Another cloudy water story

Ricktus · Postby **Ricktus** » Fri 22 Jul, 2011 11:23

I am new to owning a pool so the confusion factor for me is HIGH. I have read a lot of the postings on cloudy water and some come close to what I have but do not quite fit my problem. I think anyway, all this talk and new to the jargon have me easily confused.
I have an Intex above ground pool 15x48. Filter is a 1000 gph that came with the pool. It has been a little cloudy from the beginning. I vacuum every day, test the water everyday and was changing the filter weekly. I now change the filter every other day. Hoping to clean up the water. Since my understanding of the chemical makeup of the pool by my testing says that to remedy the cloudy water, I should shock the pool. Hoping to get that sparkle in the water that everyone is writing about! I put in some of the HTH shock treatment. Only half the bag for my size pool. Put in it last night, ran the pump all night and I have succeeded in making the water cloudier than when I started. At least I accomplished something. Here are my stats and thanks in advance for any help.
These stats are from this mornings reading. I will post old reading below these.

I have a simple HTH 6 way test kit
FC- not part of test kit
TC- between .5 and 1 on tester
PH- 7.2
TA- 140 ppm
CH- 130 ppm
CYA- Nothing but clear water. My test tube only goes to the low end of 30 ppm. I fill the tube to the top and still see the black dot on the bottom.

Why I shocked the pool in the first place. Here are the stats from before the shocking.

FC- N/a
TC- below .5 and 1 on chart. water just about clear
PH- Just below 7.2 reading
TA- 120 ppm
CH- 120 ppm
CYA - same as above. no cloudy water.

Thanks for any help. Completely confused.

Postby **chem geek** » Sat 23 Jul, 2011 01:27

If your CYA test is accurate and your pool is exposed to sunlight, then the lack of CYA has all your chlorine get broken down by sunlight allowing for algae to grow which initially makes the water cloudy. What type of chlorine have you been using? If it was chlorinating liquid, bleach or Cal-Hypo and not Trichor or Dichlor, then your CYA may indeed be zero and you need to add some, either as pure CYA or using Dichlor for a while as your source of chlorine (Trichlor would take longer -- with Dichlor you can shock to add both chlorine to help clear the algae and to increase the CYA level). See the Pool School for more info.

Ricktus · Postby **Ricktus** » Sat 23 Jul, 2011 09:53

Thanks for the quick reply. I did perform the CYA test twice. Results were the same for each test. I am using HTH dual action 1"chlorinating tablets. If I read the label right, is a Trichlor type chlorine. I will go out today and buy the dichlor type chlorine and give that a shot. If I am reading your response correctly, my biggest problem is not being able to get the chlorine up to the right numbers. Thanks again for the info, I will update after trying the other chlorine for a few days.
thanks..........Ricktus