Cloudy Water - Maybe Algae?

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picchu55

Member
Jun 16, 2020
24
Oklahoma City, OK
Got a good two inches of rain the night of the 3rd. Ever since, my water has been cloudy. In direct sunlight, it has a definite greenish tint. However, in indirect sunlight, it's more of a white cloudiness. My last OCLT showed a drop of just 0.5 FC, and after reading through here, I'm not thinking it's algae. But the wife insists I do another SLAM as I did it a few weeks ago (greenish tint then too, but OCLT was 2.0-3.0) and the pool cleared right up. I hesitate to SLAM again since I'm not losing chlorine overnight, and my CC has never hit 0.5. Any advice for a still new pool owner? Does this sound like algae, or should I be looking for other causes?

Latest test results:
FC - 9.5
CC - 0.0
pH - 7.5
TA - 110
CH - 250
CYA - 70
 
What else would it be? Cloudy water points to organics unless clarifier or algaecide or some other potion has been added to the water.
 
No clarifier or algaecide that we've added. However, we just bought the house on June 1st and the previous owner had bottles of both, so he could have used them prior. And we do get lots of leaves, dirt, bugs, berries, etc in the pool because of all the trees and landscaping around. The skimmer basket tends to fill up at least twice a day with that Crud. According to the wheel that came with my test kit, the CSI value is hovering in the 0.3-0.5 range (pool math actually shows me as slightly negative which is confusing to me), indicating potential scaling. I've been trying to drop my TA by lowering pH with 20 baume muriatic acid, but it's being stubborn.

I thought an OCLT only had the criteria of 1.0ppm or less FC loss overnight. We did pass all the SLAM criteria a few weeks ago when I originally did it, and I have no problem doing it again if necessary. I'm just wondering what's going on since the only time my FC dropped below the minimum range was two nights ago when we swam all day (FC started at 8.5), then I didn't test and add bleach that evening (silly mistake) thinking it would be fine until the morning. Woke up to an FC level of 3.5 and had to add bleach to get back to 10.0.
 
In my experience, the problem could be that you didn't eradicate all of the algae in the previous SLAM. Either you didn't find it hidden somewhere in the pool or you didn't actually pass all 3 criteria the first time around.
 
So I think there were multiple problems. All the jets in the pool were horribly dirty and green when I starting looking at them closer. Ended up replacing them all because they're all stuck and won't move. Hoping that's it because I can't get the lights out to check them. Apparently whoever did the plaster last time wasn't careful and sealed all the lights in. Screw comes out, but I can't even get behind the fixtures due to the plaster. Along with that, the new sand I just put in my filter doesn't seem to be doing a great job. I added about a half cup of DE to the filter, and it started catching everything and my pool went from cloudy with a greenish tint to clear in about 12 hours.

Question about SLAM finish criteria. When looking for clear water, does that mean clear enough to see details on the bottom? Or clear as in when I brush the floor, there's nothing coming up at all? Curious because I'm not losing FC overnight and my CC is 0.2 or less. Want to make sure I finish properly so I don't have the SLAM again this season.
 
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