Suddenly Cloudy Pool, Eating my FC Levels

gheil

New member
Sep 18, 2024
1
Los Angeles
Hello! New to the forum as a member, but I've done quite a bit of reading on here.

Recently moved into a home with a pool, I'd estimate 12,000 gallons, maybe a little more. I've been maintaining it pretty well I thought, until this morning I woke up and found it to be extremely cloudy. I can barely see the bottom.

A bit of background, we had an initial algae problem almost exactly a month ago after moving in, pool turned bright green, and we ended up adding 6 gallons 12.5% liquid chlorine, 6 capfuls YellowTreat (recommended by my family's pool guy), and a bottle of acid. Gave it a day, ran the filter 24/7, and got clear water. Balanced pH and alkalinity with baking soda, and began using a mix of 3 floaters with 3" chlorine tabs plus liquid chlorine as needed. Everything was fine until the past 2 days, and the pool has very suddenly turned teal and cloudy. Levels (using strips) are as follows:

pH ~ 7.0
FC 0 ppm
Alkalinity ~100 ppm
Stabilizer 30-50 ppm range

So naturally, I thought it must be a lack of chlorine, so I added the remainder of my supply (2.5 gallons of liquid chlorine). 5 hours later, I checked chlorine levels again, and they are back to 0, as if I never added chlorine.

Is this likely an algae bloom? Do I need to go buy more liquid chlorine and just shock the pool even more?

My other concern was the YellowTreat, which is bromine based. Is it possible that I screwed up by adding ~2lb YellowTreat during the initial algae bloom and that is the root of all my issues? Since then, we've had significant splash-out and probably refilled roughly 25% water by volume.

Any advice is appreciated. I'll try to buy a test kit soon, I just haven't gotten to it yet.
 
Welcome to TFP! You have algae. Read through the Pool School in the left pane. Focus on the Algae topic because what you need to do is a SLAM. However, your test strips won't cut it, the pool store won't cut it and your family's guy won't cut it. The pool will stay clean and sanitary when the Free Chlorine and Stabilizer are in harmony with each other. That is the CYA/FC relationship, which you also need to learn in the Algae section. We recommend the following test kits: Taylor K2006c, TF Testkits TF100 or TFPro which is recommended. TF ships with fresher reagents and ships quicker. Buy directly from TF. In the meantime you need to add 3-5 ppm of liquid chlorine (no more pucks) by using the PoolMath app to calculate that based on your pool size. After the algae is conquered then you can determine whether the Yellow treatment has negatively affected the water. Hopefully there wasn't enough bromine to cause any issues.
 
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