Tale of my battles with cloudy water! I'm finally winning...

[ladybug_3777]

I've done a lot of reading online about "cloudy pool water" in hopes of fixing our own cloudy water problem at home. After almost 2 weeks, and trying just about every single suggestion available we are finally making progress. I thought adding our story here might help anyone having a similar problem... so here it goes! Its long but I hope it helps someone out there going through something similar.

The trouble all began when our ph dropped. We have a pool heater and the low ph stripped copper out of the coils and deposited it into our pool water. We got up to a level of 1.1ppm of coopper. (yikes!) Anyone that has gotten metal into their water knows that you have to drop your chlorine level down to 0ppm in order to treat the metal problem. Not only that but you can't shock the pool for 5-7 days. So your beautiful pool water will sit, with no chlorine while the metals are removed. Our pool was slightly cloudy to begin with but after sitting with zero chlorine it got really bad.

After the copper was treated we had to get all the chemicals back into balance. Now at this point the pool water looked like MILK. It was that bad. You couldn't see the bottom of the shallow end, heck you couldn't even see about a foot down.

For reference We have a 16 X 32 pool so we are talking about 21,000+ gallons of water. We started off fixing the ph and getting the stablizer bumped up into normal levels. (We got the ph to 7.4 and stabalizer to 30) all other chemicals were within their proper ranges as well (aside from the chlorine which was at 0). then we shocked it with our normal amount of liquid shock, 2.5 gallons.

The shock didn't even touch the clouds. The chlorine level plunged back down to 0ppm within a day. We went back to the pool store and they said, shock it again, then add clarifier. (So far the ph and stablizer levels were still holding up) Ok, this time we hit it with 5 gallons (a double dose) of shock. The next morning it still didn't appear to clear so as advised we added the clarifier and waited 24 hours. After 24 hours... NOTHING had changed. The chlorine level once again plunged to 0ppm within a day and a half and the clouds were still winning.

We started to feel frustrated. We called a few pool stores and the general idea was continue on with the shock. The fact that we were adding a ton of shock (at night of course) and that the stablizer level was still at 30 showed that the clouds were burning away the shock before the shock could burn away all the clouds.

That night we went to pick up a triple dose of shock, 7.5 gallons. While we were getting our water tested (to ensure the other chemicals stayed in balance the entire time) one employee suggested flocing the pool first. He swore up and down that he had never seen a floc fail. "but what if it does fail?" I asked. "It won't" he replied confidently. "But what if it does?" My husband chimed in with "Seriously, this pool is possessed. Nothing has worked" "It will work" the employee insisted

That night we added 15 oz of flocing agent, ran the pool on recirculate for 12 hours, then shut it off for 8 hours. They claimed by then the tiny particles would combine together then settle to the bottom. I came home from work, walked out back... and..... no change!!! ACK!! IT DIDN'T WORK! Ha! I thought, I KNEW it wasn't going to work! I'm going to call the pool guy who suggested this crap and tell him to floc off!

Frustrated once again we decided to go ahead with the shocking as orginally planned. We dumped a triple dose, the 7.5 gallons of shock into the pool last night. This morning I woke up and surprise!!! I could FINALLY see the bottom of the shallow end!!! Finally this morning I saw progress! I'm letting the pump run all day today and then this evening I plan on bringing the water in the be tested again (I swear the free water testing at the pool store isn't going to stay free anymore the rate we are going).

If the water is still cloudy and the chlorine level has dropped I think we will hit it with another 5 or even 7.5 gallons of liquid shock tonight. If the pool looks pretty clear and the chlorine level is above 1ppm I think we'll hit it with 2.5 gallons.

All in all I learned a valuable lesson. If all your chemicals are in balance (aside from chlorine), your filter is running well, and your pool water is cloudy just keep shocking it. Don't waste your time and money with the clarifier and floc. If your pool is real cloudy it won't help much. Let the shock burn out the clouds. The pool stores I spoke to said you can't over shock a pool so don't worry. Don't lose faith. I know how frustrating it is to look out at your pool and see horrible water. I know how much it sucks to have to add chemicals, wait, re-test, then add more. I feel your pain!

I'll try to remember to come back tomorrow and post on the progress after tonights dose of shock. I'll let you know what it takes to get it crystal clear again.

[duraleigh]

Ladybug,

That's a great post...written with clarity. Is the "liquid shock" you're using 12.5% chlorine?

[ladybug_3777]

Yes I believe it is. (I will double check when I get home tonight to be sure.) Its those large blue plastic jugs of shock, (super shock or something similar in brand name). When I update tomorrow on the progress I'll be sure to include the brand and % for you.

[ladybug_3777]

After double checking, yes the shock is indeed 12.5% chlorine. Brand (not that it really matters) is Super-Chlor.

Update:
After getting home last night the pool was looking sooo much better. What a relief to know its coming back to life! It was still a little hazy and the chlorine was only reading at about 1.0ppm so we decided to use another 5 gallons of shock last night just to make sure it stays clear. (I wonder if my pool company would advise me to start buying stock in that stuff?!)

When I got up this morning and looked down on the pool, for the first time in 2 weeks I could see the bottom of the deep end!!! What a wonderful sight. I was starting to forget what the bottom of my pool liner looked like! ha-ha!

There is some dirt settled at the bottom but its not too bad. I'm just happy to be able to finally see it so I can vacuum and know what I'm actually vacuuming up.

Tomorrow I am planning another trip to the pool store to have the water tested so we can make sure all the other chemicals stay in balance. I told my husband that once everything with the pool is perfect again and we get that little paper print out that says "balanced" with an OK next to each chemical, I'm going to proudly hang it on our refridgerator!

It was a lot of frustration, a lot of work, but finally, FINALLY our pool is getting back to normal. And thankfully just in time for our 4th of July party.

[duraleigh]

Ladybug,

This thread is very interesting. With your triple-dose of Cl, yoou added enough to get to 44.6ppm!!! Wow!

Interesting in that it worked (when less was not helping much) and apparently with no damage to your liner.

I have seen this a time or two before and have a couple of thoughts. The first is that when you shock and have a good dose of algae, you never get to shock level before the algae starts consuming Cl. Secondly, vinyl liners may be somewhat more resistant to bleaching than we think.

Post back if you see any bleaching of your liner and thanks for the posts.

A good test kit (Ben's) would be invaluable to your pool care.

[Bleach=Chlorine?]

I'm sure hindsight is 20-20 but it sounds like draining and re-filling would have been cheaper and quicker!

[ladybug_3777]

Ladybug,

This thread is very interesting. With your triple-dose of Cl, yoou added enough to get to 44.6ppm!!! Wow!

Interesting in that it worked (when less was not helping much) and apparently with no damage to your liner.

I have seen this a time or two before and have a couple of thoughts. The first is that when you shock and have a good dose of algae, you never get to shock level before the algae starts consuming Cl. Secondly, vinyl liners may be somewhat more resistant to bleaching than we think.

Post back if you see any bleaching of your liner and thanks for the posts.

A good test kit (Ben's) would be invaluable to your pool care.

I agree! I was worried that we'd over shock the thing and end up with a white liner too! The liner (thus far) looks as good as it did before. After getting a good look this weekend I'll come back and update if I see any problems. The good thing is I don't have to worry about it too much, we know in a year or two we have to have a new one put in. We are a family that never owned a pool but bought a house that came with one. So this is our first FULL summer taking care of it. (learning a lot!) When we bought the house the liner had some creases and wrinkles on the bottom in the shallow end (which i hate) so we figure its on its way out soon.

I think one of our biggest problems is we have what's called "forever green" a small protected forest area just beyond our back yard. Its PACKED with trees. I have to empty our skimmer out daily it gets so jammed with leaves and those annoying helicopter seeds. I think the trees alone contributed to our problem when the CL levels sat at 0 while we fixed our metal problem last week. The entire time we've had this cloudy problem we never saw even a hint of green (from algea). The water was a beautiful blue, just mixed with a gross milky white. (Pollen perhaps? Tree dirt? Is there such a thing as white algae? I don't know)

To get an idea here is a picture I have that shows the trees and pool in one shot together,




We do have a home kit that tests the chlorine and ph (with the liquid red/yellow bottles). I use it daily to semi-daily. My husband calls me a mad scientist b/c I pull it out so much haha! I'd LOVE to get Ben's super duper kit (I was looking at them online this morning) but at around $80 and a 2 week wait for shipping it probably won't make it into the "must have's" for this year.

Thanks for your input! I'll be sure to keep an eye on fading of the liner. If anything interesting happens I'll keep this thread updated.

Have a wonderful 4th of July weekend!

[ladybug_3777]

Ladybug,

Post back if you see any bleaching of your liner and thanks for the posts.

Just reporting back, liner held up and looks great! I have to say, its amazing to think this is the same water I was looking at 2 weeks ago. Its so beautiful now compared to the milky mess we had before.