Dissolved hard candy?

[the ugly_dog]

We own resorts in The Philippines. We find people are always putting stuff in the pool water. Today the pool is a grey/green and very cloudy, it was fine yesterday. The filter was clogged up and when cleaning I saw the normal grey from volcanic sand was now light grey/green. We have cleanable cloth filters, I cleaned the filter as usual and it has blocked up again, over and over again after only an hour or less running. Normally with heavy use we clean the filter weekly. There were lots of wrappers for a green hard candy all over the place and in the skimmer. I now find that the filters won't clean out completely and was wondering if the sugar from the candy would seal the filter element? Is there any way to fix it short of draining all the water and replacing the filters?

 

[woodyp]

Please describe what you mean by "filter clogged up".

 

[zea3]

Are you testing the water and do you have a set of test results? Are the cloth filters folded into pleats? Any photos you could post would be helpful.

 

[the ugly_dog]

Hi, What I mean by clogging up is the filter gets blocked and the water flow is diminished by more than 50%. The only time something like this happened before was when the local volcano spewed out a bunch of ash and clogged everything, but when the filters were cleaned the flow was normal for a short time. This time even cleaning the filters the flow didn't come back to normal. The pools are connected together and are are 32400 gal total. The large one being 20X40 the others smaller and shallower. The cloth filters are the pleated 300cfm Pentair filters, and the flow is enough for the entire pool volume to be run through in 12 hours. our Chlorine level is now a bit high since it's not going to be used till next weekend we doubled the chlorine, it had completely depleted overnight even though there were still chlorine pucks in the chlorinator and a box the return water feeds back through into the waterfall pool then into the main pool that we usually put extra chlorine in when it's busy. The alkalinity is normal, right in the middle of the scale. We use one of the liquid test kits I brought here from Home Depot. We've had this pool for over 3 years and have never had this problem, usually it's lots of pee which turns it yellowish. We have been using small amounts of dishsoap, I know it sounds crazy but it causes the pee and fine volcanic ash to separate out making little 1/2 dollar size floaters that get collected real easy by the filter. It works better than clarifier, usually overnight a cloudy mess turns crystal clear. I washed the filter cartridges in hot water and rinsed them this afternoon and they seem better, flowing about 75% of normal. I was just wondering if the sugar from the candy could cause the filter to get sticky and covered over making it not flow correctly. Thanks. the dog

 

[zea3]

Do you ever use liquid chlorine or do you only use pucks and powdered chlorine? Did you test the CYA level?

 

[Jimrahbe]

Dog,

I doubt the candy had anything to do with your filter issue.. Sounds like a normal algae clogged filter to me. Algae can clog a filter before you even notice a hint of green.

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[Mdragger88]

Do u have a way to test cya? With constant trichlor use it may be through the roof. Your “high chlorine” level may actually be quite low in relation to the cya level.

 

[the ugly_dog]

I'll test the cya, my kit has that ability. It's possible that it's high. The ph seems to always stay in the middle of the scale. Normally we don't use all that much chlorine anymore since we started using dish soap in the water. I got this from a guy when we were in Australia, I was watching him and saw him add some and asked. He takes care of lots of resort pools in on the North Coast of NSW. It seems to work really well as the cloudiness always clears in about 12 hours but the most interesting thing is the way it seems to remove the pee and the dust. When you clean the filter and people had peed a lot, when there's soap you can smell pee. The normal algae color I find when cleaning the filter is usually more black and medium green, the volcanic ash is black and volcanic dust is light grey, with the light grey clumping with the soap. The algae doesn't seem to clump, it just comes off. This time this very light green sticky stuff is mixed with the soap and volcanic dust. the dog

 

[mknauss]

Dish soap is not a sanitizer. To maintain a safe and sanitary pool, you need to maintain a sanitizer level, such as FC based on your CYA level.

 

[JamesW]

We find people are always putting stuff in the pool water.

There were lots of wrappers for a green hard candy all over the place and in the skimmer.

people who pee in the pool, people climbing in the planters then going in the pool covered in dirt and people changing diapers in the hot tub and throwing the trash into the planters and pools.

In my opinion, you probably need to have some sort of discussion with the people about how they are expected to behave when using the pool.

Why are you allowing people to abuse the pool?

If these are the things that you know about, what else is happening that you don't know about?

 

[the ugly_dog]

I didn't say soap was a sanitizer, I said it seems to work better than clarifier and seems to help remove fine particles and it also seems to absorb pee and cause it to stick to the filter. We reduced the need for extra chlorine quite a bit while maintaining a moderate level. I agree the stupidity allowed at some of our pools is ridiculous! Most of the time everything is fine and the people are great, it's just one or two groups every once in a while that make a huge mess. We have put bougainvillea in the planters and a few fences which seems to help. The security people who watch them overnight don't seem to notice, no matter how much I explain. Here, pools with filters and chemical treatment is very unusual, most pools just change the water every week or so and that contributes to some people not knowing how to behave. I have made lists of "charges for vandalism and damage" but my wife who runs this business won't implement it. the dog

 

[the ugly_dog]

I ordered a new test kit with CYA capabilities. Readings Total chlorine 0, Free chlorine 5, PH 7, Total alkalinity 1, CYA 0, Total hardness 200. After soaking the filter cartridges in hot water they cleaned out better and are now working like before and are removing all the dirt. There's no more light green in the residue and they are picking up the volcanic dust again really well and not clogging up. I guess it must have been sugar from that candy that messed things up. That's about it. the dog