Cloudy Water

[jackmeg]

I opened our pool the other day - it was clear with some leaves etc on the bottom. After vacuuming the leaves and adding a store bought spring opening kit the water is now cloudy - milky.

Before I start dumping in more stuff I was hoping for some advice. What should I do next - I have had this occur before a spent a lot of time and money trying whatever the pool store recommends.

We have a 20 x 40 gunite IG pool approx 30,000 gallons. I used a Taylor test kit and got the following results this morning:

FC 2
TC 3
CC 1
Ph 8.0
Alk 130
Cal 230

I do not have test for CYA yet.

PLEASE HELP ME!!!!

[JohnT]

Your 1 ppm CC means the pool needs shocking. High pH needs to be corrected too. Get some liquid shock or bleach and some muriatic acid.

[duraleigh]

Jack (or Meg )

A little guessing but your high pH probably contributed greatly to that milkiness. I would:

1. download mwsmith2's calculator from any of his posts.

2. use it to calculate and add enough muriatic acid to get your pH to 7.2

3. Figure out a way to test for CYA and post your numbers back up.

4. Be prepared to add quite a bit of plain ole' Clorox but we need to see your second set of numbers including the CYA before we recommend just how much Cl to add.

5. Any other pool store chemicals you put in there will cost you some bucks, may not help, and will really confuse us on the forum.

[jackmeg]

In my original test the numbers were:

FC 2
TC 3
CC 1
Ph 8.0
Alk 130
Cal 230

Now I am at:

TC 2
FC 1
CC 1
Ph 7.2
Alk 110
Cal 230
CYA 80

(20 x 40 gunite IG pool approx 30,000 gallons)


What should I do next? I am assuming I need to drain some of the water to get the CYA down - any ideas approximately how much to drain? After which I can begin to add chlorine I bought 20 gls of liquid at the pool store yesterday - it was on sale.

[Watermom]

If you drain half, it will cut your cya in half. 40 would be a good cya level. But, that is a lot of water to replace. You could keep the high cya and just run higher than normal chlorine levels. Whichever you prefer.

http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthread.php?t=365

[duraleigh]

Hi,

I agree with watermom....that's more water than I would care to drain....especially since your numbers look really good. EXCEPT.....

You need Chlorine!!!! 4 gallons for your pool should raise you to 20ppm. If your water looks really nice after that, let your Cl reading drift on down on it's own and maintain your Cl somewhere around 7-10ppm.

Test your CYA a couple of more times during the summer and put in fresh fill water when it's appropriate. Your CYA will eventually (maybe have to wait 'til next Spring) come down on it's own into a more normal 30-50 range. You can then reduce your Cl level to around 3 - 6ppm.

(Those are good test results for a newbie....good work!!)