Cloudy water smells salty after CalHypo shock?

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david8753

Member
Sep 5, 2023
17
Citrus Heights, CA
Pool Size
25000
Surface
Plaster
Chlorine
Liquid Chlorine
Hey folks,

I’ve had cloudy water after doing a Zero Alkalinity acid treatment for about a week trying to rebalance the chemicals.

I decided to do a CalHypo shock and strangely the water started tasting salty. No Chloramine smell either which normally is good…but it’s weird.

We don’t have a SWG.

Anyone know what could cause that?
 
Cal hypo can make water cloudy several hours/days after adding, but I've never heard of it making the water taste salty.

Do you know your salt level in the pool? I can start to get a hint of salt taste at around 3,200 ppm in my pool. Also what products were used in this zero alkalinity acid treatment?
 
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drsipe said:
Can you post a full set of test results from a proper test kit?
Click to expand...
I’m waiting on a proper test kit after realizing mine is inadequate. So this is a mix of pool store info and my testing until I get my TF-Pro in 5 days:

FC probably around 15 ppm but I can’t test higher than 5 ppm (used pool math to calculate SLAM)
CC again, can’t really test that high but it was >.05 ppm
PH was 7.2 but it’s shocked now so doesn’t matter
TA 120
CH 160 (from pool store)
CYA 40
Water temp 79

I recently did a 50% dilution off the back of my zero Alkalinity acid treatment.

I read a bit about this online and they were saying that it could be because my TDS and calcium hardness or too low. Which would make sense off the back of a recent dilution.

I won’t be able to reliably Tess, either of these levels until my kit comes in so for purposes of this post we can treat this as a theoretical exercise until I can get hard numbers
 
JJ_Tex said:
Cal hypo can make water cloudy several hours/days after adding, but I've never heard of it making the water taste salty.

Do you know your salt level in the pool? I can start to get a hint of salt taste at around 3,200 ppm in my pool. Also what products were used in this zero alkalinity acid treatment?
Click to expand...
I used muriatic acid to drop the total alkalinity zero.

I used about 5 pounds of ascorbic acid to locally pull the copper stains up

Used Metal Free metal sequestrant to sequester the metal. Around this time the pool became cloudy

I then diluted the pool 50% and then continued to add liquid chlorine over the course of about a week until it was holding.

I have CuLator packets in the pool and talked to their customer service who informed me that the product only works if the metal is free (not sequestered), plus my phosphates were absurdly high (+3000) so I used PR-1000 in the pool (to both free the metal and kill the phosphate levels) This made my pool cloudier (as expected)

yesterday, after testing 0.1 ppm copper, I shocked the pool with CalHypo at sunset and put in some pool clarifier 4 hours later (Super Blue)
I guess at this point I would say it smells a little salty, but I tasted a bit again and am not getting a salty taste...just kinda tastes like a lot of chlorine (surprise surprise)

At this point my (admittedly non-expert) research has me thinking the cloudiness is one (or more) of three things:
1. dead algae/bacteria (CC was 0 so I don't think its that)
2. insoluble phosphate residue from the PR-10000 (But I added that 5 days ago so should have cleared up by now)
3. low calcium hardness primarily contributing to a negative CSI which is causing plaster to continue to slowly leech into the pool
 
david8753 said:
I used muriatic acid to drop the total alkalinity zero.

I used about 5 pounds of ascorbic acid to locally pull the copper stains up

Used Metal Free metal sequestrant to sequester the metal. Around this time the pool became cloudy

I then diluted the pool 50% and then continued to add liquid chlorine over the course of about a week until it was holding.

I have CuLator packets in the pool and talked to their customer service who informed me that the product only works if the metal is free (not sequestered), plus my phosphates were absurdly high (+3000) so I used PR-1000 in the pool (to both free the metal and kill the phosphate levels) This made my pool cloudier (as expected)

yesterday, after testing 0.1 ppm copper, I shocked the pool with CalHypo at sunset and put in some pool clarifier 4 hours later (Super Blue)
I guess at this point I would say it smells a little salty, but I tasted a bit again and am not getting a salty taste...just kinda tastes like a lot of chlorine (surprise surprise)

At this point my (admittedly non-expert) research has me thinking the cloudiness is one (or more) of three things:
1. dead algae/bacteria (CC was 0 so I don't think its that)
2. insoluble phosphate residue from the PR-10000 (But I added that 5 days ago so should have cleared up by now)
3. low calcium hardness primarily contributing to a negative CSI which is causing plaster to continue to slowly leech into the pool
Click to expand...
You’ve got quite the chemical soup in there now. Will wait for more expert advice to come along. The TFP advice would have been to dump the water to get rid of the copper instead of risking the other stuff.
 
Yes, you have quite a bit going on. Until your test kit arrives I would hold off on any other chemical additions except for chlorine (liquid chlorine is the best choice). Then we can figure out what you have going on and how to tackle it.

If you want your true salt reading, you can order this kit for under $40. Most non-salt pools have a surprising amount of salt in them from the chemicals they have added over the years. If you exchanged 50% it shouldn't be that bad but if it smells salty that is a relatively cheap way to figure out if the smell is salt or something else.

tftestkits.net

Taylor K-1766 Salt Test Kit

tftestkits.net tftestkits.net
 
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The glaring question is - where did the copper come from & are you taking steps to prevent more?
Also, do you have a heater? If so, I hope you bypassed it when performing this zero alkalinity exercise.
As you mentioned & noticed- the sequestrant is known to make the water cloudy as well as the phos remover.
You’ve got alot going on.
Let’s wait for the test results.
 
Alright. Turns out my neighbor has the Taylor Test Kit Reagents for CH. So here we go:

FC 11 (Pool is currently Shocked)
CC 0
PH 7.4 (But its shocked so doesn't matter)
TA 130
CH 290 (Wow was the pool store wrong lol)
CYA 40
Free Copper .15
Water temp 79

Other questions:
We just moved in a year ago and inherited this pool so I am not sure where the copper came from originally, however our house has copper pipes. I tested the source and it has copper AND iron in it.
I ended up purchasing a large pre-filter that I just installed a couple of days ago and the water coming out now has 0 copper (I tested 5 times over the last 2 days)

The pool does not have a heater, however It looks like from the hookups that it used to.

Filter is a Hayward C3025. I put in brand new cartridges 5 months ago and replaced the manifold and the outlet elbow because they had cracks in them. Filter seems to be working great. It is catching stuff (inside of it is almost milky cloudy when i open it up. Cleaned the cartridges 2 days ago and pressure is 10 psi (What its supposed to be). Filter has been running 24/7 for the last week since I brought the alkalinity and ph back up to a non-super acidic level

Besides the shock and clarifier last night, and a steady supply of liquid chlorine, I have not added anything to the pool in 3 days. It has not gotten noticeably less cloudy in that time
 
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Shock/slam level for cya of 40 is 16ppm
FC/CYA Levels
While the ph test is invalid at fc levels above 10ppm you’re not at shock level.
Btw - what is this “shock” product you’re using?
How have you been chlorinating the pool?
Been Using algaecides?

Copper in Pool Water - Further Reading

www.google.com www.google.com
 
I have been using Liquid Chlorine every day. I am using CalHypo Shock (HTH 52037)

I used a non-metal Algecide one time when I had the Zero Alkalinity state (Sorry forgot to mention that)

I suppose I also forgot to mention that I used baking soda to bring the PH+TA back up after it was done.

I didn’t have enough shock on hand to get to 16ppm, but I also passed 2 of the 3 criteria for SLAM (only one was cloudy water). I figured I would put what I had in there and see if it made any discernible affect at all on the cloudy water and buy more if it does…it doesn’t seem to.

I’m out of shock, happy to go buy more if someone thinks that may help…but as stated above I have a bit of a chemical soup going on here. I would think that even at a +10ppm if elevated chlorine was the solution then it would at least look somewhat better right?

Maybe I’m not thinking like a proper chemist here? Open to suggestions of what to do…but my plan was to keep the FC at 5ppm with my liquid chlorine, keep that filter clean and running 24/7. Maybe say a prayer to whatever the Greek water god dude and hope something improves over the next 48-72 hours.

Maybe it will. If not, then I’m all out of ideas.

Serious Question: Am I thinking about this the wrong way?
 
Stop the use of CalHypo. It raises your CH and clouds the water.
Use liquid chlorine to maintain the FC levels necessary for normal maintenance and SLAM.

No more clarifier either.
 
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