Cloudy water not clearing

[PoolDoc]

The HTH test uses OTO -- the color block only goes to 5.0, but OTO itself registers MUCH higher. What you want to do is keep your chlorine in the 'dark yellow with a orange tint' range (15 - 30 ppm), till there is NO green left. Once you get the chlorine up to that range, brush the pool completely. There may be piles or areas of algae that will survive high chlorine, but not being brushed + high chlorine. However, you do not want to brush those spots while the chlorine is low -- you could end up restarting the algae!

[Maurie]

Ok, but how much bleach will raise to that level? Can I keep the tricolor tabs floating? Thanks.

[Watermom]

For reference, in your pool, each quart of 6% bleach will add about 2ppm of chlorine. Use that to help you figure out doses to add. With a CYA level of 30-35, you want to try and keep the chlorine around 15ppm while you are working to clear this up. You can continue to use the trichlor tabs for awhile longer but you're still going to need to use bleach as well. When your CYA reaches around 50, you'll want to stop using the tabs and just use bleach.

[Maurie]

I've been brushing the pool every morning thinking I should to help filter the dead algae. I did not this morning. I added 6qt of 6% bleach and chlorine was very high - dark orange. It is now a lighter orange. I did brush once it hit the dark orange. Now our pool looks even greener. What happened? My husband will want to add calc-hypo shock and algaecide if it doesn't change color soon. What do I do now? Do I keep adding bleach to keep it a light orange? (remember I can't afford Taylor kit now). Thanks.

[PoolDoc]

There are two different issues here:

#1. Kill all the algae, including any on surfaces or in piles on the bottom. High chlorine is ESSENTIAL for that.

#2. Filter the DEAD algae, out. Bleach doesn't help with that, at all. Polyquat -- the ONLY algaecide we recommend -- will help, because it's also a very good clarifier. Cal hypo can, but ONLY if have a sand filter and ONLY if you use it just the right way. Regular foamy algaecides may actually make the cloudiness WORSE.

[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.