Cloudy water not clearing

[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.

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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.