Cloudy Pool & Scale Buildup

by Sonia

So excited to speak with you tomorrow!! I have a sand filter, vinyl pool, 9,000 gallons.

Pictures below.
Readings today are:
0 Free chlorine
7.6 pH
90 Alkalinity
120 Hardness
CYA 40

I will do readings in morning before our call also.
I fired pool guy on 6/11 because of the staining you can see below (which is now MUCH improved in these pictures today). It kept getting progressively worse between May and June and was MUCH MUCH worse than this by the time I canceled his service.

I was begging him to get rid of it and I don’t think he know how so i let him go and decided to figure it out myself. It was initially covered in green so i was very confused wondering what the “hard green” stuff was.

I called the “HTH” people and they said it must be black algae and had me add one of their strongest algaecides (~$20) which didn’t do anything at all.

I finally figured out it was some kind of scale build up but just covered with green algae. My pool was completely crusted with this stuff.
I brushed the green algae off but then I could not vacuum it up because I could not even pass the vacuum over the bottom. The scale build up was so bad and rough the vacuum would not slide over the bottom like it should. It would not budge so I could not vacuum!! I was at a loss and didn’t know what to do. Then the rain came and stayed for over a week and everything turned dark green and i couldn’t see anything!!

So i did the flocculent stuff ($19) so i could at least see. The water became crystal clear and I could then see the scale really well. Then I tried ascorbic acid. Put several pounds over a couple of weeks. $50 at Leslie’s pool supply for 2.5 pounds. Then I found same amount for $27 at a pool store in a nearby city. It softened the scale and I was able to sweep a good amount off (with the help of my 22 year old son and his brute strength!!) and was then finally able to get the vacuum to slide over the bottom and vacuum some out.

But there was still quite a bit of scale. So I then added Metal Magic ($27) and set the pool on recirculate and let it recirculate a few days. Quite a bit more of the scale loosed up. I was so worried about the warnings on the bottle about not to shock for at least a week because it could reverse the effects?? And i kept thinking it would turn green again any day. Then i found your site!!! I was so excited to hear your suggestions on the liquid chlorine. I realized i could add the liquid chlorine at night. So i set it back to regular filtering (instead of recirculate) and put a bottle of liquid chlorine Wednesday night and again Thursday night. I turned off the filter to see what would settle during the day Friday and last night.

Today I vacuumed a good bit of more scale that settled. And the pictures you see below are after vacuuming about an hour ago. It’s still very cloudy and quite stained. I don’t know if i will every get the stains out of my lining??
I finally decided I just needed to stop and call you. I’m so looking forward to speaking with you tomorrow.

3 Days Later...

I cannot thank you enough for sharing your knowledge!! I feel like I have a pretty good idea of what I'm doing now!! Before it was all trial and error!! And I gave up on the pool stores long ago!!

Thank you sooo much Robert for all your help and patience!!! So many people complain about their pools, the upkeep, etc, but I love my pool and I really enjoy taking care of it. And now there's no guessing with the FTA method!! Your a genius! Thanks a million!