Cloudy water plan of action

[wsommariva]

Hi everyone,

(I lost my first attemp to post here so maybe this is a duplicate, sorry)

Fourth year for our 33' by 16' fiberglass pool with DE filter. We use the CLfree system and we like it and yes I know some pros don't.

First two years I was only adding one half of the DE that I was suppoded to.

First three years I was adding DE in the filter cycle and not the rinse cycle.

I have never vacumed the pool as we use the Tiger Shark.

Last two years I used a lot of citric acid for a small stain situation, also used Metalfree.

Have always had some cloudyness to the pool.

Last week I opened the pool to crystal clear water. After running the filter for a day the cloudyness came back. My thought is that over the winter all the particles that caused cloudyness settled to the bottom. After filter was running they got stirred up and caused the cloudyness again.

Last Falll I cleaned the grids and soaked them in an acid water bath. I reassembled properly.

I believe that the filter is operating properly.

Plan of action: I'll add a double dose of clarifyer, see if it settles after pump off 12/24 hours and then vacume to filter cycle. If that does not work, add double dose of flocculent, wait 12/24 hours to see if it settles and then VACUME TO WASTE.

PH is 7.2
Tot alk is 100
CH is 250
Copper is .7

Thanks to anyone who can advise me.

[aylad]

HI, and welcome to the forum!

Unfortunately, the very vast majority of us are fans of chlorine pools, so I'm not sure how much help you'll get here with the Clfree system. Honestly, if the filter is working properly and the water is properly sanitized, then you generally should not have cloudy water issues. So--hopefully someone here familiar with this system will chime in with some useful information for you, but I just wanted to welcome you to the group!

Janet

[wsommariva]

Thanks Janet.

I don't think it's the CLfree that's the problem. I think it's lots of small dirt particles. I've started my plan with clarifier and will go from there.

[PoolDoc]

** ADMIN NOTE **
This thread is seeking help on a pool using a copper system that appears to be associated with old-style and illegal "chlorine-free" claims. For a variety of reasons, I'm declaring it off limits to all by myself, Chem_Geek, Waste, and Waterbear.

Hi Wsomm. . .

I'm going to jump in here, with both feet. I did a little checking on the Clfree system, and was very surprised. 10 - 15 years ago, a number of companies selling copper products were making "safe without chlorine" claims. Those gradually went away, as a result of various enforcement actions by the FTC and/or the EPA. I've archived the Clfree.com site, so I can forward the info to the right people, later in the year when things are not so busy.

For now, I'll simply state, as plainly as I can, that this claim by Clfree
"CL Free systems eliminate the need for chlorine in your pool water!"
[ http://www.clfree.com/pdf/clfree_pool_brochure.pdf -- archived 18May2011]
is almost certainly BOTH a lie AND an illegal claim.

Now, I have some views that tend, in certain areas, toward the libertarian. So I think that if you want to use Clfree in your pool, you should have that right so long as it only affects you, your family and your fully informed guests. After all, I grew up occasionally swimming in N Georgia creeks that were 'sanitized' with cow manure!

On the other hand, I absolutely believe it should be illegal (and I'm pretty sure it is) for Clfree to make the false claims they are making. Frankly, I'm amazed they are making them in writing.

If you like it, that's fine with me.

Of course, it's no surprise that you have been using a lot of citric acid, given copper level of 0.7 ppm! Those are levels pretty much guaranteed to cause staining.

Regarding your cloudiness, I'm not at all sure what the problem is. However I can tell you for a fact that if you do have a DE filter, and if it is working, your cloudiness is NOT "particles". "Particles" large enough to cause cloudiness do not make it through working DE filters.

What it sounds like to me is un-oxidized 'goo' -- oils, body wastes and other stuff that gets in your pool, that would otherwise by oxidized by chlorine (if it were present). If you want to try to run a genuinely "natural" pool, you can remove that stuff by setting up a swamp (that's pretty much literally what it is) that runs in series with your pool. There are some German sites that explain this technique, which essentially uses natural bacterial and plant processes to clean up this goo.

It appears that your Clfree system is generating copper at levels that will kill algae and prevent bacteria from growing. With a DE filter you are removing virtually everything that can be filtered out. So long as your bather load is very light, sunlight and filtration may well be able to take care of the rest.

Adding clarifiers and flocculants -- in a pool with a working DE filter -- is most likely a waste, and adds MORE stuff that has to be oxidized and removed.

The Clfree literature claims some sort of oxidation occurs within the "cell". I have no idea what they think might be happening, but I can tell that similar claims I've investigated over the past 20 years have all turned out to be bogus.

It's possible that you might be able to oxidize with hydrogen peroxide, available as Baquacil shock. It's my understanding that copper catalyzes peroxide decomp, so we'll have to wait to see if Chem_Geek knows whether this might work.

Other oxidizers are likely to precipitate your copper, causing massive staining.

An alternative might be to run your filter 24/7 and see if a week of sunshine -- and no swimmers -- will do the trick. UV breaks down a lot of things.

I'll ask Chem_Geek and the others to take a look.

Ben

[chem geek]

Copper ions alone do not inhibit let alone kill fecal bacteria at all. Basically, the fecal bacteria Escherichia coli, Enterococcus faecalis and Staphylococcus aureus are commonly found in your intestines where they are exposed to copper levels similar to that used in pools. Blood serum has copper ions so these bacteria have developed mechanisms to survive and even thrive in such an environment. It takes much, much higher levels of copper to kill such bacteria. These bacteria are controlled in the body via competition with "good" bacteria such as Bifidobacterium bifidum, Lactobacillus sp. and Spirochetes and also from body immune system defenses. However, when the potentially pathogenic fecal bacteria leave your body via fecal matter and enter warm nutrient-rich pool water, they can grow uncontrollably into concentrations that when re-entering via your mouth, nose, broken skin, etc. can overwhelm your body's immune system and cause disease. Copper ions are also slow to kill other bacteria including Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Stenotrophomonas maltophilia, though do kill them faster than they can reproduce so they prevent uncontrolled growth for these bacteria. It kills Acinetobacter baumannii about as quickly as chlorine and it kills Legionella pneumophila somewhat faster than chlorine. Copper ions have little to no effect on many viruses compared to relatively fast kills from chlorine including Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV), Vacciniavirus, Poliovirus, Coliphage MS-2 and Influenza. Full technical details are in this post.

FIFRA rules explicitly state that it is illegal for a pesticide product to make bactericidal killing or disinfectant claims for swimming pools or spas without passing EPA DIS/TSS-12. All pesticide products must be registered with the EPA (see the PAN Pesticide Database) including algaecide products, though ionization systems are not separate chemicals so like saltwater chlorine generator (SWG) systems, do not require such registration. There are plenty of copper sulfate pentahydrate and related copper ion algaecides (see here, for example), but these are not disinfectants.

So this is a gray area since CL Free is not a registered EPA pesticide, but should probably not be making bactericidal disinfectant claims. Now there are copper/silver ionization systems certified through NSF Standard 50, but you will note that they ALL require a minimum of 0.4 ppm chlorine or 0.8 ppm bromine.

CL Free, nor any other metal ion system, is not allowed in any commercial/public pool or spa in the U.S. without the use of an EPA approved disinfectant. There are only three such disinfectant chemicals for pools: chlorine, bromine and Baquacil/biguanide/PHMB. These same chemicals are also approved for spas as is Nature2 (silver/zinc ions) with non-chlorine shock (MPS), but only at hot spa temperatures.

There is no real government regulation requiring disinfection of your residential pool. This is analogous to what you can do in your kitchen where you are free to leave a chicken out all day in the sun and then cut up vegetables in those uncooked chicken juices left on the cutting board. Such practices are not allowed in commercial kitchens just as CL Free by itself is not allowed in commercial pools/spas. If you want to make yourself sick in your own home, the government is not going to prevent you from doing so.

As for the oxidation, that is standard electrolysis mostly producing hydrogen and oxygen gasses. They are using titanium plates rather than boron-doped-diamond electrodes so their claim of producing hydroxyl ions (OH•) while technically true is in such low amounts as to be irrelevant. Depending on the salt level in the pool, there will be a small amount of chlorine produced and any disinfection and oxidation will likely come from the chlorine, but it is not enough in amount to maintain a chlorine residual in the bulk pool water and kill bacteria shed from bathers nor pathogens growing on pool surfaces. Obviously, with the pool being cloudy, this oxidation system isn't very effective.

As for the CL Free system and company, it has an A+ rating from the BBB, but has a complaint at ripoffreport.com and there's some interesting bantering in this thread.

Of course, we all know about the problems of copper ions in pools where one must very carefully control the copper ion concentration to prevent it from getting to high and must also control the pH to keep it low as well. Otherwise, copper can stain pool surfaces and can also make blond hair turn greenish.

[wsommariva]

Ben, thanks for the info. We have a very light swimmer load. We do have lots of organic matter such as those thimgs that come off of oak trees every spring. As far as staining, it's a very small area and I was just trying to get a perfect pool. Now I don't care about it.

Ok let me ask these two things . First, how can I add CL as a supplement to the CLfree. Second anyone have any idea about my cloudy water and plan of action.

I'm thinking that my filtering system is perhaps inadequate. I'll try filtering 24/7.

[PoolDoc]

Hi Wsomm . . .

The difficulty is to use chlorine without creating terrible stains -- chlorine oxidizes copper from its current condition to one that is much less soluble.

Anything I tell you would be an experiment, but you can try this, if you like:
1. Start filtering 24/7
2. Lower your pH to 6.9 - 7.0 using acid (muriatic acid, preferably)
3. Aerate the pool using anything you can that will make bubbles -- if you can adjust an eyeball so it 'ruffles' the water, that will help.
4. MAINTAIN the lowered pH -- it may rise rapidly at first, depending on how well you aerate.
5. Add *small* doses of chlorine in the evening -- but ONLY after testing the pH and verifying that it is low. I'm not sure how many gallons your pool has, but you'll want to keep the doses below 0.5 ppm of chlorine. I would start with 1 cup of bleach per 10,000 gallons added DIRECTLY to the skimmer with the pump running. This will probably cause staining INSIDE the filter, but I assume that won't be a problem. If you pre-mix the bleach with a couple of gallons of water, and pour it slowly into the skimmer, that will reduce any copper/chlorine loss.
6. Get a testkit that tests for TOTAL chlorine -- a cheap OTO / phenol red kit is fine. Do NOT add more chlorine till the kit shows none is present.
7. Keep aerating and lowering the pH till it stabilizes. At that point, most of your carbonate alkalinity will be gone.
8. At that point, you can raise your pH to 7.4 or so, with borax (20 Mule team) using 2 cup doses and retesting.

Several things to note:
a) The chlorine will by destroyed by several hours of full sun, so it can only be effective added at night.
b) Your levels of copper plus ANY chlorine will turn blonde or gray hair green as grass. Do not let anyone with light hair go into the pool while there are BOTH copper and chlorine present.
c) You cannot use citric acid and chlorine together -- they will just destroy each other.
d) You may have a LARGE accumulation of oxidizable goo in the pool. Normally, I'd just have folks clean it up quickly with large doses of chlorine, but you CAN NOT DO THAT. A large dose of chlorine will result in horrendous stains. So, it's quite likely you'll need many small doses.
e) Once your pool is clear, you may want to go to a regular dosing program with chlorine. Key elements of this are small doses, low-ish pH (7.0 - 7.4), low carbonate alkalinity.

You do NOT need much calcium in your pool -- do NOT add more. You can gradually replace your carbonate alkalinity with borates. This will tend to happen over time, if you lower your pH with acid and then raise it (as needed) with borax.

A final caution: copper levels like you have will kill algae, and inhibit bacterial growth. But there will be little or no effect on viruses and no rapid effect on bacteria. This means your pool water probably won't GROW anything hazardous, but it also won't do anything to protect you from bacteria or viruses shed by another swimmer in the previous 24 hours. As a practical matter, if someone with a cold or diarrhea swims -- even if they shower first -- you'll probably get a cold or diarrhea if you swim, prior to a chlorine treatment.

Best wishes,

Ben

[wsommariva]

Ben, this info is greatly appreciated. Thank you. I will start this today.

I have a 10,000 gal fiberglass. You mention bleach - the same stuff that we put in the clothes washer?

[PoolDoc]

plain unscented 6% (check the label -- some low % is being sold) bleach.

borax is plain 20 Mule Team borax from the same section of the store -- do NOT confuse it with "Boraxo", a borax / detergent mix.

-ben

[wsommariva]

Ben,

Carbonate alkalinity, is that total alkinality? I keep it at 100 to 150 ppm. Good range for me?

CH - I am at 255. This too high? If so how can I decrease?

Borates - I use baking soda, same thing?

Thanks