Another case of cloudy water

[Fool Pool]

Hello, Over the past 4 days or so my water has gotten cloudy. I can't say that it appears to be any particular color other than it having a "milky" appearance. This is something I have never seen in 25 years of owning pools. It's very obvious and worse than the picture shows, yet it appears to be kind of subtle in the pictures. Here is how it looks when all is well...



And here it is now...



Yesterday evening's testing showed the following:

Free Chlorine: 9.0 (High I know, but I recently SLAMed the pool for green algae and the level is still coming down)
Combined Chlorine: 0.5
pH: 7.4
Total Alkalinity: 70
CYA: 80
Salt: 2800
Water temp: 80 degrees

Everything except my chlorine is within recommended ranges (I think) and as far as I know high chlorine counts will not make the water cloudy. I am unsure if this even is a chemical issue or some sort of algae in the water. By the way, I should mention the pool walls and bottom appear to be clean with nothing growing on them.

Any advice here would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Lyle

 

[ajw22]

Did you pass the 3 exit criteria for the SLAM Process?

You are done when:

• CC is 0.5 or lower;
• You pass an Overnight Chlorine Loss Test>OCLT (ie overnight FC loss test shows a loss of 1.0 ppm or less);
• And the water is clear.

 

[frogabog]

Green algae becomes white when it dies and causes the water to appear cloudy. Maintaining FC at SLAM level while the filter catches all the white dead algae is part of the SLAM Process.

How are you testing your water?

 

[Fool Pool]

Thank you both for your responses...

ajw22: Did you pass the 3 exit criteria for the SLAM Process?
Yes I did.

frogabog: Green algae becomes white when it dies and causes the water to appear cloudy.
The water was clear a few days ago when the pool met the 3 exit criteria mentioned above. It clouded only after being clear for a few days.

frogabog: How are you testing your water?
I use the TF-100 test kit.

 

[frogabog]

Did people swim just prior to this? IME, every time the kids would swim, it seemed to cloud up the water a little for a few hours. But would clear up with filtering.

 

[duraleigh]

What date did you complete the SLAM process? How long did it take for that slight cloudiness to return after the SLAM?

 

[Fool Pool]

duraleigh: What date did you complete the SLAM process?
7/21

duraleigh: How long did it take for that slight cloudiness to return after the SLAM?
I didn't note the day but I would estimate 7/29.

UPDATE: Mystery partially solved. Overnight a slight buildup of green algae has appeared on the walls and bottom of the pool. It seems obvious to me that I did not get rid of the algae as I had thought. I am going to SLAM the pool again this morning.

However, I am mystified why this has happened. The question remains, why did the algae come back when my chemical levels were all good and I met the exit criteria? It would seem I am doing SOMETHING wrong. Is there something I might not be taking into consideration?

 

[frogabog]

It's hard for others to tell you exactly what happened in your pool because none of us was there doing the dosing and testing. Did you ever fall below minimum after the SLAM? What are all your test results and what have you added post SLAM? If you want to keep a record of what you're doing, Pool Math logs can be saved and shared with TFP. That information could prove valuable to you when something you don't expect happens, you can go back and look to see if anything stands out.