Very Green Cloudy Pool

[CarlD]

Robin,
You can take his advice or ours. They are contradictory. You cannot follow both.

You may or may not believe me, but his advice is good for one thing--ringing up the register. It is NOT good advice for your pool.

He's telling you to increase hardness in a vinyl pool. This is pure utter nonsense. The reason is that the "hardness" is calcium and calcium is needed to prevent the water from leaching calcium from the concrete or plaster walls. There's no calcium to leach from vinyl so it's pure garbage.

As I said, you can follow his advice or ours, but if you follow his and it doesn't work, it's that much harder for us to help you.

[Robin N]

Carl,

Thanks for your response. I did go back to the pool store again to have the water tested for metals. It came back negative. This time I spoke to a different man. He told me I needed to get the acid levels up and shock the pool. (Which I knew from here).

So my question is where do I go from here? Add the Muriatic Acid to kick my bleach into action? How much acid do I add at one time and how often?

Robin

[CarlD]

I'd start with a quart of Muriatic Acid, wait several hours, then test the pH again. You want to get it at or under 7.2, but above 6.9. If you measure your TA at that time, it should be lower. Then you follow the lowering alkalinity rules in that topic area.

[Robin N]

I checked my Cl level again and it's low again - around 6. We had a lot of heavy rain today, maybe that affected it? Should I add more bleach and then later add acid or add the acid now and bleach later?

[CarlD]

Add them both, but wait an hour or two to let the first circulate.

[Robin N]

Just wanted to post an update to see if I'm doing everything I can be.

Tested 2 hours ago and here are my #'s:

Cl 24
pH 8
Acid called for 2 1/2 pints
T/A 170

I've been brushing the pool, vacuuming to waste, running the robot, adding Muriatic Acid (I've added 1 gallon + 2 quarts all in 1 quart increments over the past 3 days) I also stopped aerating - I had been aerating continuously up until yesterday afternoon. I read on this site to wait on that until the pH is lowered.

The pool is still the same green. I did think it was clearing up a bit, but after running the robot it was very cloudy again and I couldn't see the 3rd step at all, and it had been visible. After you stare at that green for so long it starts to make your judgement hazy on whether you see change or not.

I also read the trick about the hose on the skimmers - I'm trying that too, but it's not making the slimey mess I was warned about on here. It looks normal.

I am seeing stuff on the steps now - like dirt or something.

When I backwash I don't see much dirt - and I'm not vacumming a trail or anything on the pool. The robot recovered a couple of leaves - all the green is just in the water. I had a bottled sample of the water left from my trip to the pool store (I took 2 that 2nd trip for good measure) and I did see algae settled on the bottom of the bottle.

I just added 1 quart of the Muriatic Acid to the pool again tonight. Hopefully that will bump that pH down. It seems to be getting closer to matching the 8 now. (My test only goes to an 8) I think my kit from Ben is close to being shipped...crossing my fingers...=)

[Robin N]

Water still looks the same today, BUT I might be getting somewhere. This morning my #'s were as follows:

Cl 12 (will add more bleach)
pH 7.6
Acid (did the test to tract my progress on the Muriatic Acid - now calls for 1 1/4 pints, which I added)
T/A 160

I'll add more bleach in a couple of hours, and wait to recheck the pH. Very excited it's coming down now. I can't imagine the thrill of seeing blue!