CLOUDY POOL, I Have Tried Everything

by Craig

Our pool looked great the day we took the cover off. This is actually the first time we've had an unsolved problem! After we open our pool we drop in POOL RX mineral basket in our filter system. Our water stayed clear and we use less chorine.


This yr. our pool pump broke just as we were ready to begin our routine. The weather was warm and the water turned dark green. We have done all the things you mention.

Our water is testing perfect so why do we STILL have cloudy water? It's blue and cloudy. The last products we used were from Lite House. It's called FIRST AID, alkalinity , calcium just as they recommended. We have groomed the bottom of the pool liner everyday plus rant he robot. Our water seems to come back testing fine.

If it's fine then why is it cloudy? Our filter system is fine. We are spending a lot of money and no results. I am taking in a water sample tomorrow and I will email the results to you for your input with theirs as well.

We are getting very frustrated. Thank you for your feed back!



Thanks for the question Craig

There could be many reasons why a pool goes cloudy. I'd also like to have the kind of filtration system you have and the kind of chlorine you're using.

I'll start with the Pool RX. This is a combination of copper sulphate and a chelating agent. What you're doing in effect is adding a metal based algaecide to the pool. This is something I never recommend. If you want to use an algaecide you can go with a PolyQuat 60 which contains no
metals and is safe for vinyl liners.

Next is Pool First Aid. I believe this is from Natural Chemistry and is a combination of enzymes and a polymer clarifier. Basically you put it in the pool and it acts like a flocc. It settles to the bottom and you vacuum it up. This is another product I'd stay clear of. It's a Band-Aid doesn't address why the pool is cloudy

I'd encourage you to get a good test kit. The one I use is the Taylor K-2006 kit. You can learn about it from the videos I've made on YouTube starting here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZwZEGCMaZg

There are alot of people who are more than willing to sell you hundreds of $$ worth of products. Here's a pool I cleared up in February in about 6 days for $33. I've only shocked it once in 4 months and we just swam on July 1. I posted the readings in the description box on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKtk6gGSELw&list=UUAw1paBUtPGchO9CMB088pg

Remember that the pool store employees you talk to are just that - guys at the pool store. Most of the time they're not real pool guys and have never cleared up a pool in their lives.

Get me the chem numbers, filter and chlorine type and we'll go from there.

If you feel your situation is more complex than this, I do phone consultations for a donation of your choice. It makes things go much faster and many people have found it extremely beneficial, saving them time and money in the long run. All your questions will be answered. I have nothing to sell you so you know I'm not bias.

Pool Consultation

Hope this helps and have a great Summer.

Robert

Comments for CLOUDY POOL, I Have Tried Everything

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Aug 09, 2022
 Frustrated
by: GailAnonymous

Our built in salt water has gotten too dark on the deep in to see the bottom. Everything except chlorine is balanced. We keep super chlorinating the pool but it’s staying low and not improving. We have cleaned the filters, shocked, put stabilizer in, we put ash in, we’ve tried everything the "pool store said we need but still no improvement. We vacuumed and nothing helped. 😩
May 25, 2020
 Can't get rid of the cloudiness!
by: Renee

This is our first year owning a pool. It is in ground about 25,000 gallons. It has a mesh cover so we were not surprised at how green it was when we opened it up. We shocked it a few times and the algae went away but that cloudiness just wont quite The pH and Alkalinity are all normal. Chlorine is obviously high from all the shocking and the hardness was low but we added calcium to bring it up. We changed the sand on the filter and everything looked good with laterals. Water is definitely circulating well. I tried adding non chlorine shock and that did not help either. Clarifier, nothing. We've been running the pump 24/7 for over a week. I am beyond frustrated. Any ideas?



Hi Renee. Clearing a cloudy pool is a process. Without knowing the chemical readings it's nearly impossible to know how to proceed. You can see the video on this page on how I cleared up the pool. I knew the chemical numbers and moved from that starting point.

Believe me, you will not clear up the pool from what you've been told and it will cost you hundreds of dollars and countless hours. I have many resources available that can be found here:

Resources

While I'd love to offer each person individual attention who might be experiencing this particular issue, it's simply time prohibitive. I receive no less than 700 questions per year pertaining to green and cloudy pools and how to clear them up. Due to the high volume of questions I receive during this time of year, I prefer to keep email and website questions to those that can be quickly answered with one answer. Clearing up a pool is a process with many variables and can take some time to figure out exactly what your situation is and how to clear up the pool.

Thank you and have a great day.

Robert
Jul 11, 2018
 Literally about to give-up!
by: Allie

We moved into our house 3 years ago and we have spent so much money doing what the local pool store tells us too and we have only had our pool looking right once.

We have a 10,500 gallon above group pool with a sand filter. We didn't cover it last year year, so it was dark dark green when we "opened" this year. We skimmed as many leaves and stuff out as possible, as per our pool store instructions we added 4 jerry jugs of chlorine into the pool, it lightened the pool color and brought our chlorine level to about 15. Well then we had a horrible heat wave and even before that it was so cloudy, milky still green tint to it. we couldnt see anything in it.

We added 4 things of shock last week and brushed brushed brushed the pool. It's still super milky slight green tint very light. But we still can't see through it at all, we added pH increaser about an hour ago waiting to test again. The pool also has been getting foamy. Saturday we added some clorox algaecide but it was foaming before that. We also tried to flocc it and we follow the directions but nothing ever dropped out to vacuum I waited 48 hours.

Now I'm filtering again and just backwashed our pressure gauge is broken so I can't really see what we're at PSI wise.

Our numbers today are as follows;

500 total hardness
0 total chlorine which i don't even know how that's possible
0 free chlorine
pH 6.8
180 alkalinity
50 stabilizer or CYA

these numbers keep bouncing and I'm ad my wits end for this pool.



Hi Allie

Clearing up a pool is very easy to do, and much less expensive than you might think. Here's a cloudy pool I cleared up in 2 days for less than $5:





From your comment, you're wasting your money at the pool store and if you don't stop, it can cost hundreds of dollars to get it back.

I do have many resources available to help you. What I did in the video, you can do as well. Let me know how you'd like to proceed. Here's a link to my resources page:

Resources
Apr 08, 2015
 Very Cloudy Pool
by: Sean

I have an ingrund pool that i can't get rid of the cloudyness. The water seems clean but cloudy. PH, chlorine, alkalinity, are all very high. Stabilizer is very low. Any suggestions?



Thanks for the question. It's more difficult to determine the course of action to take with readings of "high" and "low". I would like a complete list with the actual chemical numbers but this is the best with the limited info. I have.

First is to filter 24/7 and be sure the filter is working well. Next is to get CYA in the pool. Use 1 lb. per 10k gallons to increase the CYA 10ppm. Pour directly into the skimmer. Once it's 30ppm stop using CYA.

Next is to decrease the pH and TA. Use 15 oz. of acid to decrease the pH 0.2 and TA 10ppm. Their respective ranges are 7.2 - 7.8 and 80 - 100ppm.

Next is to shock the pool with liquid chlorine. Use 1 gallon to increase the FC 10ppm per 10k gallons. Hopefully you've read my Cloudy Pool page and have seen there could be dozens of reasons why a pool can go cloudy. This particular route is the chemical side.

Robert
Jan 05, 2015
 Cloudy And Algae In Pool
by: Anonymous

We have a 18 x 48 Easy Set pool. We used it last year and had no problems except with bugs on top of water. This year we bought a skimmer to try and elimanate the bugs and it was doing fine.

About a week ago we noticed that the skimmer had a black sticky film on it. We kept cleaning it. The water started getting cloudy and algae started growing so we took the skimmer out of the pool and have not put it back. But, we can't get the water to get clear and we also can't get rid of the algae.

We have shocked with 50% and it is not working. Can someone help us please.

THANK YOU!



Thanks for the question

I would need to know the kind of filtration system you have and a full chemical reading before I can really go any further:

Chlorine

CYA (stabilizer)

pH

Alkalinity

Calcium Hardness

Pool water

And the kind of test kit you are using.

I'm not too sure what is meant by "shocked with 50%". Does this mean you used a Dichlor chlorine shock that contains 56% active chlorine? Unstabilized chlorine granules?

A black sticky line could be a couple of things. Oils, lotions, and sunscreens are not good for a pool. It will leave a scum line and clog up the filters.

To get rid of this you can use a mild abrasive suck as baking soda or use AquaPill 7. This is used for degreasing filters but can be used for a scum line in the skimmer. If you have a vinyl liner it might be something called "pool goo" or "pool tar".

This is when the wrong algaecide is used, mainly ones that contain copper.

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