high pH and TA, cloudy water

[Watermom]

I looked it up and shock n swim is cal-hypo. Hmmm. Did I miss it or is there a calcium hardness reading somewhere in this thread? If you have high pH, high TA and high calcium hardness, that can also be a cause of cloudy water. Your CH may not be high, but ...... I think I would just stick with bleach.

[fiveUNDERfive]

UPDATE:

Woke up yesterday to "cold" temps and crystal clear water! HIP HIP HORRAY!! Score another one for the BBB!

I just tested now. Chlorine is "off the charts." Didn't do the dilution test, but it was a bright orange color...one I've never seen before. CYA reagent came and it looks like it is about 30-40. I could almost not see the dot at 50, barely see it at 40 (if I squinted) and def could not see it at 30. So using Ben's best guess chart, I need to let my chlorine drop to about 3-5 before we can swim, correct? So back into the color range of my HTH test kit.

Here are the results
Cl - prolly above 25, orange color
TA -180
pH 7.8
CYA 30-40?

Watermom asked about Ca Hardness. We do fill from a well, and for our household use, have a water softener. But our outside spigots are directly from the well, and not treated. My HTH instructions say to add 25mL of pool water and 5 drops of hardness indicator and it should turn pink if its hard water. I see blue drops that sink to the bottom and when agitated, the beaker turns a very pale yellowish. The indicator drops are supposed to turn it from pink to blue. I added 9 drops and it turned pink. Not sure what this means.

Should we add more MA to drop the pH some more? I need to vacuum bc there is a few pockets of brown "dust" at the bottom. Otherwise it is crystal clear. (un)Fortunately, temps have dropped into the lower 70's so we won't be swimming today, which is good bc I think we would bleach ourselves snow white if we got in now. Anything else I need to do besides watch and wait while the cl drops?

Thank you so much for your wisdom and encouragement. I think hubs is slowly becoming a believer!

J

[PoolDoc]

Yes, with a TA=180, you want to keep your pH < 7.6, till your TA is lower. Otherwise, it will tend to rise too high, and get away from you.

[fiveUNDERfive]

Greater than 7.6? So leave the pH alone? Or did you mean lower, and add more MA? Can I lower the TA somehow?

[Watermom]

Here is the procedure for lowering TA.

Lowering Alkalinity Step-by-Step

[PoolDoc]

Greater than 7.6? So leave the pH alone?

My bad. LESS THAN 7.6!

I was typing faster than I was thinking!

[Watermom]

Darn. I didn't catch it when I posted either.

[gordyjamz]

In my experience, the hardness indicator will turn yellow with high chlorine levels (while shocking). You'll have to wait for your chlorine levels to come down before getting an accurate hardness test.

[PoolDoc]

I think you may be confusing the hardness test with the alkalinity test: all the Taylor videos are here:
http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthread.php?17157
but the one you want is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmpS--VsNrY&