Calling all you experts... FC good, No CC, but cloudy/murky water... Please help

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Chlorine is consumed by UV in sunlight and by oxidizing organics.
You can eliminate the sunlight variable by performing the OCLT. If you loose more than 1ppm, then there are organics consuming the FC.
Its the quickest test to do, and the most logical at this point.
 
How's the pressure in your filter? Mine went up 25% and water started looking hazy and dull. Cleaned filter replaced DE and after a day sparkle returned. Chemistry was good throughout.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk
 
I installed Brand new filters 4/29/15. Pressure is good.

Looking at my pool log in my phone, 4/5/15 I had tested CYA 50. On 5/3/15 CYA tested 40. Today I tested CYA 30. Chem Geek, others, what could explain that CYA usage?

Other info: pool cover installed 4.26.15; 6/5/15 my FC was 3 (which is the lowest it has ever been), water temp was 88; 6/19/15 @ 0130 I added 39 oz Chlor 12.5% but I didn't test FC at that time; 6/19/15 @ 1800 FC 5, water temp 92, I again added 39 oz Chlor. This shows over almost 17 hr the pool used 2 ppm FC. I question this and sense perhaps the problem did originate this past week.

Rt now at 1830, FC 5, pH 7.4. Hard to distinguish if 7.6 or 7.4, but I'm more sure it's 7.4.
 
6.21.15 2030 fc 6

If I'm not mistaken, I think the water is a little more clear now. Could it be d/t the MA and lower pH? Let's c what the OCLT has in store tomorrow AM.
 
6.22.15 0445 FC 6, CC 0.

Okay everyone, passed the OCLT. Now what could it be? Calcium carbonate as suggested by Chem Geek? You still there Chem?... need your expertise here. In a way I was hoping the OCLT would have showed something b/c that would have been a lot more straight forward that what's going on now.
 
If the water cleared up with the lower pH you can push your pH lower to 7.0 or 7.2 and keep it there to see what happens. Filtration should clear it up as well, though. I suspect your water just got over-saturated with calcium carbonate given your rather high CH level. It seems strange that it's clouding up with just a little over-saturation, but that is technically possible (assuming all measurements are accurate).

You can try and dilute your water to lower the CH since most Livermore water is from treatment plants where total hardness is around 100 so CH should be around 70. If 25% of the water came from the worst wells where the total hardness is 455, then CH might be around 130 ppm.

If you can't do a partial drain/refill to lower the CH, then you can lower your TA more to 50 ppm though if you're going to go that low or lower then you might consider using 50 ppm Borates for additional pH buffering. You can also maintain your pH lower in the 7.0 to 7.2 range though you need to be careful about going too much lower than that since metal corrosion rates increase as the pH gets lower. The CSI should be near zero at a pH of 7.2 while at pH 7.0 it's slightly negative at around -0.2 so should clear up cloudiness from calcium carbonate.
 
Tx Chem Geek. Eventually I'm going to need to resurface d/t old plaster. It just sucks, given our water crisis, that I need to do a partial drain/refill for the best results. I did a simultaneous drain/refill last year around this time in order to primarily get my CYA down and secondarily my CH down. I can't believe one year later I got to go through it again. Wish I could find a company that does reverse osmosis in order to save the water. Looked into that last year but was only able to find a company out of San Diego. For amusement I wanted a price just on the water filtering (no travel charge) and if I recall the quote was in the thousands. It was ridiculous. Wish it was cheaper.

I bring up the resurface b/c it sucks to have to drain/refill again only to have to do it another time when I resurface. And, u really don't care to resurface right now and bite into my 2 year old twins' swimming/learning time.

Mark (mas985), since u r a Tri-valley res also, what's ur CH level?
 
Going through my hx, if my numbers were rt (mind u there may have been new user error as last yr was when I started managing the pool using the TFP way), in 6/14 I was getting CH 875-900. 8-10/14 I was still getting CH in the 800s-900s. Could one explanation be that possibly with all the topping off my CH increased?

What I think may be useful is Taylor Speedstir. Awhile back I ran a thread /poll asking if others use manual stirring vs. the Sppedstir, and I got some feedback that the later may help give more consistent and accurate results. It may help me better see/focus on the endpoint with the CH test as manually I seem to have a hard time definitively determining the endpoint. I know when the color changed and becomes darker blue, but I can't really distinguish if it is still turning when my CH R0012 drops have gotten up to the 40s.
 
We are mostly on Pleasanton well water. We get some Zone 7 surface water but the mix is usually mostly well because of the drought. Our CH out of the tap is usually well above 300 ppm. My pool's CH is around 525 ppm right now and TA is about 80 ppm. I don't bother lowering TA because TA out of the tap is also very high so the pool TA does not stay low very long. Also, I use an acid dosing system and try to keep PH close to about 7.2 which keeps CSI on the negative side. But even with a high CH, I have never really had a cloudy pool unless I sweep the walls and floor which kicks up a little dust but once it settles and gets vacuumed out, it is pretty clear.
 

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It may be that if the plaster is older that there may be some calcium hydroxide leakage if there were voids. That would be especially true if you noticed calcium nodules or drips.

You get a little rain over the winter in Livermore -- 15" on average -- so can at least use that for some dilution. Nevertheless, some annual partial drain/refill will be needed if your fill water is higher in CH due to more coming from well water.

Anyway, let us know what happens if the pH drops to 7.2 or even temporarily 7.0 just to see if it clears up. Mark's water has a CSI of around -0.1 if the water temp is closer to 90ºF while it's nearly -0.2 if it's closer to 80ºF. So that may be the difference, though it's still pretty surprising if the cloudiness shows up just at +0.2 to +0.3 or so.
 
I have 3000 ppm of salt too which lowers the CSI.

But I have had situations where the PH has gotten over 7.8 (ran out of acid) but still never experienced any cloudiness.
 
Tx u two.

In post #24, I mentioned I lowered my pH to 7.0. Gonna see what water looks like when get hm and test pH. I wouldn't have thought that the old plaster would leak calcium and cause cloudiness if water temp increases. So u think that is the logical explanation?

Guess my use of a pool cover has created something else d/t too warm of water. I was really hoping to squeeze as much life as possible with this plaster job we inherited when we bought the hm last year. There is only one patch (diameter is about the circumference of a basketball) when the plaster had bubbled and pooped off. Wouldn't u know that happened within 1 mo. of moving in. Besides now creating water clarity problems, and showing its age, is there a point at which one really should resurface, and when is that? (Please exclude "when the owner has the money" from the criteria:)

I thought it would more so be the filter removing assisting to clear the water vs. the vacuum, or in my case the Polaris.
 
Also, vs. doing another partial drain/refill, I'm not sure I could manage a pH to b/w 7.0 to 7.2 as far as being able to identify that. The pH test has a low range from 7.2 to 6.8 (don't have it in frt of me).
 
6.22 @ 1830 FC 4, CC 0, pH 7.2, temp 87. I added enough acid to lower pH to 6.9. I added enough chlorine to bring it up to 6. I'm just really beginning to question if this could be cloudiness from calcium vs. undetected algae despite passing this AM's OCLT. Is it possible to pass the OCLT, CC 0, & still have an algae problem? I will perform another OCLT when I have the opportunity and post a couple of pics of water. I'm just really questioning the numbers, and the clarity of the water.

How soon & how much should I expect the water to clear by lowering the pH? I lowered it to 7.0 yesterday and the water became a little more clear. Could it just have been due to the chlorine being more effective at the lower pH which helped improve the clarity? Maybe it was killing something. The water tonight was not as clear as I would have expected it despite having lowered the pH yesterday.
 
Usually you would see the effects of lower pH on any calcium carbonate over around 12 hours or certainly 24. It's not instantaneous because calcium carbonate is somewhat slow to dissolve, but you should see a change if that's what it was. As for chlorine and pH, with CYA in the water it doesn't become that much more active.

Well now that the pH is lower, if you SLAM with chlorine the pH won't rise too high so if there is anything to kill or oxidize it will be done without raising the pH too much.

If the OCLT shows little loss then it's less likely for chlorine to get rid of whatever problem there is in the bulk water. If chlorine isn't reacting overnight with whatever it is, it's not likely to react at other times. Nevertheless at this point you're set up to do a ALSM and have little to lose at this point.
 
Edit: forgot to show my last baseline results to begin the OCLT.
6.22.15 2100 FC 7, CC 0, pH 7

6.23.15 0445 FC 6.5, h2o temp=84

I'm tempted to repeat the CYA test before slamming b/c I question the recent 30. I also wonder how the CYA dropped from 40 to 30 in less than a couple of months. I'll have to wait a few days b4 doing this due to the next few long workdays; won't be hm in full sunlight for testing.
 
Repeated CYA. Result 30.

Currently, at about the 1.5 day into SLAM. Either my eyes are deceiving me, or I think the water is becoming clearer. Let's continue and find out. FYI, lowered the pH to about 7.0 before the first SLAM. Brushing pool daily. Haven't cleaned the cartridges yet as most likely will wait until I'm done. Not sure how important that step is to do during the SLAM; personally, I would rather save the water and do after the SLAM.

- - - Updated - - -

Edit:
Began SLAM 6.23.15 approx 1900.
6.23.15 1900 FC 4.0, CC 0, CYA 40, t=85 (added 61 oz MA to pH 7.0)
Shocked/SLAMMED pool to FC 12 w/ 155 oz 12.5% Chlor
6.23.15 2143 FC 15
6.24.15 0445 FC 15.5
6.24.15 1815 FC 12
6.25.15 1145 FC 9.5, CC 0 -(added 49 oz 12.5% Chlor)
 

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