You are still using cal-hypo for the shocking process? I would stop using that for now, your water clarity (and the junk building up in your filter) may be partially due to using that. We would recommend bleach/liquid chlorine for now.
Cloudy/muddy water problem.
- Thread starter The Pool Nerd
- Start date
Right 1 lbs of cal-hypo (48%) will raise the FC by 12ppm, but the idea is to keep the FC there ... not wait for it to drop and then add another lb.
You should be testing the FC every few hours and then adding the amount of FC required to get back the 12ppm until it stays there.
Have you managed to get a CH reading yet? Last time you posted you stopped around 23 drops, but that may not be right. The cal-hypo could certainly still be contributing to the cloudiness.
You should be testing the FC every few hours and then adding the amount of FC required to get back the 12ppm until it stays there.
Have you managed to get a CH reading yet? Last time you posted you stopped around 23 drops, but that may not be right. The cal-hypo could certainly still be contributing to the cloudiness.
Well, the cloudiness is gone, but that may be because i didn't move the water around. I thought 12ppm is the shock level, then wait for it to go down to 2ppm, and repeat. And no, i don't have a CH reading yet.jblizzle said:
Well, i guess i will, but then i would need to go shopping, and I wont be until next week.linen said:
Yes, 12ppm is the shock level. No you do not let it drop to 2ppm. The more consistently you keep it at 12ppm, the faster the process will go.
You can keep using cal-hypo to do the shocking process, but since your CH test was inconclusive/strange we do not know what your CH level is. Everything else you have posted suggests it is high.The Pool Nerd said:
Have you been using copper based algaecides in the past?
Getting a good CH test kit will help...the HTH version is known to have issues.
12 ppm is the shock level. You want to stay up at this level as much as possible during the shocking process. When you let it drop as low as 2 ppm, then algae growth rate has a chance to outpace the chlorine kill rate.The Pool Nerd said:
12 ppm is the shock level. You want to stay up at this level as much as possible during the shocking process. When you let it drop as low as 2 ppm, then algae growth rate has a chance to outpace the chlorine kill rate.[/quote:vdyga45n]linen said:
I never used any algaecides. I started with the BBB method, and am happy with it. Then, i don't understand what you guys mean by "shock" I thought it meant that you spiked the chlorine level when it dropped significantly. Could you send me a page (or better yet) tell me what you guys mean by "shock" So, do you just always leave the chlorine level very high, or what?
While dealing with water issues the process is to keep the chlorine level high...we call this the "shock process" or "shocking process". The idea is to keep the chlorine (FC level to be exact) high until the reason to do the shocking process has been eliminated. See this pool school article if you haven't already (I think we assumed you had since we had since the link was posted in the first response to your first post in this thread):http://www.troublefreepool.com/pool-school/shocking_your_pool
But, it no longer seems that there is algae in the pool, but a bunch of calcium. so i don't see a huge reason of keeping it high. So, when my pool will be normal again, how would the shock process be done? wait for it to go down to 2ppm, or always keep it high?linen said:While dealing with water issues the process is to keep the chlorine level high...we call this the "shock process" or "shocking process". The idea is to keep the chlorine (FC level to be exact) high until the reason to do the shocking process has been eliminated. See this pool school article if you haven't already (I think we assumed you had since we had since the link was posted in the first response to your first post in this threadhttp://www.troublefreepool.com/pool-school/shocking_your_pool
Read the article. There are 3 tests to know when to stop the shock process.
You have not definitively determined that your water issues are not algae related. An OCLT (one of the 3 tests) will tell you if there is anything living in the water ... of course to do it correctly you need the FAS-DPD test (have we mentioned that before)
You have not definitively determined that your water issues are not algae related. An OCLT (one of the 3 tests) will tell you if there is anything living in the water ... of course to do it correctly you need the FAS-DPD test (have we mentioned that before
)
Jbliz just beat me, but here is my take...and before I answer question I thought I would mention the following:
For your situation it is going to be difficult to determine next steps (as it has been up to this point). Ideally, you want to pass the three finished shocking criteria:
1. CC of < 0.5 ppm
2. Overnight chlorine loss of <1 ppm
3. Your water is crystal clear.
Since you do not have an FAS-DPD chlorine test, you can not measure #1 at all. The second criteria you can at least attempt to measure, if you assume TC is FC, then access if your overnight TC loss is less than 1 ppm (you will need to do a dilution with your OTO test to do this). If you consistently pass that but your water continues to be cloudy, then it is likely a filtering issue (may just need time) or possibly the CH issue.
If it is CH (and we don't know since your HTH test seems to be misbehaving), then keeping ph lower (7.2-7.4) and lowering TA can allow you to run with relatively high CH levels (though I wouldn't add any more) and avoid clouding and build up.
Bottom line here is, we can guess to some extent with the testing capability you have, but we will be guessing and we might be wrong on the approach you take.
One last thought...since your pool is ~ 4600 gallons, if your water is not too expensive, and if it is relatively free of metals and CH. Then you may want to consider a drain and refill...therefore resetting the calcium levels lower (again this is a guess since we do not have a reliable CH measurement).
Now to your question:
For your situation it is going to be difficult to determine next steps (as it has been up to this point). Ideally, you want to pass the three finished shocking criteria:
1. CC of < 0.5 ppm
2. Overnight chlorine loss of <1 ppm
3. Your water is crystal clear.
Since you do not have an FAS-DPD chlorine test, you can not measure #1 at all. The second criteria you can at least attempt to measure, if you assume TC is FC, then access if your overnight TC loss is less than 1 ppm (you will need to do a dilution with your OTO test to do this). If you consistently pass that but your water continues to be cloudy, then it is likely a filtering issue (may just need time) or possibly the CH issue.
If it is CH (and we don't know since your HTH test seems to be misbehaving), then keeping ph lower (7.2-7.4) and lowering TA can allow you to run with relatively high CH levels (though I wouldn't add any more) and avoid clouding and build up.
Bottom line here is, we can guess to some extent with the testing capability you have, but we will be guessing and we might be wrong on the approach you take.
One last thought...since your pool is ~ 4600 gallons, if your water is not too expensive, and if it is relatively free of metals and CH. Then you may want to consider a drain and refill...therefore resetting the calcium levels lower (again this is a guess since we do not have a reliable CH measurement).
Now to your question:
When a pool is properly chlorinated then a regular superchlorination schedule is not needed. For a cya of 25 ppm, you normal FC levels should be 2-6 ppm, but never below 2 ppm. This sounds good, but with that low of a cya level (25 ppm), the sun is going to use up a lot of your chlorine. We would recommend you raise your cya level closer to 50 ppm. Then less of you chlorine will be used up by the sun, though your normal FC level at 50 ppm should be 4-8 ppm (never below 4 ppm).The Pool Nerd said:
Ok, when i added stabilizer, i had to add twice as much as i should have, according to the pool calculator. And that got it up to 25ppmlinen said:
The Pool Nerd said:
Shocking is not a one time event, nor is it a product. So, by adding a pound of shock product and walking away, with "about" a level (which level? 30ppm?) you're not actually shocking.
When we shock, we maintain a certain shock level associated with a known CYA level. Maintaining it requires a test kit because falling below shock level at any point in the shocking process causes setbacks.
The "throw a pound of shock product in and walk away" approach often doesn't work. Which is why people come here and ask for help. You came and asked for help and we've pointed out some of the things that cause your particular issue. Throwing shock product in, at "about" a level that is unknown and expecting miracles is well known to cause the difficulties you're experiencing.
Without a test that goes over 5ppm, you can't possibly know what level the shock product has taken your water to. This means you can't maintain said unknown shock level as well.
Bottom line, you're not shocking you pool. It's not going to get better with your "nuking". Sorry.
Read anything in Pool School yet?
Yes i did read some stuff from pool school, and yes, i have learned some things i did wrong, and it seems you've never heard the term of "nuke". a nuke kills everything, except roaches. Now, when you "shock" a pool, you kill everything in it. Thus, the slang for it, "nuke"frogabog said:
Of course. We know slang here. We just don't use slang methods.
When you nuke your pool, you're not actually killing everything in it. That's the point. If you want to kill everything, you will need to find another way to shock your pool.
I really don't want to assume things here, but it seems like you're trying to tell us repeatedly that you're not interested in doing anything other than what you feel is the appropriate way to manage your pool. We're all very aware of what shocking a pool means, it's what we do here. Day in, day out we help people clear up pools that need to be shocked. Call it nuking, or blasting, or whatever you like... your method differs from ours. We know your method doesn't work for most people. We also know ours does, for everyone.
Shrug... I'm not sure exactly how to effectively move forward here. Do you have any questions?
When you nuke your pool, you're not actually killing everything in it. That's the point. If you want to kill everything, you will need to find another way to shock your pool.
I really don't want to assume things here, but it seems like you're trying to tell us repeatedly that you're not interested in doing anything other than what you feel is the appropriate way to manage your pool. We're all very aware of what shocking a pool means, it's what we do here. Day in, day out we help people clear up pools that need to be shocked. Call it nuking, or blasting, or whatever you like... your method differs from ours. We know your method doesn't work for most people. We also know ours does, for everyone.
Shrug... I'm not sure exactly how to effectively move forward here. Do you have any questions?