1/2
Cloudy pool water. No idea what else to do.
Be careful when draining a pool, particularly if it has a vinyl liner on it, you might make an expensive mistake. It’s better just to try to dilute old water by a partial drain (1/2)
Very true and I learned that the hard way about 20 years ago. If doing a partial drain on a vinyl pool you want to pull a water hose on one end and a pump on the other and try and match input and output. It seems silly but if you just drain halfway and the liner and liner surrounding aren’t in good shape you’re going to be fixing that surround and putting in a new liner. Yes you will pull out some fresh water but probably only about 10%.
There's nothing wrong with your water. You just need to SLAM and filter. Cloudiness is usually dead algae that you've killed and your filter needs to remove. If you have a sand filter, adding DE or cellulose to your filter (via the skimmer) can help filter it out faster.
The troublefreepools SLAM method is like a religion to a lot of people and for good reason.
Other than CYA being high I think most water can be balanced, and here it is like … too low
Too low CYA is very likely the reason they are in this predicament.
Agreed, but that is no reason to dump water.
No, absolutely not.
Just...add...the...chemicals...no reason to drain
I just got my pool replastered. About to start filling it up with water. Any advice is appreciated…:)
Check out the National Plasterers Council docs on start up. They have a day by day for the first month. Lots of brushing.
Check chemical balance every day for the first 30 days. It will be going crazy from the reactions with the new plaster. Once adding chemicals give it 24 hours before measuring again to let it do it's work.
Brush, brush, and brush some more. Twice a day if you can. You'll see dust coming off when you brush and it will go into your filter. You will probably have to clean your filter every 4 or 5 days depending what size and type you have. I bought a second filter and was rotating and cleaning regularly.
If you have a salt pool and cell, wait at least 30 days before adding salt so the new surface has time to cure. It won't be fully cured for about 3 months.
Was annoying to have to keep checking the first few months. After 6 months, I was only checking once a week or so and now it's pretty much on autopilot. I was a first time pool owner and learned a lot from this sub. You can do it. Or hire a company to maintain it during the first 30 days.
I think you should backwash system or clean cartridges(if they are heavy after cleaning they need to be replaced. Main cause of cloudy pools people overlook. The smallest particulates are the main culprit in a cloudy pool. Phosphate remover can also cause a pool to cloud.) I recommend starting at the main source of filtration and work backwards to chems. Less is more. Try an organic clarifier or a type of floc and vac to waste. Clean the filter as often as you can until clear and run 24/7.
No. Draining the pool is only to remove a few select items that cannot be removed otherwise. IE very high TDS or CYA being the primary reasons. The rest are exactly as this says, you need more chems, and since you have such low hardness I’m guessing it was never balanced to begin with.
Download the Orenda app or use TFP, either one, you want a calculator to balance, but the balance analysis seems fairly accurate at a glance (although I’m not seeing pool size, that is a heck of a lot of calcium to add, although I also don’t know the contents of that calcium hardness up). But don’t add 19 chlorine tabs at once, that’s just crazy. Add liquid chlorine and tabs to supplement for now as you build up the CYA.
For calcium, just get the big tubs of calcium chloride from from In the Swim or Pool Mate on amazon, cheapest I’ve typically found. Alkalinity is just baking soda, arm and hammer, make sure it’s baking soda and not powder or washing soda or something. You should add some tabs as they do add CYA which is helpful, get the level to around 40 ppm then switch to only liquid chlorine (walmart usually the cheapest).
Make sure to use a bucket first for adding the calcium (and when you do muriatic acid); calcium will cause a reaction with the water, you’ll feel the bucket get hot, you don’t want that reaction going on against your plaster if you can avoid it, so mix it in buckets with pool water first before dumping into the pool.
Why would you drain it?
Not sure what your pool lining / filter type is but if sand and has been in a few years, check that first. I have a marbelite pool (plaster) and those numbers really don't look at all bad to me! And 22 pounds of total-alkalinity-up to increase 72->80 just sounds completely insane! I think the suggestions they are making for chemicals is way overboard. 14 pounds of shock per week?? How massive is this pool?
How big is this freaking pool??
32' x 16' above ground
I've never added that much chemical to my pool. Ever.
The reason you have a problem with your water is because you let your CYA get way too low so your chlorine is getting burned off by the sun. CYA/stabilizer is like chlorine sunscreen. So the chlorine you put in it will disappear before it has a chance to work. Because of that you most likely have an algae bloom going on, the cloudy water, so you'll need to hit it hard with liquid shock until the water is clear.
If you need a guide on how to clear the algae try the SLAM method from troublefreepool. But then make sure you keep your chems in balance so it isn't necessary again.
You need to raise your pH, and seriously increase your calcium hardness and CYA. At this point, your water has a very low LSI (which should’ve been calculated by whatever computer you used to analyze the water). When your LSI is low it’s going to, dissolve, or corrode the plaster.
I guess there's a service where they do like a dialysis on a pool where they circulate it with new water and that's supposed to be better . Just heard about this last week. Probably a terrible way to explain it
Add a metal removing agent and stain prevention. Don’t add cl or salt for a while.
Alkalinity Up is sodium bicarbonate aka baking soda, pure and simple. I can get baking soda for .87/pound at the grocery store yet my local pool care place wants almost $4/pound for it.
You need to have your water retested and have them check your TDS properly. your TDS should not be 0. That will determine truly if you need to drain it or not.
Everyone telling you to SLAM or "add chlorine" isn't actually reading your tests. You do need it but without a true testing for things like TDS, phosphates and metals you're never going to have your water properly balanced.
This is just one of those places that this method disagrees with other methodologies. So it's not that people aren't reading them it's just that the TFP method doesn't consider them important. By the way I'm making no claims about who is right here, just pointing it out.
https://www.troublefreepool.com/wiki/index.php?title=TDS
https://www.troublefreepool.com/wiki/index.php?title=Phosphate_Removers
I mean… when I have any sort of issue I typically find just blindly throwing tons of something at the issue to ALWAYS be the perfect fix.
My issue with people pushing slam is exactly as you just said. People don’t take stuff like I mentioned into account. And that’s the issue.
Treating pools like slam is the one stop fix all for all situations is imo not ideal.
Sure. You can solve a lot of problems with chlorine. But not all.
I see a lot of “success” slam stories with pools still super cloudy.
I’m just someone who finds the idea of treating every situation with the same solution as well… insane. By definition it sort of is.
That's not the way the system works but I see a lot of you guys thinking it is. If you are going to complain about a system you should actually understand it first. SLAM is the last resort and they tell you in the instructions how to determine if it's time or not.
If you read the SLAM process you'll see that a cloudy pool means SLAM isn't done so there's no possible way to say it was a "success" story.
Try reading if you want to complain. Not saying it's the end all be all process but you guys just sound angry/threatened when you say stuff like "one stop fix all" which 2 minutes on the site will prove otherwise to you.
I have read trouble free pools. I do understand that they tell people to do certain steps…
The issue is the users here who have read those steps, ignored those steps themselves and then come here now to claim that SLAM is a fix all solution.
Main example: /u/trumpwonnodoubt. Guy comes on here and shills SLAM/Taylor test kits on posts with water analysis reports with a TDS of zero.
My issue isn’t the religion itself. It’s the church it’s created. Make sense?
I have never had to slam a pool in my entire time servicing pools.
I don’t understand how much money some of you homeowners are spending on chlorine that you may not need to be spending.
Yeah I agree with that. It has become a religion to many and you've pointed out a prime offender here. I doubt he'll last long. I think TFP is a great way for a DIY person to get started. It's also really nice because they do have simple step by step pages to point people at. That's really nice for a newbie because verbal instructions in a forum can be unclear.
I have done maybe 1 actual SLAM in 5 years... The Maintenance part of the process is important. I think I spend MAYBE $200/season in chems on my SWG pool. And to be fair even if you do a SLAM the alternative is the pool stores or calling a pro. In most cases overdoing it with liquid chlorine (SLAM) is going to be much cheaper than either of those.
Please understand that you need to test your own water with a proper test kit. It would be futile and just plain irresponsible to provide advice regarding pool chemical treatment without accurate and dependable test results. Neither pool store tests nor ‘test strips’ provide the dependable or accurate test results needed to make pool maintenance decisions. If you want recommendations for a proper test kit, I can provide that.
Good morning m'dude. Glad you are still at it . . .
😂
He’s not wrong, at least not about pools.
Dude should be fun in parties…. 🙄
Yeah I mean, getting my hands on a proper test kit would probably help in the long run, I would appreciate any recommendations.
Taylor is a good test kit, it tests for everything that you need to figure out your saturation index besides salt/tds
As of right now, you just need to add calcium. 250-400 is fine, and add cyanuric acid. 40-50 is fine.
Don't waste money on any alkalinity plus or pH plus products, your pH will raise naturally
The most likely reason your pool is cloudy, is because there's been no chlorine in the water. If your CYA is actually at 5, there's no way any chlorine will survive a full day out in the sun. That's your number one priority
Salt pool or no?
No it's not.
Get one of these highly recommended simple drop test kits: Either of these: -Taylor K-2006C or -TFTestkits TF-100
I highly recommend getting the SpeedStir magnetic stirrer also. It makes stirring the samples so much easier. I’d never be without mine.
There are TFTest kits that already include the Speed Stir. They are the TF-100-XL option and the TF-100-Pro
https://www.troublefreepool.com/blog/2019/01/18/test-kits-compared/
I think draining your pool and refilling it would cause you to need more chemicals than what you'd need here.