I posted this at the bottom of another thread, but it's going to get buried on the third page so I wanted to create a new thread for posterity. For the last 3 summers in a row, we've gotten a massive rain that has caused my chlorine and CYA levels to drop to 0 and make my water super cloudy, as if someone had dumped a bunch of milk in it. I've been searching everywhere for an explanation and haven't been able to find anything, but now I think I've solved it.
We left town for a week last week and came back to a yard that is completely covered in sticky goo. Did some research and figured out what the cause is - aphids.
The drought this summer has made for a perfect situation for the little buggers, and they have infested multiple pecan trees in our yard, front and back. They eat the leaves and secrete "honeydew" all over the yard, making it a sticky mess and growing TONS of black sooty mold. Guess what - it also wreaks havoc on pool chemistry. The only solution is a lot (16 gallons in my case) of bleach.
Our water was clear when we got home from our trip, but I sprayed down all the flat surfaces to get rid of the honeydew, and apparently enough of that got into the water to kill the chlorine again. And now my water is cloudy. Again. After I just cleaned it 3 weeks ago from the same issue. This is wild stuff. Luckily my FC was higher this time, so it's not quite as bad.
This all makes sense as an explanation for previous summers. With an aphid infestation, the leaves high up are absolutely covered in honeydew, and a big rain washes it all off and into my pool. Presto - no chlorine. Also, interestingly, it seems to kill CYA as well. Aphids don't live very long before laying eggs, so the issue appears to magically clear up, until next summer when it mysteriously happens again.
This article seems to corroborate my story, if anyone is interested: https://www.poolspanews.com/business/chlorine-sucking-flies-the-sequel_o
I'm just throwing this up to add to community knowledge. If this happens to you, call out a tree guy to spray and then add a LOT of bleach to take care of the cloudiness.
I am also going to be maintaining my chlorine levels higher to hopefully prevent this in the future. FC was around 5-6 before this latest round and it still happened, but thankfully not quite as bad this time. We've also sprayed the trees as of yesterday, so fingers crossed.
We left town for a week last week and came back to a yard that is completely covered in sticky goo. Did some research and figured out what the cause is - aphids.
The drought this summer has made for a perfect situation for the little buggers, and they have infested multiple pecan trees in our yard, front and back. They eat the leaves and secrete "honeydew" all over the yard, making it a sticky mess and growing TONS of black sooty mold. Guess what - it also wreaks havoc on pool chemistry. The only solution is a lot (16 gallons in my case) of bleach.
Our water was clear when we got home from our trip, but I sprayed down all the flat surfaces to get rid of the honeydew, and apparently enough of that got into the water to kill the chlorine again. And now my water is cloudy. Again. After I just cleaned it 3 weeks ago from the same issue. This is wild stuff. Luckily my FC was higher this time, so it's not quite as bad.
This all makes sense as an explanation for previous summers. With an aphid infestation, the leaves high up are absolutely covered in honeydew, and a big rain washes it all off and into my pool. Presto - no chlorine. Also, interestingly, it seems to kill CYA as well. Aphids don't live very long before laying eggs, so the issue appears to magically clear up, until next summer when it mysteriously happens again.
This article seems to corroborate my story, if anyone is interested: https://www.poolspanews.com/business/chlorine-sucking-flies-the-sequel_o
I'm just throwing this up to add to community knowledge. If this happens to you, call out a tree guy to spray and then add a LOT of bleach to take care of the cloudiness.
I am also going to be maintaining my chlorine levels higher to hopefully prevent this in the future. FC was around 5-6 before this latest round and it still happened, but thankfully not quite as bad this time. We've also sprayed the trees as of yesterday, so fingers crossed.
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or a scootch above) prevents an issue if the organic load happens to increase or any other variables u may encounter. Regular fc checks (daily/every other day) let u know something is up & you can shore your bets Before it tanks your fc. When fc falls below minimum nasties grow & the 