2nd year Pool

[Mrshampton]

We used this forum and calculated last summer and kept our pool looking awesome all summer. This summer we cleaned the pool filled it back up with water the rest of the way. It was green as grass. I shocked it and got the FC to 17, PH is at 7.2, TA is 130. The pool isn’t green, but is murky. Is this from the dead algae and I just need to give it time to filter out? Oh and we used a mixture of bleach and powdered shock to bring it up. But from this point on will just use bleach.

Above ground pool around 10k gallons of water. Sand pump.

[PoolDoc]

[ Upgraded membership; moved thread to pool startup section => you may need to log in and log out to gain access! ]

Unfortunately, few pools -- and hardly any above-ground (AG) pools -- have filter systems that make it easy to clean up heavily slimed pools. The problem is especially bad with AG pools, which tend to have oversized pumps combined with undersized filters. This has TWO consequences:

1. The too-big pump tends to blow sand out of the filter at each backwash. It's common to find AG pool filters with too little sand to work!

2. Even with sufficient sand, the oversize pumps tend to FORCE fine dirt (like dead algae) THROUGH the filter.

So, it's especially important for AG pool owners with sand filters to do the DE test each spring: http://pool9.net/de-test/

If your pool 'flunks', you'll need to add sand AND put a valve between the pump and filter (NOT: ahead of the filter!) and throttle flow till sand is no longer washed out with each backwash.

But . . . there are other possible problems. Bleach doesn't cause cloudiness. Powdered shock may, DEPENDING on the chemical -- dichlor does not; cal hypo can do so. However, you'll need to test CYA and calcium levels to find out if those things might be an issue. Read http://pool9.net/testkits/ .