Pool Problems

About a week and a half ago, when Chad was traveling for work, I went out to the pool to empty the strainer and check the chemical levels and I noticed that the filter pump wasn’t running because a fuse had blown. Chad and I talked about it and decided to just wait until he got back to fix it. So, the pool sat for about a week without the filter running and with no chemicals being added. When we finally replaced the fuse to get pump started again a few days ago, we took the solar cover off of the pool and found that the water was so cloudy we couldn’t see the bottom of the pool anymore and the free chlorine level was so low it wasn’t measurable on the test strip!

Cloudy Pool Water

With the free chlorine level being so low, we started by shocking the pool with the normal dosage of shock treatment, which is 2 1-lb bags of Super Sock-It for our 25,000 gallon pool, but when the pool still measured a zero chlorine level the next night and the water showed no signs of being any less cloudy, we started studying up on pool maintenance.

The first thing we figured out is that the pH of the water impacts how effective the chlorine is at sanitizing the water, so when the first shock treatment didn’t even register on the free chlorine scale, we added a full 5 lbs. of pH Plus to increase the pH of our water from 6.4 to somewhere closer to 7.5 … and then we shocked it again with 2 more bags of Super Sock-It and about 70 oz. of granulated chlorine. By the next morning, the chlorine level was starting to register at about 1ppm and the pH was closer to 6.8, but both were still too low, so we added another 5 lbs of pH Plus and another 4 bags of Super Sock-It. These raised the pH to around 7.2 and the chlorine level was registering at about 3 ppm. By that evening, though, the free chlorine had dropped again, so we added another 5 bags of Super Sock-It and about 36 oz. of granulated chlorine to bring the level up to somewhere around 5ppm. By this time, the algae that was making the water so cloudy was turning a grayish-white color, indicating that it was dead, so we added a triple dose of clarifier to the water so that the dead algae would clump together, making it easier for the filter to pick up.

After giving the clarifier a couple of days to do its job, we were able to see the bottom of the pool in the shallow end again and we were starting to be able to make out the drain at the bottom of the deep end, but the water was still looking pretty cloudy, so we added a dose of Super Floc to the water this afternoon. After letting it circulate for about an hour, we shut the pump off to give all of the dead algae and other stuff in the pool a chance to settle to the bottom so that we can vacuum it to waste tomorrow. It’s already started to clear up some and the bottom is starting to be covered with a white-ish dust, so it looks like it’s working!

One of the things that confused us the most about the whole process was why we had to add so much chlorine and why the level would initially spike and then drop back down by the next time we went out to measure it, but after doing some research, it makes complete sense. The amount of chlorine we are measuring in the water is the free chlorine level, which represents the amount of chlorine in the water that is available to kill bacteria, algae, etc. This is different than the level of combined chlorine, which is the amount of chlorine in the pool that’s already done its job by combining with the algae and killing it. So, the fact that our free chlorine level was dropping was actually a good thing because it meant we were making progress toward killing the algae. The other thing we found confusing was that we would go out to the pool and smell the chlorine, but the level of free chlorine would be low. It turns out that the chlorine smell actually comes from the amount of combined chlorine in the pool – not the amount of free chlorine … and to get rid of it, you shock the pool.

We’ve definitely learned a lot about pool maintenance this week. All-in-all, we’ve added around 10 lbs. of pH Plus, 6 lbs of chlorine, 12 lbs of Super Sock It, a gallon of clarifier, and a quart of Super Floc to the pool, but at least the good news is that the situation appears to be under control now.

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