Fighting Cloudy Water: 4 Weeks and Counting

[Watermom]

I'm not Janet, but maybe I'll do! (She is working this evening and it may be tomorrow til she is able to answer, so thought I'd take a crack at it for you.)

If your CYA is at 40 but you still have undissolved stabilizer in the pool, that means that your CYA level is going to go up higher than 40. Therefore, you don't want to use any forms of stabilized chlorine which means no pucks. They are stabilized and will cause your CYA to continue to rise. You also don't want that CYA laying on your liner. Vacuum it up into the filter. Since your CYA is at 40 which is a good level, I'd go ahead and backwash it out.

Since your calcium hardness level is ok you can use cal-hypo for awhile if you want but if it were me, I'd just use bleach. Bleach will never contribute to cloudy water problems.

Did you order a test kit? If not, I'd recommend that you do so. While your water is cloudy, I'd suggest raising your cl up to shock level which would be about 15ppm. In a 20K pool, each gallon (4 quarts) of 6% bleach will add 3ppm of chlorine. Every time you test which should be at least morning and evening for now, add enough bleach to get the cl back up to 15. You need to keep it at shock level until you can go from sundown one evening to sunup the next morning without losing more than 1ppm of chlorine, and you have no more than 0.5ppm of CC (combined chlorine.) Do you have a CC reading by the way? If so, post it. We really need to see it.

Since your pressure gauge hasn't come in yet, you'll have to just judge when to backwash by the pressure of the water coming out of the return. When you feel a substantial decrease in pressure, backwash. Run the pump 24/7 while you are trying to clear the pool.

Not necessary to change out the sand.

Keep working on the pH. You don't have to wait too long between additions of Borax. After adding some, wait a couple of hours, retest and redose. You need to get it above 7.0 ASAP.

Your alk is also low. Add some baking soda to the skimmer to raise it. I'd start with about 3 lbs. at a time. As with the Borax, retest after a few hours and redose until you get somewhere between 80-120. By the way, it is ok to add baking soda, borax and bleach one right after the other.

Hope this helps. Keep us posted how things are going.

[anixon7]

I do have a test kit: Taylor K-2006.

As for the chlorine, my issue is that I already bought $80 worth of pucks before I found this forum and started learning about the BBB method. That's a lot of money that I can't afford to waste. So, do you have a recommendation as to how I can incorporate all that stabilized chlorine? Start using them again once my CYA is steady? Do I need to use bleach in the short term until the CYA is steady?

I'll pick up some baking soda tonite to work on the TA.

Update you tonite/tomorrow.

Thanks,
Andrew

[Watermom]

Unlike chlorine or pH which have to continuously be added and adjusted throughout the summer, once you get CYA in your pool, it lasts. Some people's pools even keep the CYA throughout the winter; others don't and lose it and have to add CYA again the next year.

Bottom line is that if you continue to use the pucks this summer, your CYA is going to continue to go higher and higher and higher As a result, you're going to have to keep your chlorine levels at higher and higher levels or you'll get algae. (Take a look at the Best Guess table in my signature below if you haven't already done so.)

You can keep trichlor tabs from one season to the next. Keep them tightly closed in the original container in a cool place and then if you need to add CYA another year, you'll have them.

Glad to hear you have the kit. That will make things easier for you.

Hope this helps you.

[anixon7]

Ok, so here's the latest.

6-24-11 (7:30am)

FC = 2.0
CC = .5
pH = 7.4 (woohoo!)
TA = 20
CYA = 35–40

6-24-11 (7:30pm)

Added 4.5 gallons of bleach and 3 lbs of baking soda.
Didn't get to test last night. Long story.

6-25-11 (7:30am)

FC = 11.5
CC = N/A (forgot to test)
pH = 7.6–7.8 (boo)
TA = 60

So, some good news. Not sure why the pH went up so much, because I haven't added any Borax in over 36hrs. Should I add some pH reducer or just let it ride for now? I'm going to add some more baking soda today. Any reason why I can't add it now if it's overcast because I have to be gone from the house this evening?

Thanks,
-A

[Watermom]

Go ahead and add the baking soda. Being overcast doesn't make any difference. Just let the pH ride for now. 7.6-7.8 is fine. If it goes over 7.8, you'll want to lower it some though. Your pH will become more stable once you get your TA up some.

[anixon7]

Well, it's been a couple of days and things are looking up finally. I can actually see the bottom of the deep end for the first time!! Water is still cloudy, but levels are starting to even out.

I'm in full-on BBB mode, making the switch to bleach for chlorination over the weekend.

My biggest problem is I still can't maintain a steady FC level. It went from 14.5 down to 9 in 24hrs. I added 1.5gal of bleach to get it back up tonite. My CC is steady at 0.

pH jumped up to 7.8 last nite, but I let it ride and was back down to 7.4 tonite. Do you think it might have been a false high read because chlorine levels were so high? Hope it stays in the good zone overnite.

TA is steady at 90. Should I raise it up closer to 100 or leave it? Thinking maybe raising it would help steady the pH.

I also have A TON of tiny particles of sediment too fine to catch in the skimmer net from all the months of neglect. I would assume this is contributing to the cloudy water. Any way to speed up the process of getting those cleaned out or do I just have to be patient and let the filter do its thing?


And, last thing to note based on comments earlier last week about a broken heater causing water problems. My water is in fact running thru the broken heater right now. One of my bypass valves froze and cracked over the winter, so I actually had to rig the pvc piping to go around the cracked valve; much cheaper than buying a new valve. But, I am thinking maybe I should re-reroute the piping to bypass the heater all together just to be safe. Any thoughts on this? Could it be contributing to the cloudy water?

Thanks,
-A

[Watermom]

Glad things are improving. Be consistent with maintaining high cl levels while the water is cloudy. Are you testing your pH while the chlorine is high? That will give false high pH. With the Taylor K-2006, you can test pH if the chlorine is lower than 15 which is higher than most kits will allow. I wouldn't worry about raising alk any right now.

You can try a little trick that some of us use to help our sand filters filter a little more efficiently. Adding a little DE will help you filter out smaller particles than your sand can get by itself. Read more about it here:

http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthread.php?t=3742

I can't help with the heater issue. Somebody else will hopefully chime in about that.

Hope this helps.