How To Fix A Cloudy Swimming Pool

Sometimes when you have a cloudy swimming pool it can be very difficult and time consuming to get it clear. Or sometimes it happens over night. Here Are some tips & tricks to help you clear that pool quickly.

USE A POOL WATER CLARIFIER

Its always a good idea to use some sort of pool water clarifier. What this chemical does is gather the tiny particles that are making your pool water cloudy and bring them together to create bigger particles so that your filter will have a better chance of picking it up. This is called a coagulant which is a term used when describing blood clots. The particles alone will have a hard time being picked up by your pool filter so this chemical "clots" them together and your filter now will be able to trap them.

Most swimming pool chemical retailers will carry more than one form of swimming pool clarifier. Just ask if the chemcial is a coagulant and you will be well on your way to a crystal clear swimming pool.

USE A POOL WATER FLOCCULANT

A chemical called Floc or Flocculant is a great idea if you are in a rush or would like to see your swimming pool cleared up quickly. Lets say you have a pool party tomorrow and your swimming pool is cloudy, by using Floc you can clear your cloudy swimming pool overnight. Floccing your swimming pool is a great method, but this method is also very time consuming and can be difficult. The way the Flocculant chemical works is by gathering all the particles that are making your water cloudy and sending them to the bottom of your pool creating a huge cloud. So unlike a water clarifier, this chemical WON'T help your filter to pick up the particles because all of the cloudy pool particles are now at the bottom. At this point you will need to manually vacuum up that cloud through your filter. But when doing this you want your filter setting to be on the waste or backwash option (if you are using a DE filter or Cartridge Filter make sure that the drain plug is removed.

The idea here is to vacuum up the cloudy water right OUT of your pool because putting that much dirty water through your filter WON'T work and will send that dirty water right back in. By vacuuming out to waste it will never run through your filter. You are going to lose water in your pool so make sure to keep a fresh hose of running water in your pool during vacuuming. Also you must use a manual vacuum for the process. Automatic pool cleaners will not work and will just end up blowing the cloudy your created at the bottom of your pool right back up.Again it is difficult and a lot of water is wasted but it will clear your pool in one day.

USE YOUR BOTTOM DRAIN (AboveGround & Inground Pools)

Cloudy pool water seems to gather near the bottom of your swimming pool. This is because your pool's skimmer is located at the top of your pool and helps to clear the top, not to mention gravity. So most of the cloudy pool particles are closer to the bottom. Knowing this we need to help the filter get to those particles. We can achieve this two ways: we can constantly stir up the water so that it pushes the particles closer to the top of the pool so that can reach the skimmer or we can just turn on the bottom drains.

Every inground pool should be equipped with bottom drains, so it's easy for us to utlilize them. This will allow the filter to start pulling water off the bottom of the pool, where the cloudy particles are, and circulate the clean water back to the top. This works great but what if you have an above ground pool that doesn't have bottom drains?

We have come up with a little trick to mimic the effect of a bottom drain. Simply hook up your manual vacuum cleaner as if you were about to vacuum your pool but instead, leave the vacuum at the bottom (in the middle of your pool) and turn it upside down. Now your pool filter will be pulling water from the bottom of your swimming pool using your manual vacuum and releasing the clean filtered water up top.

These are three different methods of how to clear a cloudy pool by using swimming pool chemicals and your pool's equipment. Check out some of our related articles to get more information about cloudy swimming pools.