Misstake!help!

Causes and cures for cloudy swimming pool water.
Milky pool water, white, pink, brown, purple, black cloudy water.
poolmom67
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My Pool: 18 ftx 4ftdeep vinyl pop up cartage filter
Location: kansas

Misstake!help!

Postby poolmom67 » Mon 21 Jun, 2010 12:40

water was fine. did weekly shock and tested water next day. noticed ph was low 6.8 but alkalinity was at 130 so not knowing what i was doing,obviously, i added ph plus to raise ph. water was instantly cloudy and never has cleared. alkalinity went to 160 and ph was 7.5 all other test are in normal range. started adding ph minus and alkalinity went down to 140 and ph is at 7, water still just as cloudy. will continue to add ph minus and filter until alkalinity goes down to normal range, but will water clear? what should i do differently in the future. i have a 18x18x4 foot deep vinyle pop up pool. had it for 4 years never had this problem before, just scaling so trying to get better at this. Thanks


chem geek
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Misstake!help!

Postby chem geek » Mon 21 Jun, 2010 12:51

If your Calcium Hardness (CH) is very high, then it could be calcium carbonate clouding, though that should usually clear up if you lowered the pH to 7.0 (unless your CH is extraordinarily high). You need to test all of your water parameters with a good test kit -- either the Taylor K-2006 or the TF-100 with the latter kit having more volume of reagents so is comparably priced per test (and the test kits can be compared here).

Measure all of your water parameters and put them into The Pool Calculator to see if your saturation index is high. If it's not, then the cloudiness may be a nascent algae bloom. If you aren't maintaining a Free Chlorine (FC) level that is at least 7.5% of the Cyanuric Acid (CYA) level (in a manually dosed pool), then algae can grow faster than chlorine can kill it. Read the Pool School for more info.
poolmom67
I'm new here
I'm new here
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon 21 Jun, 2010 12:26
My Pool: 18 ftx 4ftdeep vinyl pop up cartage filter
Location: kansas

Misstake!help!

Postby poolmom67 » Mon 21 Jun, 2010 16:52

CH is 250 fc is 3 ph is 7 alkalinity is 140 cya is 30
cloudy water only appeared after i added the ph plus imediatly. i did add it after i shocked it instead of before. anyways water has never cleared. can see arm but not hand. After i manage to get alkalinity down will the cloudy water clear or is there something i should do? and is just adding ph minus and filtering enough to raise level and clear pool?
poolmom67
I'm new here
I'm new here
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon 21 Jun, 2010 12:26
My Pool: 18 ftx 4ftdeep vinyl pop up cartage filter
Location: kansas

Misstake!help!

Postby poolmom67 » Mon 21 Jun, 2010 16:55

its a miracle!! the pool just cleared 10 min. after last application of ph minus. makes me scared to do anything again, going to test levels now. should i shock it again?
chem geek
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Misstake!help!

Postby chem geek » Mon 21 Jun, 2010 21:06

It's no miracle -- it just took time for the chemicals to mix well. Just bring your pH up more slowly. Do NOT use "pH Up" products since they raise both pH and TA. You could just aerate the water to have the pH rise with no change in TA. To get pH up faster, you can use 20 Mule Team Borax, but aerating the water in your case should work fine (you can point your returns up for aeration if you don't have waterfalls, fountains, spillovers, etc.).
poolmom67
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Joined: Mon 21 Jun, 2010 12:26
My Pool: 18 ftx 4ftdeep vinyl pop up cartage filter
Location: kansas

Misstake!help!

Postby poolmom67 » Tue 22 Jun, 2010 12:27

thanks, aeration worked everything is fine now. However still shows that my ta is 140 but it is probably just my kit need to get a new one. thanks chem geek.
chem geek
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Misstake!help!

Postby chem geek » Tue 22 Jun, 2010 19:44

The aeration would not change the TA. Only acid addition will lower the TA (well, replacement with fill water lower in TA would also lower it). So now that you aerated to get the pH to normal range, you can either just see if the pH is stable or slowly rising and add acid over time to compensate which will slowly lower the TA or you can accelerate this process by following the procedure described in this post. If your pH is fairly stable, then there's not much need to lower the TA right now (unless your CH and saturation index are high).

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