cloudy water

[Demons1964]

The cloudiness will be caused by the calcium carbonate coming out of solution with the high pH. If you have a sand filter, the calcium will also be affecting the ability of the sand to trap dirt. Get your pH down to 7.4 by adding muriatic acid (hydrochloric acid).

Your free chlorine is also extremely low, and at a pH of 8.0 you may have solid algae matter clouding the pool as well. I suggest you get your free chlorine up to 10ppm while dropping your pH level and running the filter continuously. Maintain at least 3ppm free chlorine in future.

Your calcium levels aren't excessively high at the moment. But ongoing you will have problems with it because of the Adelaide water having such a high calcium level. Shocking with granular chlorine (calcium hypochlorite) is only making your calcium problem worse.

But you do have an alternative. Because your stabiliser level is so low you can use dichlor or trichlor for a while before the stabiliser level in the pool becomes excessive. I'm not sure on your water restrictions at the moment but I imagine you don't want to be doing partial draining of your pool all the time. Liquid chlorine (or bleach) is your best alternative to avoid a buildup of either stabiliser or calcium.

[A&M]

Thank you so much for the information. You're absolutely right - you probably know that. What you said ws confirmed by the pool shop and we've shocked the pool with chlorine, added buffer and hydrochloric acid.

Unfortunately the water colour hasn't changed at all. I too believe that the granular hydrochlorine is adding to the problem but I've been advised that liquid hydrochlorine isn't as effective. This could be a point of sale issue though with the pool shop. I don't know.

The other ingredient which may be causing probs which I feel more confident about this morning is the floc agent I added two weeks ago.

We were having a lot of work done in our garden around the period when we had our pool put is. Our constituent soil is 99% sand and a lot of particles got into the pool and subsequently the filter.

Someone sugguested using a floc agent to clot the particles to aid filtration. On two occasions when I've cleaned the filter there has been a lot of floc agent in there but because we can't see the bottom of the pool I don't know if there's anyresidue left.

Until this morning that is. We've placed a Blue block in the skimmer box last night and left the filter running. I've checked the skimmer box this morning and the blue block has white fragments on it - I'm guessing this is floc residue.

We've also additional tried to clean the pool with vaccuming and borrowed a barracuda but this doesn't seem to have resolved the problem either.

This leaves one remaining query - Is it the pump / filter - not working correctly. The pressure guages show that it is working as it should and we clean the filter every two days with a hydraulic jet hose to ensure that it's clean. The manufacture's guidelines suggest that the filter system is more than capable for our size pool but I'm more than prepared to approach the pool company as we've only had the pool for 3 months but I know the response I'll have as we had problems during the sale process.

Any further suggestions, I'd be glad to hear them.

[dynamictiger]

This floc you used was it a powder or liquid?

Did the instructions say to stop the system and let the floc settle then vacuum to waste? Did you do that?

What kind of filter have you got? I assume it is sand as floc on DE would probably stop your system entirely.

I would think the floc is still floating around in your system. Unfortunately now the damage is done and this is what you need to do.

Stop your pool circulation and let the residual floc settle
Vacuum the floc to waste
Completely empty your sand filter and wash the insides to remove any floc
Replace the sand in the filter with new sand

HTH

[A&M]

This floc you used was it a powder or liquid?

Did the instructions say to stop the system and let the floc settle then vacuum to waste? Did you do that?

What kind of filter have you got? I assume it is sand as floc on DE would probably stop your system entirely.

I would think the floc is still floating around in your system. Unfortunately now the damage is done and this is what you need to do.

Stop your pool circulation and let the residual floc settle
Vacuum the floc to waste
Completely empty your sand filter and wash the insides to remove any floc
Replace the sand in the filter with new sand

HTH

Thanks for the reply. We have a cartridge filter as we are not a saltwater pool so we dont have the facility to backwash. We also don't have the facility to completly empty the pool and / or refill it due to water restrictions.

We're thinking about buying a new cartridge tomorrow to see if this will help the problem.

I agree that turning off the filter and allowing the floc to settle will help as we didn't filter for a few days and the water started to clear. But after the pump had been on for a few minutes it went cloudy again as the filter is obviously circulating the particles from the pool floor.