Cloudy water fight...& losing

[tammyncook]

Okay, long story short. Opened pool. Great for about a week, went cloudy. Couldn't keep the chlorine up, all the levels were fine. Was baffling me. The PH was a little low so I added. Then it went really high and the CYA was non-existant. So got the ph down, cya up- took about a week! Shocked it one evening, shut the filter off the next morning and then it was clear because all the white cloudy junk settled to the bottom.
So, this morning I figure I'll vacuum that crap off the bottom and be done with it. I'm using the skimmer vacuum setup that my pool came with. Ha. I could see the white crap going right back in the pool! And now it's cloudy again!
Not sure what to do now...

[aylad]

Post test results taken with a drop-based kit (WalMart has a 6- way for about $20, or at the worst case, get a pool store to test for you, and resist the temptation to buy all the stuff they'll try to scare you into buying) for chlorine, pH, CYA, alk, and calcium. Also tell us what type of filter and pump you're using, as well as what you're using to chlorinate (ingredients, not just "shock"). Then we can give you better advice!

[tammyncook]

Okay! Took me awhile, it's been a crazy week!
My chlorine is 10, PH 7.5, total alkalinity is 270, total hardness is 230 and the CYA is 100.
I have a 12' round above ground pool. The pump is a skimmer model F700C, not sure of brand- it uses the cartridge filters.
It is SLOWLY clearing...can almost see the bottom of the ladder. Every time I clean the filter it's full of white sludgy stuff that I can spray off with the hose.
Thanks for your help!

[Watermom]

If your CYA reading is 100, that means it could actually be much higher than that since the test can't differentiate values over 100. Take a look at the Best Guess Chlorine chart in my signature below. You need to be shocking the pool up to 25ppm and try and hold it there. Test at least a couple times per day and each time, add enough bleach to get back to 25. You need to continue the high chlorine level until you can go from sundown one day til within 2 hours of sunup the next day without losing more than 1ppm of cl. At that point, you can assume you have no algae trying to start and can let the cl drift down, but with that high CYA, you'll need to keep the chlorine between 8-15ppm all the time or you are going to get algae. Tell us the volume of the pool, and we can help you calculate doses of bleach.

I assume you have either been using trichlor pucks or dichlor shock, both of which contain CYA. NO more of either one of those. Your CYA is already too high. I also wouldn't advise using any cal-hypo. Your TA is high and your calcium hardness is getting up there. Those two being high can make the water cloudy. You don't need calcium in a vinyl pool anyway. I would just stick with bleach for your source of chlorine.

Especially since you have such high CYA and are going to have to run higher chlorine levels as a result, you need a good kit that can read chlorine over 5ppm. The one we recommend is the Taylor K-2006 or 2006C (same kit, larger bottle of some reagents). If you buy it through the Amazon link in my signature, the Pool Forum makes a little money on the sale which helps us keep this form online. Only buy if the seller is Amato Industries, however. Some other sellers are substituting the K-2005 which you do NOT want. If Amato isn't listed, wait a day or two and try again. They seem to restock pretty quickly when they sell out.

In the meantime, get a cheap OTO/Phenol Red kit (yellow and red drops) and use that. It will only have a chlorine scale to 5 (maybe 3) but you can force it to go higher with a dilution method explained here: Testing Without a Good Kit

You also need to work to bring your alk down. Two more guides for you to read:

Lowering Alkalinity Step-by-Step

Using Muriatic Acid Safely

Run your pump 24/7 and clean the filter as needed.

Keep us posted how things are going. Hope this helps.

[tammyncook]

Okay. I will try what you've suggested. I do have a test kit, but not the Taylor. I did have to dilute for my chlorine test to get a result of 10.
I think my CYA was actually less than 100, wasn't quite sure when to stop.
So, you can't lower your CYA once it's high?

[kelemvor]

So, you can't lower your CYA once it's high?

You have to drain (at least partially) and dilute with fresh water to lower it. Same with salt as I understand it.

[tammyncook]

Okay, that makes sense. Hopefully then when I wanted to add a 'little bit' of water tonight & forgot to turn the hose off and it was running out over the sides, it will go down a little!