Cloudy water

[stanley]

Pool has been cloudy for a while so I started shocking it once the weather started to warm up. It never went away and I finally had a chance to test it today.

Ph - 7.6-7.7
TA - 130
FC - 5
CC - 0
TC - 5
CH - 1000+ (I just stopped at this point)
CYA - 20+ (used all of it and could still see the dot)

Thanks for any help!

[Watermom]

Your calcium hardness level is WAY too high and I'm sure is most likely the reason for your cloudy water. Your other numbers are ok except the TA is a little high which is also most likely adding to the problem. I'd be willing to be that you are shocking with cal-hypo and if so, stop. Just use plain bleach for your source of chlorine as it will not cloud the water. The only way to drop the calcium hardness reading is to do a partial drain and refill. Do NOT totally drain your pool. What type of pool is this?

[aylad]

Also, could you define "shocking"? To get to a true shock level with a CYA of 20, you need to get your chlorine up to at least 15 ppm.

I agree with Watermom, though--looks to me like your calcium is the culprit!

Janet

[stanley]

It is an inground plaster pool. I know not to drain the entire pool, the guy that re-surfaced it told me what happened to a customer that did. haha

How much is a partial drain?

By shocking I was putting in a couple of scoops (the big blue DE scoop) of granular shock for a few days just trying to get the chlorine level up to kill what I thought might be algea.

Thanks for the input!

[aylad]

I would think you could drain as much as 1/3 to 1/2 at a time without a problem--as long as there's at least 2-3 feet of water in the shallow end I think you're fine. Alternately, one of the other mods has posted a "sheet" method, where you take a large piece of plastic and pump from underneath as you refill from the top so that the pool basically stays full throughout the process.

In order to shock the pool, you really need to be measuring the chlorine levels instead of just dumping "some" chlorine in and hoping for the best--your method may work sometimes in a hit-and-miss way, but to get reliable results you really need to measure your levels to keep them where they need to be and to get rid of the algae.

You definitely need to stop using cal-hypo at this point, though--I suggest you switch to plain, generic bleach. How many gallons does your pool hold?

Janet

[stanley]

I will go to plain bleach.

A quick online calc shows my pool is 19,200. It's a free form that is 16'X32' with a 3' shallow and an 8' deep.

Time to drain!

[aylad]

In 19,200 gallons, each 1.5 gallon of bleach should raise your chlorine by 5 ppm. Each 1.5 quart should raise your chlorine by 1 ppm. (That's 6% strength).

Janet