Help Please!

Causes and cures for cloudy swimming pool water.
Milky pool water, white, pink, brown, purple, black cloudy water.
ama223
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Help Please!

Postby ama223 » Mon 04 Jul, 2011 08:34

Please help me before I drown my husband in our cloudy pool (JOKING!!)

Here is our most recent levels:

Total Chlorine - 10.0
Free Chlorine - 9.2
pH - 7.2
Total Alkalinity - 70
Calcium Hardness - 275
Stabilizer - 30

Sparco Sand Filter
Oval pool - 15 x 24, above ground
We use Bioguard Silk Tabs, about 2-3 a week in a floater thingy..

The only thing we've done recently is rinsed out the skimmer basket, took out the basket in the pump and scrubbed it and now we have this issue.

We've been putting in Clarifier and it's not helping at all.. I am SO disgusted by our cloudy pool, I'm ready to tear it down... my kids wouldn't like that though!!


ama223
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Help Please!

Postby ama223 » Mon 04 Jul, 2011 08:36

((nevermind, figured out how to edit first post))
chem geek
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Location: San Rafael, California

Help Please!

Postby chem geek » Mon 04 Jul, 2011 15:24

Are there air bubbles or cloudiness coming out of the returns? It sounds like you may not have put back the lid on your pump basket properly and you are getting air into the pump. Look at the pump basket and see if it looks like air is getting into the basket when the pump is on. You could remove and replace the lid and make sure it is sealed properly.

Also, unless you just started the season with little or no CYA this year, then using Silk Tabs in the skimmer, which are Trichlor tabs, would have the CYA climb quickly over time. For every 10 ppm Free Chlorine (FC) added by Trichlor, it also increases Cyanuric Acid (CYA) by 6 ppm. With a 2 ppm FC per day chlorine usage, the CYA would rise by over 35 ppm PER MONTH. I strongly suggest you buy your own good test kit -- either the Taylor K-2006 or the TFTestkits TF-100 with the latter kit having more volume of reagents you use the most.
ama223
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Help Please!

Postby ama223 » Mon 04 Jul, 2011 19:58

Thank you so much for your quick reply.

DH is going to go check that now, but he swears he has a proper seal. He's going to re-check though. :)

For now we removed the chlorine from the pool (the tabs aren't in the skimmer, they're in a floater thing that bops around the pool throughout the day).. Is that the right "plan of attack" here, assuming the pump isn't the issue?

We did start this season with a totally new batch of water since we had our liner replaced about 5 weeks ago.. should have mentioned that in the first post, maybe that makes a difference??
chem geek
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Joined: Thu 21 Jun, 2007 21:27
Location: San Rafael, California

Help Please!

Postby chem geek » Mon 04 Jul, 2011 22:51

If you had fresh water 5 weeks ago, then it is unlikely your CYA level is too high unless you added too much initially. Just get it tested, but if you don't use tabs then you'll need to manually add chlorine to the pool -- chlorinating liquid or 6% unscented bleach -- every day or two. At any rate, you'll need to shock the pool with chlorinating liquid or bleach. At this point, I don't think the tabs are the problem per se though you probably didn't keep your Free Chlorine (FC) high enough at least part of the time. See Defeating Algae.
sumonkhan44
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Help Please!

Postby sumonkhan44 » Tue 04 Oct, 2011 20:11

The only thing we've done recently is rinsed out the skimmer basket, took out the basket in the pump and scrubbed it and now we have this issue.

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