Low CH Causing Cloudiness?

[Samantha_in_AL]

Hi all! This will be my 7th season and I've encountered a problem... a cloudy pool. I've been slamming for over a week and my water is still a bit cloudy.

My numbers are as follows:

FC: 15.5 (Been shocking/slamming at 16+)
CC: 0
CYA: 40
pH: 7.5
TA: 70
CH: 80 - (I got 80 with my TF100 and 50 with my old Taylor kit. I'm trusting the TF100 as the Taylor kit is several years old.)

I was amazed to see the CH so low, I've never had a problem with this before. In past years it has been in the 230-250 range.

I guess my first question is can my CH really be that low or is my high FC level causing it to read wrong? I'm assuming if the reading is correct the low CH is the reason the cloudiness won't clear? It's a vinyl liner.

 

[missourian]

Want to share my experience, TFP suggests that CH is irreverent for vinyl pools, did you replaced lot of water from your pool? If so, that may have contributed for CH reduction, I went from 320 to 170 on CH in a period of 6 months as I was adding water every two days due to a leakage in my pool.

Last August when I migrated to BBB method, I slammed mine for two weeks, lot of dead algae's caused cloudiness in my pool but after back washing (I did this few times during slamming) and cleaning my DE filter helped me in improving the water clarity.

 

[Leebo]

I'd look at two other areas first before worrying as your numbers look good.

1. When was the last time you deep cleaned your filter?
2. Have you preformed an OCLT, if so what were the results?

 

[Isaac-1]

My CH is even lower than yours, and the pool is crystal clear, It is likely that CH has little effect on vinyl liner pools, but some liner manufacturers require it to be at certain levels for warranty reasons. Some members here with extremely low CH fill water levels have seen no apparent problems associated with their vinyl liners and low CH. For safety sake I had tried to keep my CH over 100 in the past, but since my liner is now going on 11 years old, I have started to let it slip.

Ike

 

[Samantha_in_AL]

Thanks for the replies. To answer your questions...

Missourian - We've had a few storms this spring. The majority of water that has been replaced was from rainfall. That's nothing new where I live. We did leave our pool uncovered (only used leaf net) this winter. Maybe that's what caused the drop in CH.

Leebo - I replaced the cartridge filter with a new one about a week ago. I used the old one from last year to get the water fairly clean, then took the filter housing apart and gave it a thorough spring cleaning before changing cartridges. I passed the OCLT for 3 nights in a row.

I know CH is not supposed to be an issue with a vinyl liner. I was just curious because it has never been this low before and it never took this long to be sparkly. I'm also starting to wonder if I could have a pinhole leak in a pipe. Maybe air is what's causing the water to look cloudy??? I think I'll turn the pump off a while and see if there's any change. If that's not the problem I'll try to be patient and keep slamming. My husband thinks I'm crazy for being so picky. Anything less than perfect is totally unacceptable to me, especially when I know what it looked like in the past. I guess I have OCD.

 

[Butterfly]

My husband thinks I'm crazy for being so picky. Anything less than perfect is totally unacceptable to me, especially when I know what it looked like in the past. I guess I have OCD.

No worries, you seem to have "sparklypoolitis". It is contagious around here

......... we even have a sign-up sheet for the weekly meetings

 

[jmbradwell]

Its not OCD. True OCD would be spelled CDO. It has to be alphabetical, at least according to my wife. Drives me nuts. My screwdrivers on the bench rack all have the names facing out.