Cloudy Water

Straighten up! It is important to make sure your pool is properly balanced. Bring your water to Family Pools for a free analysis. Cloudy water is tricky. Different pools require different solutions and sometimes a few attempts at finding the right solution. Once you find the right product for your pool, try to remember the name of that product. You may need it again.

If your pool is balanced and your sanitizer level is high enough (and you didn't just bring it up to level and expect instant results), try a "water clarifier" such as Family Pools Pool Perfect or Pool Polish (the "blue stuff") or an Aquapill 2. Follow directions on the container. Unfortunately there is no 100% guarantee that any particular product will work 100% on any particular pool at any given time. For instance, Pool Perfect may give your neighbor a "perfect pool" while you still have an "Irish" pool or vice versa. If you have a sand filter, find out which product your pool responds best to, stock up, and use it for routine preventative maintenance weekly.

Flock or DE Powder may also be used as filter aids. Flock can be added to sand filters to help increase filtration by backwashing and adding it to the skimmer according to the directions. DE Powder can be used with both sand or cartridge filters. With sand filters, don't use more than one to one and a half pounds to the skimmer, less for above grounds. Run the filter twenty-four hours per day until the pool clears. Once you backwash again, the powder will be gone. If you have a cartridge filter such as Sta-rite's Modular Media filter, we recommend that you add 5 lbs of DE to the skimmer with the filter running. If the flow in your system is poor, hose down the filter then add the DE Powder. If the flow is good, simply add the DE Powder to the skimmer. Once the pool clears, if necessary, you should hose the filter down to regain good circulation. The DE Powder coats the outside of your filter elements and traps fine particles that are otherwise passing through. This treatment would not be necessary on most pools with this system, and if necessary, is usually only needed in the Spring for initial clean-up. If you find that you have this problem year after year don't even hesitate . . . open your pool, pour the DE in, shock the pool heavily, vacuum, balance the water, and once clear, hose down the filter, and enjoy your summer! Now available . . . new DE internals for your cartridge filter. If you have continuous cloudy problems, please ask us.

If you have a DE filter, have balanced water and sufficient sanitizer, and continue to have cloudy water or if you notice white powder shooting into the pool from the return lines when the filter first turns on, you may have an internal filter problem. Take the filter apart and check the fingers or grids for rips or tears. If you have a Perflex filter, check the two plates that the fingers connect to for cracks. If the DE is coming out of the main drain or feeding back into the pump housing, check the check valve on the bottom of the tank. If you have a Vertical Grid filter, check the O-ring on the stack pipe inside. If the grids and O-ring are okay, check the multiport valve. The spoke gasket inside the multiport could be worn. Ask our Parts representative to instruct you on the proper installation of a new gasket if necessary.

If you have a sand filter and the pool does not clear with filter aids and liquid water clarifiers, turn to the Last Resort or Flock as a settling agent. Read the label for directions. You will have to vacuum the settled debris on "waste". This method almost always works, probably 98% of the time. If you haven't changed the sand in over five years, you may want to consider that too (notice I said "too" not instead of . . .). Changing the sand alone does not usually clear the pool. Now available . . . Zeolite, a new improved filter media for sand filters to filter out a finer particle. When changing your sand, inquire with our staff..

Please note that you should keep your chlorine high when the pool is cloudy & you should always drain the tank before removing and hosing down your cartridge or DE filter elements.