Cloudy green water, with a good Saturation Index

Hi guys,

Hoping for some help with a problem that I just cant wrap up.

My water is cloudy/green, even though my numbers seem fairly good and give an almost 0 Saturation Index on the Taylor test wheel. I am running the pump 24 hours continuously, with a new Pentair Cartridge Filter. I can just about see the drains in the deep end. Pool is 4 years old, never had this issue before. I am frequently vacuumin gout yellow particles from the steps, which I assume to be pollon.

15,000 gallon salt pool with Clormatic cell and infloor cleaning system in Florida.

Here are my numbers taken from a Taylor 2600 test kit.

Total Alkalinity 100ppm
Calcium hardness 200ppm
Free Chlorine 5.0
Combine Chlorine 0
PH 7.7
Cyanaric 70ppm
Water temp 88F

I have tried reducing Chlorine to around 3, raising it to around 8. No change.

I have also added InTheSwim Super Clarifier with no change.

Thanks for any suggestions.

Hi and welcome to the Pool Forum!

A few questions for you.

-- Did you mean that you have a Taylor K-2006 or is it 2600?
-- How high are you taking your chlorine level when you shock?
-- What are you using for your source of chlorine -- meaning ingredients and not just "shock"?
-- Is it a vinyl or gunite pool?

With a CYA of 70, you need to shock the pool up to 20 and try to sustain that high reading until all the algae is dead. Add 3.5 gallons of plain, unscented household bleach. You can either add it slowly to the skimmer while the pump is running or slowly in front of a return jet being careful not to splash you or your liner. Test as many times per day as you can, minimum of twice and more is better, and each time add enough bleach to get back to 20ppm of cl. In your pool, each quart of 6% bleach will add 1ppm of cl to the water. Use that to help you figure out how much bleach to add each time you test.

Run the pump 24/7 and clean your filter as needed. Don't add any other products other than bleach right now. No clarifier or any type of pool store "goop." It will clear if you maintain the high cl.

When you get to the point where you can go from sundown one evening until sunup the next day then I'd maintain the high cl one more day for added insurance and then you can let the cl drift down. With a CYA of 70, you need to keep the chlorine between 5-10 all the time or you'll get algae back.

A CYA of 70 is a little high but ok but you won't want to use any forms of stabilized chlorine in your pool or the cya will continue to climb. That means no trichlor pucks and no dichlor powder.

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

Your levels are OK for maintenance (SWCG with CYA of 70 requires a minimum FC of 3.5. But without an SWCG, you need to keep FC between 5 and 10). However, since you clearly have something possibly growing, you need to bring chlorine to shock levels as 'Mom says.

Carl