Cloudy water not clearing

[Maurie]

So I've been keeping the chlorine up with bleach. I haven't had to put in as much as I expected. It's still high this morning. I get an orange color with the oto test. I did a three to one dilution with bottled water and got between 12 to 15. On the strips I got TC maxed at 10 and FC maxed at 20 (maybe slightly less). These last two numbers seemed off - the math doesn't make sense. Anyway, I know the chlorine is high.

However, nothing seems to be changing yet. All I know is once I decided to use bleach my pool got greener. The chlorine is holding better with bleach, but it's much greener and cloudier. Why did adding bleach do this? The hth shock and algaecide would turn the color some overnight. Am I doing something wrong? Thanks for the help.

[CarlD]

You'll need to keep up with the bleach--you are fighting something.
1) Ignore T/A. Vinyl pool: Not a problem.
2) Figure your pool at 7000 gal, not the pool store's 7500. 1 gallon of 6% bleach should add 8.5ppm of FC.

[Watermom]

Look on the ingredient label of the HTH shock, the tabs you were using and tha algaecide you put in and see if copper is listed on any of them.

[Maurie]

I checked the ingredients. The tabs have the trichloro chlorine and a zinc and 2% other ingredients. The algaecide has several hard to remember ingredients but none said copper. I don't have anymore of the shock to look at. When I was dealing with the pool store, they suggested metal magic. The pool guy that cares for pools said to use it along with another product to help filter much quicker. He said it would clog the filter pretty fast. We didn't buy either b/c by that point we felt we were being "had". They said even though we have city water they've seen it before. However with the fill last summer we did not have any metal problem. I don't know, but I've been battling this five or six weeks now. I'm tired of cleaning filters and brushing the pool. We've had murky almost brown to green to cloudy white/pale green to almost turquoise but always very cloudy, and now pretty green again. We have yet to see anywhere near the bottom. Is there any hope? I'm thinking just do well enough to get by until the fall, drain it and start over next year. Thanks.

[PoolDoc]

It's very, very hard to clear an Intex pool, once it gets cloudy. The filters are tiny.

I re-read some, but not all of your thread, looked at your pool chart, and noticed all of the following:
1. You don't seem to have the Unicel cartridges, which filter better and last much longer than the OEM cartridges
2. You've been adding all sorts of goop, without a clear plan, which means we're now in voodoo soup land. Nobody, and I mean that literally, understands what's happening in your pool, with all that goop.
3. You have very high TA & CH, and have been using calcium hypochlorite, which is VERY likely to cloud your pool.

If you want to clean up the pool FAST, draining and refilling *might* be your best option. But, before you pursue that, you need to test your fill water (don't test CYA!) and you need to do a metals bucket test on the fill water.

It sounds like you've had your chlorine consistently high over the past few days. If this is true, it's not impossible, but it's unlikely that you still have algae. I have seen greenish water that seemed to be related to alkalinity.

If you don't want to drain the pool, I'd recommend all these things:

1. STOP adding stuff -- no more goop. It's VERY likely that you've added enough to make it harder to clear the pool.
2. Keep the chlorine above 5.0 100% of the time.
3. Get the Unicel cartridges recommended above.
4. Read the muriatic acid guide in my signature, buy several gallons from Lowes, and lower your pH to just below 7.0 . . . and KEEP IT THERE, till your TA is less than 100 ppm. (May take several weeks!)
5. Stop using cal hypo.
6. Let me say again: no MORE goop, for AT LEAST 2 weeks. Use bleach, borax, muriatic acid and NOTHING ELSE! (Well, use dichlor if your CYA goes below 20 ppm.)
7. Filter as much as you can.

[Maurie]

Thanks! This is what I needed. I've had this greenish water for so long I had a feeling there was more going on than algae. I haven't been adding anything other than bleach for at least five days maybe a week. I know the chlorine has been over 5 since friday. I will get the unicel cartridges ASAP and I already have some muriatic acid. No more calc-hypo. It's all gone and I won't buy anymore. Do I need to buy dichlor now? Is all the acid going to affect the CYA?

More background: last winter we didn't take care of the pool. By march/spring break, we had a pond. According to pool store we added a bag of yellow stuff and eight bags of shock to treat algae. It didn't touch it. We drained it down to a few inches, put calc-hypo shock in over night, scrubbed with bleach, then refilled. It was still brown, but not as bad. Our fill water is clear, but in the few inches we had ALOT of either algae or what looked liked oak blossoms that mixed in. We added more calc-hypo shock and algaecide and the color turned lighter overnight. We continued to see improvements with the color but never with the cloudiness. That's what led me here.

I will do the bucket test as soon as I get everything and report back.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I thought of a question. When I lower the ph to just below7.0, how do I add more muriatic acid to lower TA? Won't the ph go down even more? The pool store had us go down this road and told us to use ph plus after the acid circulated a few hours. Thanks.

(Edit by moderator: two posts in the queue where combined.)

[Watermom]

When you add the acid, it will drop your pH and alk. Then, you aim your return jets upward to make as much splashing as you can (aeration) which will cause the pH to rise. Once it does, you repeat the cycle. Read the following:
Lowering Alkalinity Step-by-Step

[PoolDoc]

When I lower the ph to just below7.0, how do I add more muriatic acid to lower TA? Won't the ph go down even more? The pool store had us go down this road and told us to use ph plus after the acid circulated a few hours. Thanks.

Yeah. That's the pool industry standard advice . . . and your results are typical. Just lower the pH, and KEEP it there. Your TA will drop over time.

[Maurie]

Here are the results from the fill water test.

Chlorine - 0
Ph - about 7.0 (I think - the color was a really pale pink)
TA - 310-320
TH - 210

I will start the metal bucket test tomorrow. I am keeping the chlorine at shock level for another day or so to be sure. Then I will just keep above 5. I will also start the acid tomorrow.

[PoolDoc]

You don't need to do the bucket test, to know you need to start adding acid.

But there are currently 5 bucket tests: evaporation, chlorine demand, metals, lime softening, and flocculation -- which one were you planning? It sounds like the metals bucket test on your FILL water may be appropriate.