green and cloudy

[bgajeske]

Please help! We have a Intex 24 ft. round. It has always been a little cloudy, but swimable. We left for vacation for 4 days and came back to a green pool. I have been working on it for 2 weeks to no avail!!! My son is having a pool party tomorrow!
I took water to be analyzed on Thursday.........
Free Chlor 5.0
Total: 5.0
Comb Chlor 0.0
ph: 8.0
hardness: 50ppm
alkal:170
cyr Acid 0

The guy said to add 2 quarts of acid................I did in 3 parts every six hours. Helped a little....................I put 3 lbs of HTH super shock around 1:00pm and 2 more lbs. around 7:00pm tonight. It's still green........
Is there any hope for the party tomorrow around 6:00 pm?
Thanks for any help!

[muss08]

Unfortunately no I doubt there is any hope for a party tomorrow. First and foremost you need to get your own test kit. I suggest the Taylor K 2006. It is very reliable and accurate. I cant tell how many gallons your pool is because you didnt include a depth but if it is 3ft. deep it is about 1000 gallons. If it is 6ft deep then it is about 2000 gallons. 2 quarts of acid probably dropped the pH considerably, which is good as long as it isnt below 7. Chlorine is much more effective at 7.0-7.4. You need to keep that chlorine up- brush your pool-walls and floor and run the filter 24hrs/day until it clears.

[bgajeske]

Thanks for replying
12,481 gallons to be exact! The ph is good now, so I should just keep the chlorine levels up til it clears?

[muss08]

Yes you need to keep the chlorine levels up and watch your filter and clean it when necessary. How is the water quality and clarity now? If you can vacuum to waste I would do that to get any dead algae and dust off the bottom then I would go ahead and add another pound of granular chlorine to shock again- just to make sure everything is dead. I see that your CYA is 0. When you get a chance I would get 3lbs. of CYA and add that as well. Your constant cloudiness problem could be because of a low chlorine level. CYA stabalizes the chlorine and helps prevent chlorine loss by sunlight. A pool in direct sunlight with no CYA can lose all of its chlorine in a matter of hours. You also want to get your TA down to between 80-120ppm. The acid you added yesterday has definitely lowered it- probably to about 150. Because the TA is high your pH will slowly raise back up on its own so when you add more acid to lower the pH again it will also lower the TA even more. What do you use as your chlorine source? Pucks/sticks, liquid, granular?

[Ray Ray]

Hi there. Just bought a new place with a 30,000 gal pool. 2 weeks ago it was clear, now cloudy and very green. PH and c2 counts are normal. I've bought hundreds of dollars of chemicals in the last few weeks from the pool guys, and my trust level is zero.

I just threw in 3 gallons of bleach: I researched and found that 25ppm cl2 is required to kill the green. Maybe 5 more gallons in order? Just don"t know. We've also got some cl2 tablets running though the pump at full speed.

One thing I have not found online is "when is the pool safe to swim in?" I know the green pool is OK, but when you throw in chemicals like bleach and hit 25ppm cl2, is that OK?

And after (if) you kill the green stuff, what after? Do you need to reduce cl2, and how (baking soda)?

Thanks!

[chem geek]

You can read more about clearing a pool of algae here. As for safety of being in a pool, shock levels where the Free Chlorine (FC) is around 40% of the Cyanuric Acid (CYA) level have the same amount of "active" chorine (hypochlorous acid) as a pool with 0.6 ppm FC and no CYA so less than most indoor pools. This does degrade swimsuits faster and is harsher on skin and hair, but it is not unsafe; you can rinse off after you get out or take a shower and rinse your swimsuits in the sink. Just don't drink the water since then the FC matters since in that case it's the capacity of chlorine and not just its rate of reaction (which is proportional to the FC/CYA ratio).