Chlorine level staying high, water staying cloudy

[timd50]

Hello all,

I’m a first time pool owner sent here from Reddit. I have a 23’ 4’ deep vinyl liner above ground pool. (15,000 gallons or so). I have a hayward pump and sand filter that has been running more or less constantly since last Wednesday. I’m providing as much information as I have in the hopes that some kind soul will save me.

I have been trying to get my water clear after opening up and have been having all sorts of problems. I’ve shocked the heck out of it with 15 or so gallons of 12.5 liquid chlorine (I’ve lost count honestly). I also have a Hayward shark pool robot, also running all the time. The water has not changed at all, it’s still blue but cloudy. I can see to the bottom but looking out towards the middle is hazy. After research, I bought a Taylor test kit but it doesn’t have the CYA test.

The current numbers I do know are:

PH ~7.5 after a day of aerating with the return jet and a partial refill with a hose on “shower”

Chlorine over 10 ppm, which has stayed out of test range for 2 days now since the last gallon I added. So I don’t think there’s algae left.

Alk is 180 after 2 gallons of muriatic acid (originally 300+). This was the most recent thing I did over the last 2 days.

To get the other numbers I had a sample digitally tested at Ace, and it came back .5 ppm CC, 1 ppm CYA, 170 hardness, so I added 4 lbs of cyanuric acid. I trusted their number because my chlorine was burning off in the sun immediately before, which has stopped after I did that. Based on pool math, CYA should be somewhere around 35-40 which should be fine and 180 alk means my real alkalinity is like 160-170. That isn’t so high that it’s clouding the water now right?

What do I do next? I don’t want to keep buying chemicals. Could it be my filter needing new sand? The level was about ~2/3rds up in the tank when I checked before filling. Backwashing comes back perfectly clean immediately, and pressure is 9-10 psi.

 

[AK-]

Welcome to TFP.

Seems you have a Taylor K-2005. It only have a DPD test. Unfortunately that won’t cut. You need to be able to test your CYA and a FC above 10ppm. I suggest you complement your test kit with FAS/DPD and
CYA Test.

What chemicals did you add to the pool?

 

[magiteck]

Hey Tim and welcome.

The first step to ending the keep-throwing-more-money-at-it train is to get yourself a reliable test kit, including CYA and FAS-DPD which will allow you to test over 10ppm free chlorine. We recommend the TF100/TF Pro or the Taylor K-2006c. More reading on test kits: Test Kits Compared

We need test results we can trust, and the ones you get at a store unfortunately have a terrible track record.

If your test results are at all close and you really have almost no CYA, your chlorine is likely burning off too fast leaving the pool water vulnerable to algae. But we want to verify that with your own test before advising you to add CYA.

Once we confirm that, we have a great way to test to see if you have algae or other organics in the water. Read about it here: Overnight Chlorine Loss Test

Our methods work and we can get your pool in great shape, and get you to a future of low cost chemicals - everything you’ll ever need is pretty much at Walmart or Menards.

Get your test kit ordered and post up a full set of test results. We’ll get you from there. In the mean time, add about a half gallon of liquid chlorine to your pool each day to keep things in check. Read up on ABCs of Pool Water Chemistry.

We’ve got you from here!

 

[timd50]

Welcome to TFP.

Seems you have a Taylor K-2005. It only have a DPD test. Unfortunately that won’t cut. You need to be able to test your CYA and a FC above 10ppm. I suggest you complement your test kit with FAS/DPD and
CYA Test.

What chemicals did you add to the pool?

I’ve added tons of liquid chlorine (non stabilized), 2 gallons of muriatic acid to lower TA, and 4 lbs of CYA to raise that into the acceptable range. CYA is the only thing I’ve added since testing digitally at ace Saturday night. My chlorine tested at 11.3 ppm on the digital readout Saturday, and is still above 10 a few days later on the K-1004 test kit after adding the CYA. I bought a K-2006 but it comes in next week.

PH was 8.2 before adding the acid, and has come back up to 7.5 from 6.8 after aerating and some rain. So my PH seems to be movable when I want to, but isn’t bouncing. CYA seems to be doing it’s job now. Prior to adding that it was dropping to 0 FCL/TCL each day after adding it each night. While I wait for the better test, can I just dilute my water sample with fresh water and use that to measure my exact chlorine today?

 

[magiteck]

I’ve added tons of liquid chlorine (non stabilized), 2 gallons of muriatic acid to lower TA, and 4 lbs of CYA to raise that into the acceptable range. CYA is the only thing I’ve added since testing digitally at ace Saturday night. My chlorine tested at 11.3 ppm on the digital readout Saturday, and is still above 10 a few days later on the K-1004 test kit after adding the CYA. I bought a K-2006 but it comes in next week.

PH was 8.2 before adding the acid, and has come back up to 7.5 from 6.8 after aerating and some rain. So my PH seems to be movable when I want to, but isn’t bouncing. CYA seems to be doing it’s job now. Prior to adding that it was dropping to 0 FCL/TCL each day after adding it each night. While I wait for the better test, can I just dilute my water sample with fresh water and use that to measure my exact chlorine today?

If you’re using a color-comparison block for testing, they aren’t terribly accurate. It will tell you if there’s chlorine in the water and give you a ballpark, but it’s not precise enough for other purposes. If you do try a dilution, make sure to use distilled water, as tap water may contain chlorine or other chemicals that would affect the results. Also know that a dilution test increases the margin of error in the test (which is already higher with that type of test) — so it’s really just going to give you a ballpark. Now, if you want to use that to try to make sure you chlorine is somewhere between target range and slam level on our FC/CYA Levels, I don’t think you will hurt anything- but if your test kit is on the way, you can really just save yourself the trouble and add about 1/2 gallon of liquid chlorine per day until it arrives.