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Problem Pool Water: I'm Doing Everything Right. Why Is My Pool Cloudy?

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Author: Rob Coxworth

It's high summer, the weather is hot and your pool is in constant use. You test your water, keep the chlorine up and shock like you're supposed to but the pool looks cloudy. The pool stays stubbornly cloudy despite your best efforts. What's up with that?

It’s high summer, the weather is hot and your pool is in constant use. You test your water, keep the chlorine up and shock like you’re supposed to but the pool looks cloudy. The pool stays stubbornly cloudy despite your best efforts. What’s up with that?

Here’s the scoop. Your pool is having contaminants added too fast for chlorine and your filter to handle. Chlorine is an oxidizer. It chemically burns complex organics from swimmers and the environment like sweat, sun tan lotion, dust and other stuff best left unmentioned. It reduces these nitrogen-based chemicals to simpler compounds and makes them useless to algae and bacteria as food. This keeps your pool clean and sanitary.

During hot weather and heavy swimming chlorine is being used up at a much higher rate and needs constant replenishment. In addition, sunlight breaks down chlorine with ultraviolet radiation. Given lots of chlorine working on lots of contaminants the oxidized, broken-down material never gets a chance to be properly filtered. It stays suspended in the water causing cloudiness despite your test parameters being good.

OK, WHAT CAN I DO?

There are several things that can be done to improve the appearance of your pool water.

-Try a floccing agent. Available at any pool store, a floccing agent drops suspended material to the bottom of the pool overnight so that it can be vacuumed out.

-Run the pump and filter 24/7 until the weather breaks and cooler temps arrive. Make sure your filter is clean. Backwash more often if necessary.

-Take a one day swimming break to let the chlorine and your filter catch up. (This is a last resort.)

Use the steps above and your pool water should clear up quickly. Oh yeah, take a swimming break in a heat wave? I was kidding about that one.