Troubleshooting Pool Water Issues

Being a pool owner, if you see your pool cloudy you’d definitely like to fix this as soon as possible. First thing you’ll want to know are the causes due to which your pool water turned cloudy. One of the reasons is lack of free chlorine level that can be due to following reasons:

- Your pool is being used very frequently, due to which chlorine has exhausted.
- Due to heavy rains chlorine gets weaker.
- Hot summer days eat up free chlorine due to UV light.
In such case the only solution is to shock your pool immediately.

Other reasons of your pool cloudiness can be:

A. Chemicals used are not balanced.
High pH level will make chlorine ineffective and if chlorine is not functional then you can imagine how hazardous it is for a pool. Ideal pH level is 7.6 but its range between 7.4 - 7.8.

If pH and Chlorine level are not within range, this could be the main issue to resolve. The recommended level of chlorine is from 1-3 ppm and combined chlorine is 0 ppm.

If your water test is showing a high level of chlorine but the water is cloudy, it could be your filter or filter cycle (amount of time your pool runs).

Also keep checking the total alkalinity as if it is high can cause problems such as pH and calcium scaling. Both are linked with cloudiness and at this point need to lower total alkalinity. Total Alkalinity rang is 80-140 ppm.

If accumulated phosphate, chlorine and cyanuric acid levels are high then it will make your pool water cloudy.

B. Pool Pump and Filtration systems
It is inevitable that your pool water circulation and filtration systems are efficient. For this you need to ensure that:

- Return eyeball fittings are pointing down properly so that water at the pool bottom is circulating perfectly.
- Your pool pump size is appropriate to clean water efficiently

- filtration system is running enough

- Backwash and clean your filter and replace D.E and cartridge regularly

C. Pool Environment
The Pool environment can also cause cloudy water in your pool. If pool is surrounded by buildings or trees then it will block sunlight. Rain, foreign particles, body oil are other factors that can contribute to cloudy water.

 

 

Scaling on your pool indicates that pool water chemistry is not balanced. Scaling is actually it is crystalline build up of inorganic materials mostly calcium. Scale deposit appears along the waterline of a swimming pool. It is important to get rid of scaling otherwise it can damage your pool and equipment.

Scale is developing on your pool if:
- pH value is high
- alkalinity is high
- high calcium concentration

How To Remove Scaling on Your Pool
In order to remove scaling on your pool, you need to test pool water and if all chemicals are balanced then you need to use Stain & Scale Control.

If you find that pH and Alkalinity are too high then you need to lower the pH and Alkalinity levels are low and fall within their standard respective levels. Afterwards you can use Stain & Scale Control.

Make sure that Calcium Hardness is within range i.e 200-400ppm. If it is high then you can lower it by draining some of pool water and adding more water to swimming pool.

To lower pH use pH Decreaser. Also test if your pH value is within range.

Once your pool Calcium hardness, alkalinity and pH levels are within range, you can use a brush to clean the surface with a surface cleaner.

 

 

If you open your eyes under pool water and feel that your eyes are burning or you experience itchy skin, you may be thinking that it is because of extra chlorine in water. Actually it is due to imbalanced pH and low free chlorine.

To solve this issue you need to:
-adjust pH between 7.4 – 7.6 using pH Increaser or pH Decreaser
-shock your pool with HTH Super Shock

 

 

 

Putting lots of chlorine in your pool? You need to consider following factors that eat up chlorine fast:

- Heavy Usage.
- Due to low pH level, chlorine becomes unstable.
- If Cyanotic Acid level is less than 25 ppm, it will lose 2-4 ppm of chlorine every day.
- Warmer water in pool due to sun, will cause bacteria to grow quicker.

 

Proper filtration and backwashing is must to determine the total chlorine.

Dead algae if in water, is oxidized by chlorine. Organic debris is also one of the reasons so vacuuming and filter backwashing is necessary.

To overcome the chlorine demand issue you need to add stabilizer, clean the skimmer basket and filter, add a phosphate remover and test & balance pH and alkalinity levels.

 

If your pool has corrosive conditions it can create multiple problems like damaging underwater metal surfaces and equipments etc. Use Stain & Scale Control for this purpose.

It is a clear indication that your pool pH level is too low and need to adjust it to the required level. Use pH Increaser so your pool pH level is between 7.4-7.6.