This is a question we are often asked by our customers. It might be cloudy, milky or even discolored. There are several different things that could be happening to your water that can cause these things to occur, some are simple to address, and some require time to address properly. The biggest thing to keep in mind is to NOT jump to adding chemicals right away, like a clarifier. They might not do what you want.
The first and most common problem is simply your disinfectant may not be high enough. Whether it’s chlorine, cal-hypo, bromine or any other disinfectant, you need to make sure that your levels are high enough to actually clean your water. Having 1ppm chlorine in your water most of the time is not going to be enough. Some may run into a situation where 2ppm isn’t enough if you have a high bather load, people in and out of your pool in one day, moving through your pool. You need to make sure that you are using enough disinfectant to keep your water sanitized. This will prevent algae blooms and natural growths from occurring and helps break down other contaminants that swimmers will bring, including urine and solid fecal matter incidents. “Well, I have an outdoor pool that I use cyanuric acid in to make sure my chlorine lasts all day, but I still don’t have clear water.” You also need to make sure that you don’t use too much cyanuric acid because if you shield the chlorine too well from the sun, then it can’t do its job at keeping your pool clean.
“My water is milky looking.” Have you checked your total alkalinity? Having too much sodium bicarbonate can turn your water milky looking if there is too much. “My alkalinity is fine. What else?” Next have you looked at your calcium hardness? Too much calcium may not be as concentrated of a white milkiness to it, but it usually still has some white to it. These two instances are a little easier to diagnose.
“My water is green/brown. Please help.” As we mentioned, green water can indicate that you already have algae that is growing in your pool and can be hard to combat if you don’t use enough disinfectant. A lot of people will go immediately to a shock treatment, which is fine to do but you want to make sure that you don’t over chlorinate your water either. You may only need to bring your pool up to 6-8ppm of chlorine, but you put in enough to go to 20ppm. Now you have a situation that unless you add yet another chemical to neutralize that chlorine, you must wait some time to come back down to safe levels. Also, depending on the type of shock you use, you may be introducing other chemicals to your pool other than just chlorine. Many shock chemicals also use a lot of calcium in them. If your water is brown, check your pH in the water. It’s possible you may have overfed on acid and dropped the pH down too far.
A very useful tool for helping keep your water clear is balancing your water to LSI. A lot of residential pool owners don’t usually worry about LSI, but if you did it can be surprising on how much not only will it help with water clarity but also your pool equipment, such as pumps, filters and other components you may have. Balancing to LSI means checking your pH, water temperature, alkalinity, calcium hardness and your TDS. Basically, it means your double checking your water is not corrosive or scaling. For more information on LSI, check out our other blog post: “How to use LSI for my pool.”
There are several other factors that can affect your water color and clarity, like too much iron or copper in the water but those are less likely. Try the above troubleshooting steps first and you’d be surprised how often your issues can clear up without the assistance of additional chemicals. If you have any other questions, please feel free to reach out to us and one of our technicians will be more than happy to assist.
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