Need help with cloudy water in brand new pool

[Jeffski]

My pool was completed with pump and SWG installed about a week ago. My builder was responsible for getting the water balanced at start up but he only shows up every third day or so and water remains very cloudy. I can't see my feet when standing in the shallow end. Ugh.

I will continue to hound the builder until it's right but am hoping I can fix it faster with your help.

18x36 rectangule, 3.5' in the shallow and 8' in the deep (roughly 22k gallons I think). SWG is set to run at 40%. I tried bumping it to 60% for one day and then up to 80% the next but that didn't help. Pump runs at least 12 hours a day. The light on the SWG says I need to add salt ( it is between 2500-2900) but the builder added more 3 days ago and thought it still needs to stabilize.

I used some test strips (left over from hot tub, sorry) and they tell me my free chlorine is around 0, PH over 8, and total alkalinity around 180. Obviously chlorine is very low and PH and alk very high.

I know I need to have my water tested which I will try to do today, but any advice based on what you've read so far? How long after adding salt will it take for my SWG to read it acurately? Do I need to dump in more chlorine? How do I handle the high PH and Alk?

Please help!

[PatL34]

My pool was completed with pump and SWG installed about a week ago. My builder was responsible for getting the water balanced at start up but he only shows up every third day or so and water remains very cloudy. I can't see my feet when standing in the shallow end. Ugh.

I will continue to hound the builder until it's right but am hoping I can fix it faster with your help.

18x36 rectangule, 3.5' in the shallow and 8' in the deep (roughly 22k gallons I think). SWG is set to run at 40%. I tried bumping it to 60% for one day and then up to 80% the next but that didn't help. Pump runs at least 12 hours a day. The light on the SWG says I need to add salt ( it is between 2500-2900) but the builder added more 3 days ago and thought it still needs to stabilize.

I used some test strips (left over from hot tub, sorry) and they tell me my free chlorine is around 0, PH over 8, and total alkalinity around 180. Obviously chlorine is very low and PH and alk very high.
You need to get some muriatic acid in there as soon as possible to bring the pH down to 7.2 and keep it between 7.2 - 7.6. Then start aerating by pointing the return jets up to reduce the Alk down to 80 ppm. I presume you have a plaster pool, as my advice is based on this. The plaster will be curing for at least a month or more since filling, so patience and persistence is needed.

Add salt to get to 3000 - 3500 ppm

I know I need to have my water tested which I will try to do today, but any advice based on what you've read so far? How long after adding salt will it take for my SWG to read it acurately? Do I need to dump in more chlorine? How do I handle the high PH and Alk?
Get yourself a decent test kit like a Taylor K2006 from the pool store. As soon as you can, test and post all your readings here. We can then help you further.

The SWCG will react to the correct chemistry immediately, and if you are in doubt take a sample from a return jet, first checking that the cell is in its "ON" phase. Also check if the cell membranes are accumulating scale, in which case you need to check the controller is reversing polarity correctly, usually every four hours. Check with manual or call the SWCG vendor on this.
Doing an acid wash on the cell should not be necessary unless the scale is severe.

If the chlorine is low, use mwsmith2's bleach calculator at the beginning of this or the Using Chemicals forum, to determine how much bleach to add.

The pool hopefully will start getting less cloudy, but keep us posted.

Please help!

Hope this helps.

Pat

[Jeffski]

Awesome info. My pool is a vinyl liner however, not plaster. Does that change anything? Sorry I didn't think to post that originally.

[Jeffski]

I added some acid and the PH level is now good.

I added a bottle of bleach but that hasn't done anything. Finally talked to my builder today and he said it's cloudy because there isn't enough chlorine in the pool. He advised me to add liquid chlorine. Is this the same as bleach?

[chem geek]

Liquid chlorine is the same as bleach except that it is more concentrated. Typically, bleach is 5% or 6% strength while liquid chlorine is typically 12.5% Your SWG should generate chlorine automatically, but perhaps it's not doing so fast enough or perhaps the contractor wants you to add more chlorine to shock the pool. As for adding more chlorine, that may or may not clear up your cloudiness, depending on what the source of the cloudiness is. Nevertheless, you do need to have more than the 0 FC you reported!

Having a vinyl liner (and not having any exposed grout or plaster anywhere) just means you do not need to add calcium to your pool so your Calcium Hardness (CH) will be low or close to zero.

[Jeffski]

After reading some other posts it sounds like I'm wasting my time adding chlorine/beach without having it stabilized with CYA. My wife is picking up a test kit today...hopefully that will help me. I'll post results. Test strips are saying ALK and PH are good but FC is almost zilch. Water is very cloudy.

[aylad]

Until you can get the stabilizer in the pool (which I would do immediately--it takes 4-6 days for it to completely dissolve, and you're going to have to add bleach daily to keep some chlorine in the pool until the stabilizer is there to help) you can at least add your bleach in the evening, so it has the whole night to work on the pool before the sun comes up. THe longer you wait to get it shocked, the worse the problem is going to get, and the longer it will take to clear it up.

Janet

[Jeffski]

And you recommending adding it using the sock hung by the steps, right?

[aylad]

You can do it that way....I usually add mine through the skimmer and just don't backwash for at least a week. Either way works.

Janet

[Jeffski]

Yeah that sounds easier. Just dump in the skimmer? How much? In one shot or a little over a few days.

Thanks again for all the help.

[Jeffski]

Finally performed 5 way test kit:

PH 7.7
CL over 5.0 is all I can tell for certain.
CYA 60
ALK Over 140 I guess. I got to 14 drops without it changing.
Hardness seems to be zero as far as I can tell.

What now?