Blue-Green water for over a week

[poolboyforjenny]

I'm not exactly new to the site but this year i'm having issues. I've already poured over 15 jugs of bleach into the pool and it's still hasn't cleared up. Each jug is approx 1.7 gallons. Pump has been running constant for a week and I still can't see the bottom. It started out as a dark green, after the first night it turned a cloudy bluish-green. It's been like that for over a week. Here's my numbers from a couple of days ago.

Chlorine-15ppm
Alk-120
PH-7.4
CYA-30
11k gallon AG pool

Is there anything else that would cause my water to stay cloudy? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

[poolboyforjenny]

Well the water is still bluish green with no change. I quit adding chlorine. Here's my current numbers.

FC=5ppm
TC=5ppm
Alk=105
PH=7.4
Hardness= 117
CYA=40
TDS=4300-----Is this normal?

Anyone? The pool people said it's probably the bleach that i'm pouring into the pool that's causing it. Funny how everyone looks at you when you say that. The two pool store employees and the six people waiting to get their water tested just figured i was an idiot. Though the numbers looked good it still doesn't explain the cloudy bluish green look. Their suggestion was dump some water out and refill.

[mbar]

I aslo have cloudy water, tomorrow will make a week since I opened to a horrible green mess. I have poured so much bleach in it I lost count. I have been trying to keep the chlorine at 20ppms with no cya. I have a fiberglass pool. My ph is at 7, and alkalinity is at 90 and calcium is 125. The water is slowly clearing. It takes a long time to get rid of all the dead algae. It does take a lot of patience, and persistence. You don't have your chlorine high enough. You have to keep shocking up to at least 15ppms until the bleach holds overnight for a week. You are killing the algae, but not all of it - so that as soon as the chlorine goes below shock level, some of the algae start to take hold again, letting the pool get cloudy. Then you add more bleach, keeping the water from getting green, but not enough to kill it all. Another problem with green water when opening, is that sometimes there is a lot of bio crap in the water too - so lots of chlorine is needed for a long time to really kill everything. Just make sure you keep it at shock level checking a couple of times a day to keep it up (that's why I like to keep it at 20 without any cya, so it never goes below shock). If you don't do this, you will be fighting to keep your water clear all summer..Hope this helps you to understand what is gong on. The pool store will blame the bleach so that they can sell you a whole bunch of stuff to throw in the water, then sell you more to get what you threw in out . They will drive you crazy. Bleach and persistence is the trick

[poolboyforjenny]

I will start the bleach process again tomorrow. Wouldn't you want some CYA in the water to maintain the higher chlorine levels? Does the CYA cancel out the chlorine affect on algae? Also what does the total dissolved solids do to your pool? Either way I'll start shocking again tomorrow, guess people are going to stare again at Walmart when i'm loading up a cart with bleach.

20ppm over night, hmmm. Sounds like plan. Thanks.

[mbar]

Yes, you need cya in the water to stop the sun from eating the chlorine. But since we had mostly rainy weather this week I was ok. I did put a puck in the skimmer too, so I used up three which would keep some stabilized chlorine in the water. I have now added some cya to get it up to 30, which will take a while to dissolve. No cya does make the chlorine more effective, but you need at least a cya of 30 to keep the chlorine level consistent during sunny days. Don't worry about total dissolved solids in your pool - it won't bother you once you get the water balanced. Keep up the hard work - it will pay off