blue and cloudy - not quite clear

[andyjames]

Hello all - we did our initial SLAM and seem to be stuck at blue and cloudy. Here are the numbers:

CYA - 50
pH - 7.5-7.6
FC - had it up to 22 for a day or two and now it's around 12-14
TA - 80
Calcium Hardness - 225

We added bleach per the calculator for a couple of days and seemed to have trouble keeping it at 20. I just want to make sure it is a matter of not putting in enough bleach and rule out anything else so we don't keep putting in bleach for naught.

33,000 gallons
plaster
sand filter
new Pentair variable speed pump (running continuously during SLAM)
40-50 years old.

 

[AimeeH]

Hi there,

I don't think you are doing yourself any favors letting it drift back down. My own experience tells me that if you don't follow through with the SLAM, you'll be fighting the green monster again. A sand filter is slow at clearing a cloudy pool but please keep the FC up at SLAM level and brush (especially) nooks and crannies frequently.

 

[Richard320]

I'd be suspicious of lurking places inside ladder rails, beneath ladder steps, behind the light, and in your case, in the crevasses where the plaster is peeling.

Sand filters are also slowest about filtering out the haze. You might try adding some DE to the filter. The link is near the bottom of the SLAM Process article. Don't run out and buy a big bag of DE, you only need a few cups. See if you can beg some from a neighbor.

 

[andyjames]

Thank you both - I'll try these. We didn't let it drift down on purpose...I think we might have been using bleach that wasn't at the strength of the pool calculator and so I wanted to make sure we didn't have another issue before dumping more and more bleach in there. Good to know we should be patient about the sand filter...we are planning to upgrade the filter so that should help quite a bit it seems.