Why is My Swimming Pool Water Hazy? Guide to Your Salt or Chlorine Pool

Hazy pool water is not pretty, and a green pool is even uglier. A cloudy pool or a hazy pool often can indicate a chemical imbalance or the filtration system. Your blue, yet hazy pool will most likely be on its way to grow algae. This can be easily fixed when knowing what to look for or what to troubleshoot. First thing to determine is if your pool is salt or chlorine? Check below and follow the troubleshooting guide for the appropriate conditions and pool. 

Salt Swimming Pool

How is the salt chlorine generator? Does it have any flashing lights or errors? If so what are they? Check below for common error codes/issues on standard salt systems like Hayward and Pentair. Choose your salt system below…

Pentair

Does your IntelliChlor salt cell have a light flashing? Check below for common errors and quick fixes.

1.  Cell Cold, your water temperature in your swimming pool is too cold for the salt system to generate chlorine. Usually temperatures below 50f cause issues. In the meantime you can supplement your pool with liquid chlorine/or dry chlorine as a last option. Having no chlorine will cause cloudy pool water. 
2. Flow, if the flow light is red on your IntelliChlor, you most likely either have a flow issue with the pool motor/filter, or there is something inside the salt cell that is blocking water flow. If you haven’t cleaned your salt cell or have had high pH, this will cause scaling to occurs on the inner plates of the salt cell, the part that does all the converting of salt to chlorine for your pool. Take the Pentair IntelliChlor off the pipe. Inspect the plates of the cell on the inside. Do you see white flakes or scale? They should look like clean metal and not rough. If you have scaling, you need to clean the salt cell with a mix of pool acid and water. Usually a 3 (acid) to 1 (water) ratio. 
3. Low salt, this is a super easy fix… assuming you don’t have scaling on your cell. Make sure to test the pool salt with a digital pool salt tester first before adding salt, as sometimes the cell can read wrong, especially if dirty, and can cause you to over salt the pool. If you don’t have scaling on the cell and your salt test shows below 2,700ppm salt, go ahead and add some salt to bring it to above 3,200ppm. Don’t go above 3,800ppm. 
   
   

Hayward T-Cell Salt Systems

1. Low salt, this is an indication that you need to check your pool water for salt with a digital salt tester (sometimes the panel box readings are not accurate or it is just showing the last stored memory of the salt level, not the current), or take it in to a pool store to test the ppm of salt in your swimming pool. If the cell is dirty or has scale, this will cause false readings at the salt system, or make it not be able to generate chlorine, leading to hazy pool water. If you have no scale and the cell looks good, and salt readings are indeed below 2,700ppm, go ahead and add some salt to bring it up to the proper level. A swimming pool around 10,000 gallon pool would need 1 1/2 to 2 bags of 40lb pool salt to bring it to the proper range. Hayward salt cells like the T-Cell line of salt systems Hayward has, only generate between 2,700ppm to about 3,600ppm. 3,200ppm is a perfect target. 
   
2. Inspect cell, this is a periodic thing that will come up on your Hayward salt system panel box. They are programmed to go off for you to check the cell every 3 months. Inspect the salt cell, if all is good then put cell back and hold the small diagnostic button for about 5 to 10 seconds to clear that inspect cell light on your Hayward. Also if the cell is indeed dirty or has scaling this error light will show up. If cell is dirty clean any debris out of plates if a hose won’t do it, do not force or break anything. Or if scaled use 3 part water 1 part Muratic acid, using a cell cleaning stand, pour into cell and let soak for 10-15 minutes to dissolve the scale. 
   
   

Chlorine Pools

So a chlorine pool makes it simpler than a salt water pool. Less troubleshooting and more straightforward.

Filtration issues can cause cloudiness to your swimming pool. A cloudy pool or hazy pool water is a sign of either a clogged/old filter, or motor is not circulating properly to filter things. Check at the return jets to see if flow is coming out, and is it strong? If not, check the pump basket to make sure it’s not full, and clean/backwash your filter. If all is good, let’s move on!

Chlorine being low or being a 0 will cause this. It’s usually the first sign a pool has no chlorine in it sanitizing the contaminants entering your pool. Overloading the pool with swimmers can also cause loss of chlorine or a cloudy pool. Shocking may be needed and phosphate remover. Liquid chlorine is better. Using SeaKlear Yellowout may help remove and breakdown contaminants and algae. However the side effect may be loss of chlorine rapidly because of the chemical reactions. Make sure to recheck and add more chlorine again.