Didnt realize how much sunscreen from the kids party messed with my water

Started by Dana Whitfield · · 4 replies
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#1
Had all three kids plus half the neighborhood over for a birthday thing Saturday and by Sunday morning the water had this hazy almost oily look even though my FC tested fine. Took me a minute to connect it to all the sunscreen and lotion from a dozen kids cannonballing in and out all afternoon. Ended up running the Nautilus an extra cycle and it cleared up by Monday but man I never thought about bather load like that before, its not just chlorine demand its literally body oils and lotion residue filming up the water. Anyone else notice this after a big pool party or is my filter just due for a deeper clean, anyway, lesson learned for the next one.

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#2
When's the last time you actually pulled the cartridge and rinsed it, not just ran extra cycles. Oily film like that after a bather load spike usually means the cartridge is loaded up and just pushing water through instead of filtering it. Mine gets a real hose-down every month out here, big party like that would've had me pulling it same night, not waiting to see if extra run time fixed it.
#3
Ray's not wrong that a loaded cartridge makes it worse, but I'd push back a little on "extra run time fixed it" being the wrong move, running longer that night is exactly the right first response because oily film is a filtration rate problem in the moment, you need more turnovers to keep catching it before it redeposits on the walls. The cartridge rinse is the maintenance fix, not the acute one. On a 22k gallon pool a dozen kids is a serious bather load spike, that's a lot of sunscreen and skin oil hitting the water in a few hours, so one extra cycle on top of a cartridge that's probably still fine is normal, not a sign you waited too long. I'd just add it to your post party routine going forward, run an extra cycle that night and then do the real cartridge rinse within the week regardless, those are two separate jobs not one fixing the other.
#4
Marcus has it right, those are two different jobs, I do the same thing after we have a crowd over, extra cycle that night and then I still pull the cartridge within a few days just to be sure.
#5
never thought about sunscreen as its own filtration problem, just figured oily water meant chlorine demand. gonna start doing the extra cycle thing after we have people over, way cheaper lesson than finding out the hard way like you did.