How long to clear dirt?

[dawndenise]

Our sprinkler system was redone around the pool this week and DH and I carted many, many wheelbarrow-fulls of "enriched" topsoil to various areas around the yard. It was actually about 4 cubic yards or so, but who's counting when your back is breaking .

Any-hoo...pool had a very light gray haze early in the week that I couldn't seem to clear. It was so light that I even thought maybe I was imagining it, as the weather is now cooler and the sun's rays are hitting the pool differently. But still, it just wasn't crystal clear.

We cleaned the cartridge filter about 10 days ago, on the Saturday before the sprinkler guys started work.

As DH and I were working this weekend. DH threw some rocks up into the landscape bed that surrounds about 3/4 of the pool, only they weren't rocks after all and they landed in the pool instead . Those rocks were dirt clumps. That only added to the debris getting blown into the pool from our "enriched" topsoil, as it was a very windy day.

Pool turned brown, as the clumps dissolved when I tried to remove them. Filter has been running 24/7 ever since and I've taken the pool to shock level. Skimmer socks have been changed 2x/day and are finally back to what looks like normal debris (socks were filled with black debris after this fiasco). Polaris has been runnning with regular bag cleaning.

Then we had rain. The pool's still hazy brown with sediment that settles on the steps. Seems like it's getting less, but should it really take this long to clear my pool?

After things dry out a bit more, I'm thinking of rechecking the filter just to be sure we didn't mis-assemble it, as it was the first time we've cleaned it, but we were pretty careful about how we did it. Filter manual states that one can add alum floc to help remove very fine dirt particles that aren't getting caught by the filter. I'm hesitant to do this without some advice from the forum.

Any advice and thoughts are appreciated.

Pool numbers this AM:
FC 18.5
CC 0
pH 7.8 (VERY resistant to lowering since cooler temps)
TA 60 ( 2nd time in 10 days it's dropped to 60 after being stable at 80 all summer)
CH 230
CYA 50
Salt 3800
SWCG currently off due to shocking. Recently reduced pump time to 10 hours and SWCG setting to 35% when cooler weather arrived.

[dawndenise]

I've been reading other posts and...could this possibly be that dreaded "other" algae that takes mega doses of chlorine to kill???

It's really hard to believe our landscaping put THAT much dirt in the pool.

[Simmons99]

How brown is brown?

When our pool was being built they installed the lights after the water was in and they found that a conduit was blocked with concrete and mud - which they blew into the spa. The floor of the spa was like a pig sty it was so thick with mud on the bottom and it took our filter about 2 days (48 hours with the pump on consistantly) to clear out the sediment in the water. We had to manually vac VERY slowly to get it all off of the bottom though without it kicking it back into the water.

Have you tried cleaning your filter medium to see if that helps. We cleaned ours about 4 times in 7 days to clean out all the mud/junk that was in there. Aslo are you using a jet nozzle- not a spray nozzle - they clean the cartridge filters much better!

Can you post a picture?

[dawndenise]

Not so much brown as before, but that dreaded greenish hue. The stuff accidentally thrown in the pool never became mud-like, but disintegrated and dispersed.

Since posting, my working theory is that it's algae - possibly that hard-to-kill stuff that others have posted about. I still don't believe that we could have put that much dirt into the pool for all the brown sediment I've been brushing up the last day or so, although that seems to have lessened a fair amount today.

It's really hard to believe that my pool looks like this because I'm diligent about my chemical levels (DH would say I'm a fanatic about them...). The only precursors I've had to this incident are a day or two of very light, white haze, a rising pH and dropping TA. Both had been rock stable throughout the summer. And, of course, the organics being blown in (or dropped in by DH).

Filter is OK, rechecked that last night and it obviously had been working, holding brown dirt like when we cleaned it 10 days ago, but a much smaller amount since it had only been 10 days. Filter has been on 24/7 since Saturday, except for rechecking/cleaning, so that's almost 3 full days now.

Took the pool to mega-shock last night thinking this might be that hard-to-kill algae, going for 28.5. This AM it was 27.5 FC and 0 CC but still hazy/cloudy. Top step is clear and one can see the bottom, but definitely not clear. Have brushed 2x already today, retested about an hour ago at 24.5 FC, 0 CC and added enough bleach to go to about 29.5.

The jet nozzle is a good idea. I'm not too computer savvy on the photo stuff, but I'll see what I can do.