Milky water after shocking pool

[jberrymd]

This is the second summer I have been trying to maintain my pool by myself. A week ago, I had an issue with green water and took a sample to Leslies for test and was told my CYA was sky high and I needed to drain two feet of water and refill. (pool is 20x40 with nine foot deep end and an elevated spa/spillway.) After doing that, water was crystal clear. Yesterday, I walked around it and noticed some algae on the walls, and knee jerk reaction was to throw some shock in it. Immediately the water turned milky white. Could not see the bottom of the pool and only two of the three steps into the shallow end. This morning I took another sample to Leslies and got these numbers...FC 8.03, Calcium 453, pH 7.8 and Alk 99. That was all they wrote down. I was told that the sun would take care of my milky problem and that I could buy some Scale and Stain remover if I wanted. I opted to skip that.

Well the pool has a white sediment on the bottom and after 25 hours and 95 degrees of sunshine, it isn't much better...Spa is clear, but pool is still chalky.

I know I should have tested before I shocked. Is the white particulate matter dead algae? Will it get filtered? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[Richard320]

"Milky" is almost always used to describe pool that have been treated with phosphate remover, How much of what Leslie's sold you did you put in?

White stuff could also be dead algae or Calcium residue. What was this "shock" you added? There are four or five products that are called "shock."

Why is Leslie's testing for you? Don't you have your own test kit? Looks like you had a green pool two years ago and we asked about it then, too.

 

[jberrymd]

Thanks for the reply.
I used HTH super shock. Three bags for the size of my pool. The only phosphate remover I have used is the "Perfect Weekly" that I try to add each weekend. I have not put anything in lately. I do not have a test kit so they do it for me. Do they not do a good job testing?
And yes, I had a green pool last year, got it under control and had a good season. when it was green this season after some storms and warmer weather, I knew I would likely have high CYA as I use a stabilized tablet and Chlor-Brite.

 

[Richard320]

Without actually knowing the CYA of your pool, we can't even say f 8 FC is high enough to keep clear water sanitary, let alone kill an algae bloom.

We don't trust pool store results. They are wrong too often and there's no way of knowing which are good and which are bad.

That HTH stuff looks like it's a 4-in-1 product with clarifiers and who knows what else. At least the chlorine part is Cal-hypo not something with CYA.

All I can tell you at this point is get your own proper test kit. Leslies won't stock it and t he K-2005 they'll try to sell you is not the same. Test Kits Compared - Trouble Free Pool

Vacuum and brush and filter and keep the pool chlorinated until you get the test kit. The milkiness might filter out, might not. All I know for sure is that you can;t mix-and-match pool store testing and methods with ours. Spend some time in pool school. Start with ABCs of Pool Water Chemistry

 

[TexEdmond]

Hey, neighbor!

For what it's worth we've been to Leslie's 4 times this month for water testing while we did two drain / refills of the pool trying to get CYA under control. I might go one more time tomorrow, because the UPS truck couldn't get into the neighborhood to deliver my water test kit today. Like Richard mentioned, their test methods and equipment can bring some very inaccurate results. We've only used them because it was the best we had access to, as the only thing we had at the house are dippystrips.

I'm not buying product from Leslie's anymore unless it's gaskets or the odd pool toy or brush. I've bought 8 gallons of Muriatic Acid at Home Depot in the last week, and I found liquid chlorine at the Quail Springs store on Pennsylvania this afternoon. There's a few cases left. It's my understanding Liquid chlorine is recommended by this site because it doesn't contain other problematic minerals like calcium or other stabilizers like CYA. I haven't put anything in my pool in the last week besides muriatic acid and chlorine, and our water was pretty milky looking. I'm just focusing on alkalinity and pH and it's significantly clearer tonight, which is just fantastic. I'll soon be able to run the actual tests and make sure there's not a biological component to my cloudiness.

Our unopened tub of tabs and HTH granulated shock are going in the Costco returns pile. Or maybe on the black market.