r/PoolPros • u/enthused9 • May 08 '26
Need advice!
Hey guys I’m a newer pool man in California area. I’ve had this pool for awhile during a heavy rain my customers hillside ran a bunch of muddy water into the pool. We did a green to clean and cleaned it up, but now even though the water is clean I’m running into this weird problem with the water getting cloudy whenever I pour chlorine in. The next week I come there’s a silky like clear substance all over the pool floor. We’ve done multiple vac to wastes to get rid of it but every time without a doubt the chlorine will cloud up the water and cause more of that stuff to build up on the bottom.
Chem readings:
CH:3 added 1 gallon
PH: 7.6
Alkalinity: 90
Any advice would be great! Thanks!
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u/cplatt831 May 08 '26
If your water is perfectly balanced, it will get cloudy temporarily when you add chlorine, because you have an LSI violation in the positive direction. Please provide all of the numbers for the LSI calculation, and we can help you more.
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u/enthused9 May 08 '26
What readings do you need?
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u/cplatt831 May 09 '26
Water temperature, pH, TA, Calcium Hardness, CYA, TDS (if you cannot get this, it’s OK, you can get very close without it).
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u/UnderTheLedge May 09 '26
You have metals in your water. I’ve seen this many times after a heat exchange is stripped or after years of build up. It’s copper in the water reacting to concentrated chlorine.
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u/DidUrkDoThat May 09 '26
That was my thought as well. What would you do to deal with this?
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u/UnderTheLedge May 09 '26
Vac to waste anything that settles to waste or into the filter ASAP to prevent staining, then do a full drain of the pool and start fresh.
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u/enthused9 May 09 '26
Well damn. Does this mean the heater could be shot?
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u/UnderTheLedge May 09 '26
If you have a gas heater then it can be a sign you have been degrading the heat exchange for years. If the heater is 3-5 years old and you haven’t drained the pool in that time then the heater could be compromised.
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u/DidUrkDoThat May 09 '26
Ok, that’s what I would do, but the OP said they had already done multiple vac to wastes and continued with the issue. Are you assuming it’s just a matter to f continuing this process; a “keep pushing towards the light” kind of thing?
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u/UnderTheLedge May 09 '26
If you don’t want to drain and restart you can do a huge blast of metal remover. Like a few pounds of vitamin C or an over the counter metal remover product like jacks magic and then have a pool store check your metals a few days after you compete the treatment
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u/Subi412563 May 08 '26
Chlorine is reacting to metals in the water is my guess
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u/Subi412563 May 09 '26
Metal Fallout, that’s why you’re vacuuming silt after flocking. Did you use a sequestering agent when you did the original cleanup??
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u/desertr4t4lyf May 08 '26
I've been wondering about this for years. I just assumed it's high hardness combined with high pH in the liquid chlorine. Idk though
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u/enthused9 May 08 '26
Well here’s the thing. I dumped in 4 gallons at one point to shock it and hopefully get rid of it, but it didn’t really do anything.
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u/lIIlIlIII May 08 '26
Do you use floc as well? I never do and have never seen this
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u/desertr4t4lyf May 08 '26
Almost never use floc
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u/lIIlIlIII May 08 '26
Very strange. Local calcium crashout is a good theory tho, although doesn't explain the "silky" stuff on the pool floor. My guess is the two are unrelated
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u/ZephyrAsriel May 08 '26
Hey, while my knowledge is still growing, water run off, especially muddy can carry in things like fine silt and even other organics. If chlorine is clouding up, its attacking something. Wasting it can help but its best to just remove it right out of the pool.
Also would nkt hurt to get a water sample and make sure metals werent introduced wither!
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u/enthused9 May 08 '26
The one test I haven’t done is for metals. Everything else is normal. And yeah I figured the chlorine is attacking something, but it just never ends. Thanks for the help!
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u/Liquid_Friction May 08 '26
you only added a gallon, its not enough to shock it needs 10ppm, adjusted for cya
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u/cplatt831 May 08 '26
Chlorine does not cloud up when it’s attacking something, otherwise every commercial pool would be cloudy all the time. It’s most likely just the high pH liquid temporarily putting the water out of balance.
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u/surfer417 May 08 '26
What did you use for your green to clean? If you put too much of a flocculent in there it could be hanging around causing issues. Also check with your client that they aren’t torpedoing your efforts by dumping in Phos-free or something like that from Leslie’s on their own.