fine for the filter to catch. If you find debris on the pool floor, slowly vacuum it to waste, disturbing the water as little as possible so you don't stir it back into suspension. You can also add enough DE to raise the pressure by 1 lb after every backwash to catch the finer debris.

You may also want to check the sand filter for channeling if the sand has been there several years. Close any valves and returns to the filter, take the top off the filter and gently push a flowing garden hose into the sand bed and allow the water and debris to flow out over the top. Be careful to avoid hitting the laterals. When that section is clear, gently pull the hose out and re-insert a couple of inches away and repeat until you cleaned out all areas of the sand bed. This will deep clean the filter and re-settle the sand. Put the filter back together, open the valves and returns and run the filter on rinse until any loose sand is flushed out.
 
It's still cloudy though not as bad. I bought some skimmer socks and they are extremely dirty. There is less and less sand everyday. I backwashed again and this time ran the rinse cycle for close to 3 minutes. That probably cut in half the amount of sand coming back into the pool. Also been keeping my chlorine up to 10-12. Chemically everything is perfect. Just need more POP lol. Also bought Wanda the whale so she is helping lower the work load. Thanks for all the suggestions and help.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk 4
 

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