Recommendations - constantly cloudy pool

BeckyL · Mar 18, 2015

Hi all,

We purchased a new liner last April, and there are no more leaks! Yay!

However, our pool gets cloudy... alot. Last year I tested the water daily. I kept our FC at 5.0, and never, not once ever got a reading on CC. Sometimes it turned green, sometimes it turned brown, but the FC and CC were always constant. I'd lose a little FC every day, but never registered a lick of CC. I use the Taylor test kit K-2006. My readings today were:

FC 4.0
CC 0.0
CYA 30
TA 70
PH 7.4

My pool is in a very wooded area, with crape myrtle, pine, oak, gum, you name it... around. Pollen was always, everywhere. The only relief I found was the blue stuff (Blue clarifying stuff that I got from Walmart) combined with a skimmer sock that would clear it in 24 hours. The skimmer sock would get so clogged with yellow goop, that the skimmer would stop sucking! It worked, though, every time. Sadly every time was the entire summer and fall.

So I've convinced my husband that we have a filter problem and we need to deep clean it, and perhaps add more .. um ... sand.

So now here's the dilemma. I have a TA-60 sand filter with a top-mount valve. When we moved in 2 years ago, I replaced the valve, the sand, and any laterals that had broken. The filter at that time was spitting sand back into the pool. I cured that. When I replaced the sand, I replaced it with Zeo-sand. The filter calls for 325 lbs of real sand, which the merchant translated into half that - and then said we really only needed 150 pounds of zeo sand. I cut the pvc, replaced the valve, the sand, the laterals. Now, we have a new liner and absolutely zero water loss, but the water is cloudy.

We know we really need to clean the sand. We know we have a need to have clean sand all the time. I'll have to cut the pvc again to deep clean the sand, and make sure we have enough, and that it is clean. I'll install the pvc connections that can be opened and closed so I can do that each year.

My question is, is it worth it to go ahead and buy a new side-mount filter that gives me access to clean it when I need to? Is the ability to access my sand going to help me keep my pool clean all summer? And then, where can I get one for a REALLY good price?

Thanks in advance.

Becky

woodyp · Mar 18, 2015

Can you tell us what product you are using to chlorinate the pool? And did you mean the pool water turned green and sometimes brown?

BeckyL · Mar 19, 2015

I use bottles of bleach to chlorinate.

The water, when it clouded, would be different colors, depending on what was pollinating. In the spring it was yellowish brown, from pine. Later in the summer it was bright green. A couple of times I brought it to slam level, but the tests never registered any cc.

The clarifier always worked, and fast.

Swampwoman · Mar 19, 2015

What happens if you increase your filter run time? How long do you run the filter every day? How often do you backwash? Are you on well water? Its not common to "wear out" sand and I'm not sure that's actually the problem, but could be al wet

The reason i ask is because my pool is also in a heavily wooded area and I get a ton of airborne debris and pollen. I've never had my water cloud from it, but I run the robot every day and filter heavily.

Your problem sounds a bit to me like a metal reaction to chlorine -- iron for the yellow brown and copper for the green -- which can oxidize if you don't have sequestrant (or enough sequestrant). (eg metal magic or jack' pink stuff.)

You might wish to explore that if you haven't already so that your treatment efforts are optimal.

BeckyL · Mar 19, 2015

I ran my filter constantly last summer. 24/7 alot of the time, and at least 10 hours per day. I ran the polaris daily and backwashed at least once or twice a week.

Perhaps I was a bit unclear in my original post, and I apologize for that and thank you for your suggestions. However, I am not looking for suggestions on what the problem is. I'm 99.9% sure it is pollen in my pool, or some sort of fine debris that the filter is just not filtering out. I do not think my sand is worn out, I think it may be channeled and needs to be deep cleaned, and may need that on a regular basis.

I'm wondering if a new filter with a side mount valve might be a better choice than cutting the PVC and installing union fittings so that I can access the sand when I need to. That's really the experience I'm hoping to draw upon here. One like this one, maybe. http://www.amazon.com/Hayward-S311SXV-Pro-Series-30-Inch-Filter/dp/B002EL40VI

Thank you in advance.

woodyp · Mar 19, 2015

Two unions ( if you need two) will be heckuva lot cheaper than a new sand filter.

tim5055 · Mar 19, 2015

I also thonk you are backwashing your filter too much. You should backwash when the pressure rises 20 - 25%, not in a time basis. My pool is open 12 months and I backwash every 3 months or so. A slightly dirty sand filter actually filters a little better. After backwashing I "dirty" mine up a little with DE powder replacement (cellulose).

Have you had the water tested for metals? Are you on well water or have you used any algecides?

Swampwoman · Mar 20, 2015

Thanks for the clarification Becky. Unfortunately, I don't have any advice re side mount, but if your filter sock experiment is any indication then I too would be wanting to sort out the filter and find easier access. Maybe they were wrong about how much zea sand you need. Did you only start to have the problem after you switched to zea sand? Or maybe your new liner doesn't hide the pollen tint as much?

At any rate, adding a bit of DE may help...but that doesn't address your question r side mount

BeckyL · Apr 12, 2015

I thought I'd give an update. I decided simply to re-plumb the pool. This gave me the opportunity to deep clean the sand and to add three unions. When I took off the multiport and measure the freeboard, it was 6" too much! The filter calls for 10.5 inches, and I had over 16 inches of freeboard.

This is because the zeo-sand that I purchased, did not give twice the volume as it was advertised. The filter called for 325 pounds of sand (I assume would get to the 10.5 inches of freeboard). I purchased 6 bags of 25 lb zeo-sand based on the recommendation of the pool store person 2 years ago. It took two more bags of sand to get it to the 10.5 inches.

After I cleaned the sand, added more sand, and re-plumbed, my pool is clearer than I ever remember it being! The water is like crystal, and we are going through a really heavy pollen season here in Georgia. No more billows of yellow when I sweep the pool. Amazing!

So if you do have a cloudy pool that registers nothing but perfect in chemicals. Take the advice of these boards and clean and check your filter!

I'm attaching a before and after shot of the plumbing. You can see it is also now much cleaner, and there's no pipes now to reach over when using the multiport. I'm very pleased with this.