New owner, opening with cloudy water

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pittslmjca13

pittslmjca13

Active member
Jun 18, 2019
27
Southeast Wisconsin
Hello All!

So happy to have found this forum and resources. Long story short, I am a first time pool owner. Pool was left uncovered, half full for one year. Dark green and gross. Got TONS of debris out, have been adding liquid chlorine. 6 jugs in the last 2.5 days. It's full, blue and cloudy.

15k above ground vinyl, sand filter, 1 HP pump.

We can't get past the cloudyness, or seem to keep any free chorine levels in the pool. We have to backwash once a day, sometimes two. Here are my latest numbers from the Taylor K-2006:

pH: 7
FC: 1(highest it's ever been, 0 yesterday)
CYA: 0
TA: 140
CH: 5
CSI: -1.19
There is combined chlorine present as well.

Will SLAM be the next step to fix the cloudy water? Or is pH and CYA too low? Also, can a stabilizer to increase CYA and liquid chlorine be added at the same time?

Thank you!
 
Welcome to the forum!
Do this for me first --
Raise your FC in the water using enough liquid chlorine to get to 10 ppm using PoolMath. Circulate the pool for 15 minutes. Test FC and CC. Report the results here.
I suggest you read ABC's of Pool Water Chemistry and consider reviewing the entire Pool School eBook.
 
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Ok, added 3lbs 13oz dry stabilizer per PoolMath using sock method to get CYA target level 30. I put the sock in front of the return. I don't mean to sound ignorant, but how long do I wait to start the SLAM? I don't recall coming across that info yet. Also, should I keep the cover off during this process? Thank you for the continued help.
 
I backwashed my filter before adding the sock CYA. Last SLAM check for the night and I can tell the return has decreased, pressure is low and it needs to be backwashed. I was unable to find a definitive answer here about backwashing and CYA. Can I backwash when CYA was added via sock method? It was added about 3 hours ago.
 
Should be fine. It’s in the water now. As far as I understand it, the typical way people add CYA is to dump it in the skimmer basket and let it get to your filter and sit in there until it dissolves. If you do that, and backwash, you could lose the granules.
 
I was just reading the ABCs of pool water chemistry when you replied and just found it to say "after adding CYA you should leave the pump running for 24 hours and not backwash/clean the filter for a week". I was having to backwash once a day when the pressure of the return was decreased. The previous owners did not replace the broken off gauge, so our sand filter doesn't have one. We backwash when we lose most of the force coming out of the return. Will this low return affect my slam? Why couldn't I backwash if I didn't add the CYA right to the filter?
 
Can’t think of why the article would say that right after mentioning the sock method. Maybe just standard advice copied in, in case someone adds it to the skimmer? You should be fine to backwash as needed.

Gauges are fairly inexpensive, by the way, should be able to replace unless it’s too difficult to remove with it being broken off.

Go Brewers. ;)
 
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Yes, after 24 hours of SLAM it is still cloudy, but not as cloudy. I can catch glimpses of the bottom, so there is progress. My next step will be to get a new gauge for the sand filter. The strength of the return seems to drop to the point where I need to backwash. I did that three times today. It goes from a strong jet to very very light water flowing out.
 
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Hello TFP,

I purchased a home with a pool this May making me a first time pool owner. Lots of work, cleaning (left unattended and uncovered 1 year, lots of trees), filling, testing... and here I am 36 hours into the SLAM process. I can finally see improvement, even though it is slow.

We have a 15k, AG Vinyl, 1 HP Hayward SP 1580 pump, flo pro sand filter with a Hayward SP 0714T valve on top. Original owner said pool is 3 years old, but now we think it's older.

36 hours into SLAM, water is blue but still cloudy, FC 12, CC .5 last test. However, we notice a large decrease in the pressure of the water coming out of the return. The next step I plan on doing is getting a pressure gauge for the valve. We listened to the pool store when we first brought the whole pump/filter in, and they said we don't necessarily need one, we can just put our hand in front of the return to tell how it's pumping. Well...happy to say I've found this forum. Now we backwash, rinse, then pressure would be back up. Several hours to half a day later it goes down again.

Could this be because of the cloudy water, and the pump really is cleaning a ton of junk out of the pool? I know it's hard to say without a gauge, but is backwashing 2-3x/day during SLAM too much?

Along with putting a pressure gauge on, we also plan to deep clean the filter. I saw a post on here about how to do it, so we will follow that. Any other tips? Do you agree that a gauge/deep clean is a good next step?

Thank you!
 
pittslmjca13 said:
Could this be because of the cloudy water, and the pump really is cleaning a ton of junk out of the pool? I know it's hard to say without a gauge, but is backwashing 2-3x/day during SLAM too much?

Along with putting a pressure gauge on, we also plan to deep clean the filter. I saw a post on here about how to do it, so we will follow that. Any other tips? Do you agree that a gauge/deep clean is a good next step?

Thank you!
Click to expand...
A sludgy green pool will clog a filter in a matter of an hour or two. Everything sounds normal.
 
Backwash your filter when the pressure rises by 25% over clean pressure.
Obviously you need a pressure gauge for that. You need one ASAP.

Deep clean may or may not be needed. If the filter is filtering well, I would wait on a deep clean.
 
Mknauss,
While browsing, I saw in another thread you mentioned that floc can comprise the sand in a filter, and that would be one of the only reasons sand would need replacing. We used floc originally per the pool store, that was before I found this site. I can guarantee all the debris from the floc was not vacummed up right away. It was too big and we needed a leaf vac.

All debris is gone now, could that be another reason we are having to backwash so often? Should we look to see if the sand needs replacing?

I bought a new glycerin filled gage from TFPTestkits per another recommendation I found on this site, and will install as soon as I get it.
 
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