Water circulating before testing?

[onemsmom]

Still a beautiful shade of blue - but quite cloudy. Why is it cloudy?

Have been checking all day & has still been dropping to about 16ish ppm after a few hours. I'll check again before I go to bed. Hopefully tonight is the night I see less than a 1ppm drop, though that sure seems impossible.

Keep your fingers crossed for me,

Jenn

[Watermom]

It is cloudy because of the dead algae in the water. Run your pump 24/7 while you are working to clear this and let the filter get it. Just keep an eye on your filter pressure. I'm going to keep my fingers crossed, but suspect you are not quite to the less than 1 pm loss overnight point just yet. But, hopefully soon!

[onemsmom]

Anyone still up? I was just about to go to sleep & it's at 21. Should I spike it a little higher before I retire or leave it at 21? If I don't here otherwise, I'll add 1 gal to hit the 25.

[onemsmom]

Well, I'm happy to report that A) I fell asleep and left the pool at 21ppm and B) WHEN I WOKE UP THIS A.M. IT WAS STILL 21PPM!!!!!!!!!!

YAY!!!

O.K. Now what? I remember you told me to let it drift down to a certain number - I'll go back & look that up. Once I hit that number, I'll run the whole test & report back.

If there is anything else I should do, let me know.

p.s. It's still cloudy.

[aylad]

Keep the filter running. The chlorine kills the algae, but the filter removes it from the water, and sometimes it can take awhile, depending on how bad your algae bloom was.

With a CYA of 90, you need to keep your chlorine in the 5-10 range. However, your CYA is on the upper end of that range, so I would keep the chlorine closer to 8-12 if it were my pool.


Janet

[onemsmom]

When I asked when it is safe to swim, a moderator answered "when it's clear" and "when the ppm doesn't drop more than 1ppm.....". I'm assuming the chlorine levels must go down to the 8-12 range first, but did she mean when it wasn't green any more or when the water is no longer cloudy? The kids miss the pool greatly!!!

[onemsmom]

made a mistake reading the CYA #'s for the beginning of my thread. I hope this didn't mess everything up.

I did all of the tests over today and here are the #'s I got.

FC 11
the 0870 barely made it turn pink, then it went clear, so I don't have a CC #
pH 7.7
between 1 & 2 drops to get it to 7.5
TA 180
Ca 310 or 320 - I pushed the last 2 drops out simultaneously
CYA about 36/38. Now, I think the # for before should have been 34. I had read the mL line at "9" & multiplied by 10. I'm so sorry if I caused you to lead me the wrong way.

In any case, using the chart I will figure out where to keep the chlorine. I need to know how to bring the pH down, & whether I should put the tab back in the floater - I think the answer is yes, but I'll make sure before I do it.

The pool is blue, but still very cloudy. Filter is still running continuously.

Jenn

[aylad]

If your CYA is actually in the 30-40 range, then your required chlorine level is 3-6, with shock at 15. You shocked it a great deal higher than that, but it's okay, it didn't hurt anything, it just cleared the bloom up a little faster. In that case, I would not swim in it until the chlorine gets below 10--and then I would wear an old suit just in case of fading. As far as letting them swim while it's cloudy, that's a judgement call that you'll have to make--the cloudiness is from dead algae, which won't hurt them, and possibly made worse by high calcium, which also won't hurt them--but if it's cloudy enough that you can't see somebody that's in deep water and in trouble, then I still wouldn't let them swim until it's clear.

If your CYA is in the 30-40 range, you could probably get away with using a trichlor tab in a floater for just a little longer. It will help drive your pH down, and keep your chlorine up, but it's going to add CYA. If you're not sure, and the CYA may actually be up in the 90s like you originally posted, then I wouldn't use anymore trichlor because the stabilizer is going to get too high to keep the pool clear. IF the tab you've had in the floater is cal-hypo, then you definitely don't need it because your calcium is high enough already--and it's possibly contributing to your cloudy water problem.

Janet