high pH and TA, cloudy water

[aylad]

Maybe the old shock and swim needs to "disappear" the next time he leaves the house for errands!

I would add bleach until you get dark yellow on the tester, then leave it til the morning and test again. The dilution method you're using gives a pretty good ballpark, but it won't hurt to put just a little extra in, for good measure.

Janet

[fiveUNDERfive]

Pool still very cloudy and green, tho lighter maybe? Yesterday I could not see the bottom when I brushed, but today I could actually see the brush. Nothing seems to be coming up, and the filter basket had very little debris in it.

Tested again this am with the dilution method. Got up to 4 distilled water to 1 pool and it was still bright yellow, so clearly still chlorine in the pool. pH now up to 7.8
On the dip stick (CYA reagent on order but not here yet) the CYA was 100?? Is that poss? I have not used trichlor pucks in a few weeks and have certainly not added any CYA. how did it rise? so I added 2 more gallons of bleach. Will test again in a few hours

Another scorcher here in upstate NY. DH wants to call the "pool doctor" so we can swim, but I've convinced him to hold out for a few more days. Anything else I should be doing?

[fiveUNDERfive]

Tested again now. With 6 dilutions, it is still bright yellow, but maybe slightly less than the 5 (tho darker than the 3). MY strips are showing a CYA of 100. I pray this is NOT accurate, but using Ben's best guess chart, perhaps it is and that is why the chlorine I have added has not done much. I wish I had a way to test CC but I don't. And my CYA reagent is supposed to ship today, with an estimated delivery of Fri to next Wed. So I brushed the sides and bottom (even tho still nothing in the filter basket except for some lawn clippings that blew in after our lawn was moved) and added 2 more gallons.

I know this process will take time, but I just wish I knew I was on the right track. When we opened our pool the first time last year and it was green (neglected for over 2 yrs) I don't recall it taking that long to clear. maybe it did.... UGH.

Any other suggestions or things I should be doing? Just keep at it and be patient?

[Watermom]

When you say 6 dilutions, do you mean 6 parts of distilled water to 1 part of pool water? If so, then that means your chlorine is approximately 28ppm since you would multiply your result of 4 by 7.) (Ex. 1 part pool water, 1 part distilled, multiply result by 2 so if you get 5 on the scale then it would be about 10ppm. If you do 1 part pool water to 2 parts distilled, you multiply by 3. So, 5 X 3 = 15, etc.)

Until you get the CYA reagent, just try and keep the chlorine in the 25ppm range as best you can. (It may be that your CYA is higher than 100 but no way to know that at this time.)

A pH reading will not be accurate at high chlorine levels. If your chlorine drops to 5 or lower, then retest pH. Otherwise, don't bother as you won't get a result you can trust.

Run your pump 24/7 and clean the filter as needed. Is your filter pressure rising?

And, yes ....... patience is necessary. Have your husband come and do some reading here on the forum and also over at our sister website www.poolsolutions. If you hold the course, your pool will clear up. If you start adding other things, it is probably going to complicate things and take longer.

[aylad]

Isn't the shock n' swim dichlor? or is it cal-hypo?

At any rate, you can't depend on a test strip to give you a CYA reading, so really the only thing you can do is keep the chlorine in the dark yellow range of your tester, brush the pool as often as you can with chlorine additions, and keep the filter running. It takes time, chlorine, and patience--patience often being the hardest part of them all.

Janet

[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.