Pool Water Help

[kilee]

We've been trying to get our pool going for 2 weeks now. Needless to say between a chemical shortage (all the pool stores ran out of shock and Cholrine for almost a week) it's not going well.

Anyhow, late last fall a bunch of leaves and such got in the pool under the cover. The water was a nice pea soup green. We started w/ shock, algecide, and clarifier. This cleared it up quite a bit. The water is a very cloudy blue. I have to go back to the pool store later today (a nice drive). Just wondering what suggestions anyone else has for clearing this up. Pool store says to just keep adding more shock. We've done a lot of leaf bag skimming on the bottom, but I can't tell how much more is down there. I've also been backwashing the filter a lot too.

 

[TomD]

It will take a few days to go from green to clear.

I added $300 in chemicals on Sat and as of last night it went from green to cloudy. Just keep running the filter and back washing.

Make sure all your chemicals are in the range they should be.

Good luck! It is a long process

 

[PlaneJoy1]

There is a small bottle (and large bottle) of blue liquid. It's a clarifier I believe. We have found this to be the most effective clarifier. Don't know if this is what you used or not. We also use an Optimizer, which is kind of expensive but it helps the pool hold chlorine. I would over saturate with Chlorine for a day or two, but don't swim it during that time.

Good luck! It can be difficult!

 

[JayCT]

You might want to take a sample of the water with you to the pool store and let them test it. They can then tell you what you need. I sometimes do that, but mostly I would dump a whole bottle of clarifier in to clear it up and run the filter for as long as possible. Good luck. Jay

 

[Nancy]

We had that a few times and we just ended up draining the pool and refilling. After 1 month it still looked horrible.

We actually just drained it again because we had dead animals in it (ewwww) and I refuse to swim in pool water that had dead squirrels in it. (plus one was jammed up into the skimmer basket, must of thought it was a way out of the pool and then couldn't get out) It was disgusting! I don't know when they got in the pool because we put the ladder in as soon as the cover came off and while the water was a little yucky I didn't notice them at that time. Usually if the ladder is in they just swim over to it and climb out. The squirrels fall in it all the time. You would think they would learn not to jump from the tree onto the ledge cause all they do is slide off and go splash.

 

[Firedog]

Isn't there a way to use standard bleach, as well as baking soda to help out?

 

[kilee]

The pool store employee's say add more shock-- at least 3-5 more gallons. I added 3 more tonight. I got a bottle of clarifier too-- will be adding that in the morning and letting the filter run all day. It's come a long way- but not quite there yet.

 

[debloco]

We let our system run continuously until the water is clear so I'd say try that and I'd suggest trying some flock. Since you have a sand filter it won't remove all of the tiny particles that are making your water cloudy. Flock "condenses" the particles so that they can be removed by your filtration system.

I second taking your water somewhere to be tested. By doing that, I finally found out why our pH was constantly bottoming out. The TDS (total dissolved solids) number was TWICE what it should have been. No test strip or kit will tell you that.

Two weeks is a pretty long time for it to still be cloudy. Our pool is 11,000 gallons and it was clear in 4 days.

How many gallons is your pool? Above or inground? Vinyl liner, concrete, fiberglass? Regular sand filter or DE sand filter? Are you using liquid shock or granules? How many hours a day are you running the system? Any other noteworthy factors?

 

[Toby'sFriend]

All I can say is I think my pool is a darker green tonight than it was this morning.
I just pulled all the filter cartridges out and hosed them down. They were disgusting.

I think I'll go out and dump 1/2 a bucket of shock into it overnight.

 

[tmt martins]

Did you say you might still have leaves at the bottom.If so thats your problem all the heavy shock is breaking them down and causing your clouds.

Vacumm them out on waste setting adding water that way it's not going through your filter material.

I had a 1/4 of muck as my cover failed as well .I used pantyhose on the tip of the hose to catch as much as possible stopping and dumping as needed.I then shocked and All-brited it and in 2 days I was good to go.

Oh and this was a brand new liner we put on 1/2 way through last year.I thought it was ruined but the kids have been in it everyday since last week.

Good luck.The heat is here and I know the pool has to be opened.