Possible Causes of a Cloudy Pool:
1. The Pool Filter
Your pool's filtration system constantly cleans the water in your pool. Without it, water stagnates and can become cloudy. In nine out of ten cases, pool water quality issues are attributed to filtration. If your pool water is cloudy, one possibility is that something is wrong with your sand or cartridge filter.
2. The Surroundings
Anything surrounding your swimming pool can cause your water to become cloudy. Environmental factors include weather, birds, construction, trees and plants, the sun, people, and pool algae. All these factors and more can affect the water quality in the pool.
3. Pool Chemicals
An excess of pool chemicals can be the cause of poor water quality in the pool. High pH levels, high alkalinity, over-chlorination or other disinfectants, and high calcium hardness are common causes. If you run your filter as usual, these values should balance out over time, but if you have an imbalance, we recommend testing your water and addressing the issue.
What Can You Do to Clear a Cloudy Pool?
1. Test Your Water
Although you can clearly see that your pool water is cloudy, you cannot immediately determine the cause. This is where a pool water test kit can be very useful. With a test kit, you can measure various factors affecting water quality, allowing you to balance your water. Usually, you have two options for testing your pool water. You can purchase test strips that you dip into a water sample to measure pH, chlorine, total alkalinity, and calcium hardness. Remember that high alkalinity, high pH, and high calcium hardness can lead to cloudy water. Another option is to purchase a kit containing reagents that you add to the water. The reagents cause the water to change color depending on the chlorine present or the pH level. Regardless of the testing method you use, it's important to properly collect water from your pool.
2. Use a Pool Clarifier
Sometimes, a little preventive maintenance is just what you need to keep your pool water crystal clear. A pool clarifier helps reduce cloudiness in pool water. The clarifier causes tiny particles in the water to clump together. Your swimming pool's filter can then better filter out the larger particle clumps and remove them from the water.
3. Use Flocculant
Flocculant is similar to a pool clarifier but not the same. When using pool flocculant, you dissolve the powder in water and then distribute it over the surface of your swimming pool. Turn off the filter pump and wait for up to 48 hours. During this time, the particles clouding your swimming pool should clump together. Instead of moving through the filter, however, they collect on the bottom of the pool. To clean the water, you should vacuum the particle clumps with a manual pool vacuum.
4. Chlorinate Your Cloudy Pool
There are three methods to do this:
A Floating Chlorine Dispenser
A floating chlorine dispenser is a small container for chlorine pucks that floats on the surface of your swimming pool, slowly dissolving and releasing chlorine into the water. This is the cheapest and easiest way to chlorinate. It's also the least effective. Because it floats on the surface, it may not distribute well due to lack of circulation, leading to poor water quality in the pool.
Your Pool's Skimmer Basket
Your filtration system is designed to draw water from your pool, clean it, and circulate it. An essential part of this system is the skimmer. The skimmer can be used for chlorination in your swimming pool.
All you need to do is place chlorine (preferably in tablet form) into the skimmer, and it will dissolve the chlorine through the filter system into your pool water.
An Automatic Chlorinator
An automatic chlorinating device is connected to your filtration system and continuously adds a measured amount of chlorine to your swimming pool on autopilot.
All you have to do is supply the device with chlorine (preferably in tablet form), and it will dispense as much chlorine as you set it to through the regulator. This way, you can best regulate the water quality in the pool.