Here is a common scenario you may run into if multiple issues cause the cloudy water. Say there was a pool party over the weekend, and the pool was very cloudy on Monday. It could be a combination of the heavy bather load plus the pool running out of chlorine, combined with the organics in the water creating Combined Chlorine, or the filter being dirty due to the suntan lotion and organics in the water. You can see how all of this comes together and how each can contribute to the cloudy water.
So, it is more complex than the causes and solutions below. It may take longer to correct if it is a combination of things, or you may need to do more steps. For example, in the above combination, you can backwash the pool filter or clean it apart. Run the pool pump for 24 hours and add chlorine to a shock level of 10 ppm. If you said chlorine but did not clean the filter or run the pool for 24 hours, the cloudy water issue may not disappear. Or if you cleaned the filter and ran the pool for 24 hours but didn't raise the chlorine level to 10 ppm, the cloudy water may persist. Below are some common causes and solutions, but remember that you may need to combine the solutions in a scenario with multiple causes.
#1 Cause: No chlorine in the pool. It seems like a simple thing, but it happens all the time. If you get busy and must remember to check the pool, scorching weather, heavy rain, or a pool party, all can zero out your chlorine level.
Solution: Simply bringing the chlorine level up to 10 ppm in your pool will reverse the cloudy water - known as "Shocking the pool." Also, run your pool longer to help speed up the process.
#2 Cause: Combined Chlorine. Have you ever smelled a chemical like the smell at a hotel or the local YMCA? Chlorine has no odor, and what you smell is combined chlorine. Chloramines are now in the water, and not only do you get an ammonia smell, but the water will be cloudy.
Solution: Raising the chlorine to 20 ppm will cure this. Sometimes, you must raise it to 30 ppm, basically super chlorinating the pool to kill the ammonia that has formed in the water.
#3 Cause: Need to run the pool longer. You need at least one cycle of water through your pool each day. One cycle is all the pool water going through the filter and back into the pool. If the chlorine is fine but the water is cloudy, you will likely need to run the long enough.
Solution: Set your pool to run longer.
#4 Cause: A filter leak. This happens mainly with D.E. filters; a filter leak can cause your water to be very cloudy or partly cloudy.
Solution: Take the filter apart and inspect it; if there are broken grids, simply replacing them will solve the problem.
#5 Cause: Adding Soda Ash or Baking Soda to the pool. When you add a base to the pool, it can become cloudy for a short period. It should clear up after a few hours or by the next day. An excellent way to avoid this is to add the base directly to the skimmer.
Solution: Manually vacuum up the dust on the pool bottom, and the pool will clear up very quickly. #6 Cause: High Alkalinity or High Calcium Hardness. It is not very common, but this could also cause your pool to be cloudy. But these need to be very high for this to happen.
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