Cloudy Dark Water

[PoolDoc]

Welcome to the forum!

To solve your problems, I think we'll need a little more info. So, here are some initial steps AND questions for you to answer:

#1 - Get your pH down to the 7.2 - 7.6 range, as you indicated you planned to do.
#2 - Buy 20 gallons of plain 6% household bleach (or 10 gallons of 10 - 12% liquid pool chlorine) and a cheap OTO/phenol red testkit.
#3 - Add 6 gallons of bleach tonight.
#4 - Stop using the pool perfect / phos-free, at least for now.
#5 - Start running your pump filter 24/7, if you aren't already doing so.
#6 - Continue with bleach doses at night to maintain DARK yellow OTO test readings the following morning.
#7 - Tell us what COLOR the water is -- "dark" gray? green? brown?
#8 - Take some pictures of the pool and your pool equipment and send them -- full size -- to poolforum.pics AT gmail DOT com so we can post them.
#9 - What color is the "coat" that's on the pool in the AM?
#10 - Are you adding any other chemicals, besides the ones you mentioned?

[trg808]

I'll get started on this. Thank you.

#5. On day 3 of 24/7 pump action
#7 very dark green
#8 brown

[PoolDoc]

Yup.

Do the chlorine as instructed -- repeat dose in AM if chlorine is below 5 ppm.

If you don't see significant color change 24 hours after the first dose, increase the dose to 10 gallons in the PM. However, if your pool is vinyl, drop back to 6 gallons after you have a color change AND are are holding "dark yellow" overnight.

AND . . . except for adjusting the pH, do NOT add other chemicals. By the way, check your pH levels in the evening BEFORE you add the PM chlorine dose. Very high chlorine changes the phenol red indicator, to another indicator "chlorophenol red" which is violet purple at pH levels above 6.8.

Ben

[PoolDoc]

Adding pictures . . .
(trying to work out a better way of handling them in 2012)
Green algae in pool




Algae dust on steps