Help! Pool Is Driving Me Insane~~

[Marinemom]

First off, let me say that I am so very glad I found this site~lots of GREAT info, and lots of nice, helpful folks..

Here is a run down of my pool~oh and by the way, husband usually takes care of it but he is out of town and it is up to me...Hence the problem I guess..

16 X 32 inground vinyl, rectangle with sand filter by Hayward I think... Sand was changed about 2 years ago, but pool is about 18 years old. Filter runs great and air jets really blow good.

Opened pool up in April, live in NC, and of course it was green... Did the 'grocery store' chemicals and got it cleaned up in less than a week. BUT... the water has been kinda cloudy in the deep end since then.. Water chemicals have always read good, or so I thought, but now not so sure..

Have had heavy rains for the past month here in the foothills of NC, and we use a solar cover, so I am thinking that now the reason for my cloudy, grey water is from all the rain... Uncovered it on Saturday and it was completely cloudy and you coudn't see the drain in the deep end ( 9ft), so I checked levels and ph was a tad low, got it up and super shocked it with regular household bleach~ cloudy on Sunday and WORSE today....

Here are my chemical checks as of this morning:

TH-100

TC-3

FC-3

B-6

PH-6.8

TA-128

Stabilizer-50

These are all done with a test strip~ I have the liquid test kit too, but ran out of chemicals for several checks, so I just used this for now...

What do I need to do now? Shock the snot out of it, raise ph, lower something, raise something else????? Like I said my husband is usually the 'pool boy' but is out of town and won't be back until the 3rd week of June....I would so appreciate ANY help anyone might could offer... My kids are wanting in the pool but I am a bit nervous with it being so cloudy...

Marinemom in NC

[PaulR]

Definitely raise pH. With it being cloudy since April, probably you weren't really done shocking. I'd keep the chlorine at shock level until it clears up.

--paulr

[Marinemom]

Okay, ph is up to around 7.5 now.

And what exactly is shock level???? Can you tell me exactly how much I need to shock? I have the huge containers of Walmart bleach, but am not sure on the amount for my size pool.. And if I do that will it hurt the vinyl liner by putting so much in there when the level is already high????

See, I told you I am not the pool person at my house.. I have no clue....

Marinemom

[PaulR]

Check this Chlorine/CYA chart to find your shock level based on your stabilizer (CYA) level.

Use the Pool Calculator to figure out how much of what to add to get where you want to be.

When you're adding lots of bleach, the thing to do is pour it in slowly in front of a return jet, so it disperses quickly. If you're adding whole jugs, one suggestion I read was to open up the jug and just lower the whole jug into the pool, so the top is right by the water surface, then tip it over slowly... zero splash.

After you're done adding the bleach it might be a good idea to brush, just to stir things up more and avoid any "puddles" of bleach on the bottom.

--paulr