We went on vacation lost power came back to a green swampy pool. Its an above ground 6500 gallons took out all the green nasty old sand substituted it with zeolite. Pool is finally blue but very milky cloudy. I’ve tested the water I’ve done all the chemicals still very cloudy. Is it the zeolite?
Zeolite Sand Replaced
- Thread starter Jessie2015
- Start date
Probably. We hear stories about zeolite needing a very thorough rinsing.......very thorough!
Did you do that?
Did you do that?
You didn’t have to replace the sand. Just SLAM the pool, backwashing when needed and then potentially doing a deep clean of the sand at some point.
- Jun 24, 2021
- 16,463
- Pool Size
- 29000
- Surface
- Vinyl
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- CircuPool RJ-60 Plus
As one of the few Zeolite users on TFP, along with @Flying Tivo, here is what I have learned.
I use Zeo because it has been working for me. It was part of my "PoolStored" package...I knew nothing about it, I was poolstored and this was part of what they sold to me. Luckily, he knew to do long backwash, and I seem to have gotten "hard" zeo (see next paragraph). Having said all of that, I would not recommend Zeo, given the number of Zeo issues I've helped resolve here on TFP...use sand.
The source of your Zeo is a Crud shoot. Meaning, Zeo can be soft or hard, and large or small depending on the source (there are only a few sources). If you get the soft stuff, you may be in for headaches until you replace it with sand.
Zeo NEEDS a good ten minutes to half an hour of backwashing when it is new to avoid this exact problem. There are situations where even that doesn't take care of it (you get a bad batch of zeo, which is softer than usual, and it is constantly getting crushed and thus continues to put dust into the pool until it is replaced with sand.)
You may have luck getting the cloudy out of the pool by adding DE to your filter to catch the errant zeo. I would do a long backwash first to get the small zeo particles out of the filter, before adding the DE. Watch your pressures and backwash often as you are filtering to get the small zeo out of the pool. If you do not have luck and you have the cloudy problem ongoing, I would consider going back to sand and using DE/Backwashes to get the Zeo out of the pool.
Sorry you are facing this...
I use Zeo because it has been working for me. It was part of my "PoolStored" package...I knew nothing about it, I was poolstored and this was part of what they sold to me. Luckily, he knew to do long backwash, and I seem to have gotten "hard" zeo (see next paragraph). Having said all of that, I would not recommend Zeo, given the number of Zeo issues I've helped resolve here on TFP...use sand.
The source of your Zeo is a Crud shoot. Meaning, Zeo can be soft or hard, and large or small depending on the source (there are only a few sources). If you get the soft stuff, you may be in for headaches until you replace it with sand.
Zeo NEEDS a good ten minutes to half an hour of backwashing when it is new to avoid this exact problem. There are situations where even that doesn't take care of it (you get a bad batch of zeo, which is softer than usual, and it is constantly getting crushed and thus continues to put dust into the pool until it is replaced with sand.)
You may have luck getting the cloudy out of the pool by adding DE to your filter to catch the errant zeo. I would do a long backwash first to get the small zeo particles out of the filter, before adding the DE. Watch your pressures and backwash often as you are filtering to get the small zeo out of the pool. If you do not have luck and you have the cloudy problem ongoing, I would consider going back to sand and using DE/Backwashes to get the Zeo out of the pool.
Sorry you are facing this...
Zeo also prefers low flow, and you likely have a single speed pump with a small above ground pool.
Jessie I had the same exact thing happened to ours. Went on vacation for 2 weeks came back to a green pool. Had zeolite, the pool got cleared after the first day of shocking it. But then instead of vacuuming to waste I brushed and shocked again. Since then the pool has been cloudy and can't get it back to clear. It has been about 2weeks. Yesterday changed to regular sand. Haven't seen an improvement. So I've been slamming since yesterday. Did yours clear up?
Edit:Oh wait, I just reread your scenario. We had zeolite and switched to sand, still curious if you got yours cleared?
Edit:Oh wait, I just reread your scenario. We had zeolite and switched to sand, still curious if you got yours cleared?
- Jun 1, 2018
- 16,080
- Pool Size
- 26000
- Surface
- Vinyl
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Hayward Aqua Rite (T-15)
Aside from the troubles zeo can cause the answer for algae is the
SLAM Process done to completion.
SLAM Process done to completion.