An at-home swimming pool is a luxury, but that doesn’t mean it is easy to take care of during the entire spring and summer seasons. After spending hours opening and vacuuming the pool, you may only be disappointed when your water won’t clear up. If you are desperate to learn how to clear cloudy pool water fast, you’ll be happy to know that there are some efficient solutions.
Taking care of the pool only to find that the water looks dirty is frustrating. Why is my pool cloudy? Why won’t these standard cleaning methods work? What works on some pools doesn’t necessarily mean those methods work on yours.
Figure out how to clear up a cloudy pool using some cleaning tactics. Swimming pools are complex, and there are a lot of chemicals and science involved in the process. Try out some of these pool-cleaning techniques and see what works best to get rid of cloudy pool water.
Why is My Pool Cloudy?
The answer to why your pool is always cloudy isn’t always straightforward. Whether you have cloudy water in above ground pool or an inground pool, murky pool water is often a problem.
Swimming pools have many moving parts, and you have to make sure that each is working correctly to eliminate cloudy pool water.
Aside from the complex filtration system in many pools, you have to understand the basic chemistry of the water to get it clean. You are not alone if you still have cloudy pool water after shocking it.
People get frustrated when the water is not crystal clear, but they don’t understand that numerous things could be wrong.
The pool filter could be broken, chlorine levels could be low, or the other chemical levels might not be at the right parts per million (ppm) for your pool size.
Cloudiness in the pool is an indication that something is wrong, and your pool chemicals or pool pump might have to be adjusted. If you need to get the swimming pool ready for summer, use this pool guide to reference some possible issues.
How to Clear Cloudy Pool Water Fast
Troubleshooting is an important part of everyday care for a swimming pool. Knowing how to clear up a cloudy pool isn’t always easy. If you’ve stayed on top of your pool maintenance and are still stuck with water cloudiness, it’s time to look into other options for why the water isn’t clear.
Is It the Environment?
Don’t go into too much of a panic if you just cleaned your pool and the water is still cloudy. The environment around you may be the issue and not the fault of the pool owners. What causes algae in pools?
Everything around your swimming pool might be turning the water gray. The weather, plants, the sun is, birds, algae, and even people swimming in it could create the problem.
However, if you narrowed it down and are sure that none of these factors is the issue, it is time to dive into more in-depth problem solving.
How to Clear Cloudy Pool Water Fast
Your pool chemicals are the most significant contributor to cloudy water. Too much or not enough creates massive imbalances in the total alkalinity, pH, free chlorine, and cyanuric acid.
If any of these numbers are thrown off, you’ve likely found what is responsible. Pool algae and contaminants will find their way into the water, and a test kit is one of the fastest ways to keep these levels in check. It’s important to know the pH level to fix a green pool and bring back clear water as soon as you can.
Purchase a water chemistry test kit from your local pool place to ensure that all of the levels are where they are supposed to be. These test strips offer results for chlorine levels, alkalinity, free chlorine, phosphates, high calcium hardness, cyanuric acid, and pH.
The accurate levels of some of these factors are between 1.0 to 3.0 ppm for chlorine, 80 to 140 ppm for alkaline, 25 to 50 ppm for cyanuric acid, 200 to 400 ppm for calcium hardness, and between 7.4 and 7.6 for pH levels.
Tiny particles of something may be floating around in your pool, and the only way to get rid of them is to make sure you don’t have a high pH, high alkalinity, or other levels that are off.
Check the Filter System
A cartridge filter, sand filter, or DE filter are the three types you might be using on your pool. Regardless of the kind you have, the filter must be working properly and running for at least ten straight hours every single day.
If the filter isn’t clean, dirt and other particles get filtered back into the pool and make the water cloudy. If you have a pool with a backwashing system, ensure that you are doing this consistently.
Backwashing cleans out the filter and gets rid of dirty water so that when you turn the filter back on, it works as a water clarifier. If you have a cartridge filter, the best way to clean a cartridge pool filter is to do it regularly. Keep up on cleaning the cartridges as much as possible so that the algae doesn’t go back into the pool.
How to Clear Up a Cloudy Pool
Using a pool clarifier to clear the water is one of the easiest ways to get your swimming pool in working condition. Pool sanitizer gathers the tiny particles floating around in the water and clumps them together to create bigger particles.
The filter has a better chance of picking the clumps up so that they either get stuck in the filter and are ready to be back washed or so that you can vacuum your pool to get the pieces that fall to the bottom.
Chloramines to Clean Pool Water
Chloramine products like pool flocculant, or floc, are a great idea if you want to get the pool cleaned quickly. This product works within 24 hours so that your swimming pool is ready to use overnight.
Although it works fast, it isn’t the easiest cleaning method. Pool floc gathers all the particles that make your water cloudy and puts them at the bottom of your pool.
The filter will not pick up the particles. Instead, use a manual vacuum cleaner to get them into your pump. While vacuuming, the filter setting has to be set to the backwash option to get it out of your pool and not clog the filter.
Using the Bottom Drain
The pool skimmer is at the top of your pool and doesn’t help collect the particles that sit on the bottom. Getting those particles at the bottom of the pool is just as important as those at the top.
You have to help the filters suck up those particles, and the best way to do that is to constantly stir up the water or turn on the bottom drains.
Every inground pool has one or two bottom drains. The filter system uses these to pour water from the bottom of the pool and circulate clean water to the top.
If you already tested your water chemistry and utilized the pool shock, this might be the next best option.
Clear a Cloudy Pool with Baking Soda
You may have heard that people use baking soda to clear a cloudy pool. Although it is possible, you should only use baking soda to increase low alkalinity levels. If your alkaline levels are low, start buying about eight to ten pounds of baking soda in bulk.
Use one and a half pounds of baking soda for every 10,000 gallons of water in your pool. Add the baking soda directly to the pool in its powder form and wait at least six hours for it to dissolve into the water.
Use the pool brush to stir the powder into the water. Keep your filter on to help the baking soda disperse. Retest the levels after 24 hours and adjust as needed.
Using Calcium Hypochlorite to Clean Pool Water
When learning how to clear cloudy pool water fast, some people want to use chemicals that get the job done quickly.
Calcium hypochlorite is an inorganic compound found in bleaching and chlorine powder. Follow the directions on the packaging before using this strong chemical in your pool.
Why is my pool cloudy after so much hard work? Getting rid of build up in your pool is incredibly frustrating. After putting in so much time and back-breaking work to get everything clean, it’s an even bigger hassle to deal with water that refuses to clear up.
Instead of getting flustered, do your best to work through these solutions and teach yourself how to clean a cloudy pool so that you’re prepared in the future.
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