first opening with new house, cloudy water for 3 weeks

I'm at a loss here, I've been reading everything here and everywhere else about getting water to clear and nothing is working. I've been holding fc at 22ppm for 3 days now, cc is at 0. ( I decided to try to breakpoint the water in a last attempt to clear it). The break point obviously worked because there's no cc left, and ihaven't had to add chlorine in 3 days. calcium is at 120, ph is at 7.1 ( I know this is a little lowby the so called standard, but I ran with 7.0 last year with crystal clear water.) alk is 110, cya is 80. I have a vinyl ag pool 27' round with a hayward sanf filter. I mean I've tried everything. I even took apart the filter , nothing wrong. used a clarifier, a flocculant, every thing. I may have to settle with cloudy water this year unless someone has any suggestions. I may be heading to the pool store for a water test, guess I better pack a lot of money for the sales pitch.

I'm guessing that you just have very fine stuff in your pool.

1)Did you make sure you are using filter sand and not something else?
2) You can try adding a cup of DE through your skimmer until your pressure goes up about a pound. This will get the water clearer as well.
3) "Skimmer Socks" are elastic filters that go in the skimmer, like a filter in a Mr. Coffee coffee maker. They are very fine as well. They are not expensive and most pool store have them or the equivalent brand.
4) a "Slime Bag" is an auxiliary filter that catches finer stuff. They are a bit pricey--the $80 range I believe, but I gather they work and work well.
5) Do you have a friend with a Dolphin Dynamic, AquaBot or equivalent robot who would lend it to you for a couple of cycles? They pump all the pool's water through their EXTREMELY fine filter bag, effectively "polishing" the water.

This is assuming there isn't something else wrong, but your numbers don't indicate it.

Hi, Gordy,

Yeah, that's a real puzzle. I seem to remember Pooldoc saying that AG pump and filter systems were notoriusly inadequate....perhaps yours just needs some time to clear things up.

Breakpoint was certainly a good thing to do. I'm surprised you didn;t get more visual results...at least not yet.

Carl's ideas make a lot of sense. I have a personal affinity for sand filters so I try hard never to blame them for any inadequacies.:) Finer filtering just may work, tho.

One last thought, I would be hard pressed to test or take advice from most pool stores. This forum continually offers better advice and there are continual stories of pool stores testing poorly and selling vigourously.

What are you testing with now? I would tend to trust your own numbers rather than the pool store. If you can, keep posting on the forum and don't give up. I and many others will be interested when you discover the cause.

Can you add DE to a sand filter? I don't know what DE is, but I have seen it in the stores.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mjones

Can you add DE to a sand filter? I don't know what DE is, but I have seen it in the stores.

---

Yes. Both Poconos and I have been doing it for a while now. DE stands for Diotomaceous Earth. It's a fine white powder that is the key filtering component for DE filters.

You can add about a cup to a sand filter through the skimmer. Just add enough to increase the pressure about 1 lb. A cup should do it. It takes about 20 minutes for the pressure to rise. Don't add too much or you'll have to backwash immediately! Everytime you backwash, you'll have to add more DE. The best news about DE in sand filters is that it is CHEAP! I get a 10 or 15 lb box for about $8 and it lasts the entire summer, and improves my filtering nicely. It's one of the cheapest improvements you can make to a sand filter. The other is skimmer socks, which are about $5 a pack (they, of course, work on all filters).

My pool is very cloudy also. It looks like a "blue storm cloud", I can't see the bottom step, but my water is clear if I dip a glass full out. My liner is dark blue, so that could be the blue part of the cloud.

Just a reminder that I wasn't doing until they (the gurus in here) stressed to run the pump 24/7 AND BRUSH DAILY. I fought mine for almost a month before I came here and then another week after I got here. Finally I got the point to leave my pump on and brush and, voila - overnight (literally overnight) clear water.
Not sure what would happen, but some people told me to check for phosphates. Mine cleared up right before I was going to have it checked.

Just food for thought.
Brad

gordy back. ok today i can finally somewhat see the bottom of the pool. still cloudy though i think its improving. I don't know what happened. fc has dropped to 20ppm, cc still 0 which i think is normal due to the first sunny day in a week .i didn't change anything since the last post. today i felt a little scientific and decided to really look at my water. took a mason jar and filled it with some pool water. looked at it with magnifying glass, i can see very tiny particles floating around, maybe dead algea? even so isn't the filter supposed to take care of this? i think it is but very slowly. I've had water turn cloudy last year after rain, but after a good shock, presto, crystal clear. maybe its time to go cartridge. anyways thanks for the responses i'm going to try the DE trick and see if i can get any more improvement.

skimmer socks really help catch a lot of fine particles. they are not very expensive and can be purchased at most pool shops. :)

Just give it some time--it can take awhile for the filter to get all the dead stuff out, but with a little patience, it'll clear up! :)

Janet