new BBB believer -- cloudy water

hi all,

after finding this forum last week i am a true believer of bbb. but...

brief history,

never owned a pool before 2 years ago, prev owner used all walmart (aquachem) products, so i followed suit (except i used the leslies pucks), we have an IG vinyl liner which i was told is about 22000, hayward s200 filter and super pump...

anyway...i tested for cya for the first time this weekend...that and other results are below. (using aquachem test kit)

ph 6.8 or less
alk 120 to 130
cl 0.5ish
cya between 90-100
temp bath water warm (the air temp has been at or near 100 for the last couple weeks, little rain)

i've been fighting with algae (only slightly green on the ladder, steps, etc. by no means a green pool)

after the test and forums, i removed the hockey puck floater, and waited a day to let the chem adjust to retest. no change to above results. filter running 24/7. i did a minor backwash, just in case. we got a good rain two afternoons in a row and the normally clear water turned cloudy, which in my experience means i need to adjust ph and shock.

added a 1/2 box borax, retested, 7.0 and added the other half box retested. ph now 7.4ish.

added 4 1gallon 46 oz jugs of 6% bleach once the ph was right. cl went up to about 3ppm, 24 hours later still cloudy. added another 3 bottles (1G 46 oz of 6%) this morning and retested at lunch (still cloudy). this time the results are:

fc 5+ppm (test kit doesn't register higher)
tc 5+ppm
ph 7.6
cya (dunno---out of test solution) but i doubt it changed any.
alk 130

am i doing everything right? my wife got a little miffed at me cause the cl and ph dropped out. and now the water's cloudy. how long should the water stay cloudy?

The water will stay cloudy until you shock your pool. That requires bringing your Cl up to 25ppm and KEEPING IT THERE until your water clears.

That will require 10 gallons of bleach all at once and then more bleach to bring it back up to 25ppm at least daily...three times daily is better.

Run your pump 24/7 during this process and backwash if filter pressure rises noticeably.

Once you get to 25ppm, the time it takes for your water to clear will be dependent on how frequently you test and redose.....again, three times daily is not too much, you'll only make the clearing process go more slowly if you don't do this.

how can i tell i have the ppm high enough if my cheapie kit won't test above 5? :confused:

The short, accurate answer is to buy Ben's kit @ poolsolutions.

A stop-gap method that is not very accurate is to dilute your cl test water by adding 4 parts distilled to your pool water, then multiply results by five (or dilute 3:1 and multiply by 4, etc). This method, while cheap, is very inaccurate but may get you in the ball park if you do it carefully and dose carefully.

any idea how long it will take to clear up?

is it "safe" to swim while cloudy? prolly not with the cl at 25ppm, eh?

I would wait until the chlorine level is below 15ppm at your CYA level to swim in. In this case it appears that your pool is cloudy because there are organic compounds that are growing in the pool - not too sanitary.

IF you keep your chlorine level above 25ppm (testing 3X a day and adding chlorine) then it should clear pretty fast. If you only get your chlorine level to 20ppm and/or let it yo-yo up and down it could take weeks. Diligence is the answer here.:)

Also - to prevent this in the future you need to keep your residual chlorine around 6ppm-10ppm.

Just wanted to re-emphasize what had been said about testing multiple times per day.

The sun & temp in Lexington SC is going to eat your CL. This is especially true the higher the level. So it very important to test the CL, and add to it many times during the day. Otherwise, you will have an intra-day yo-yo effect.

It is not uncommon for my pool to loose 2-3 ppm of CL in one day. I am in N. GA, just about the same lattitude as you are in SC, so our sun factor is similar. And that is when my CL is in the 3-6 range! I recently had the beginnings of algee/haze in the pool, because I went 2 days w/o testing/adding CL (oops). I brought the CL up to around 13-14 (kit (taylor 1471) only reads up to 10. Basing the 13-14 on the fact it was at 10, and I added 2 more jugs). Anyway, next mid day, it was back to 9. Put 2 more in around noon, and it was down to 7 the next day at noon. Perfect, as I had a party that afternoon. But that means it lost 2ppm, plus the entire 2 jug addition!

Just showing that CL will go away quickly! my cya is 50, so with your 90-100, yours may last a bit longer, but still - test-test-test.

Since your cya is 90, you're going to be putting alot of chlorine in the pool in the next week. I'd just do a partial drain/refill to lower cya. It should be more cost effective unless you have water restrictions locally and could get fined! If you could get your cya down in the 30-40 range, you'd only need 3-5ppm residual, not 15. Also, you won't have to babysit the pool for a week... much easier in my opinion.