Green Pool

Went on vacation last week and came home Saturday night to a very green pool. I'm new to pool ownership (bought in Feb) and I know there are some experts here! Sunday morning I shocked the pool, Sunday afternoon I put in algecide and today I put in a water clarifier. I also made sure the chemicals are right. The pump has been on all day Sunday and all day today and I've been cleaning the filter cartridge every 4 or 5 hours. The clarity is improving but it's still green. Should I expect this to take 2 or 3 days to get back to normal?

Thanks

Re: Green Pool

How big is the pool and is it inground or above ground? Do you have a chlorine test kit? If so how many ppm are you reading. An algicide will not help. The purpose of that is to control algae before it happens. You should take a water sample to a reputable pool store and have them test it. If you are reading about 4 ppm on the chlorine you are going to want to get it up over 20 ppm to kill the algae and bacteria in the pool. You can still swim at these levels however in order to determine how much chlorine you are going to need to use to do the trick will come from your pool supplier. What you want to do is kill the algae first then use the clarifier to remove the dead bacteria. Do you have a sand filter or a canister type?

Re: Green Pool

Pool is about 18k gallons and an inground. Filter is a cannister type. The chlorine test is giving me a fairly normal reading of between 2 and 3 ppm. Good idea to take a sample to a pool store. I'll get that tomorrow. Thanks for the advice.

Re: Green Pool

Forget the pool store analysis. They will try to sell you powdered 'Shock it" or equivalant. Buy 4 gallons of 17?% liquid pool chlorine, dump it in, keep the filter running all nite and the water will be crystal clear in the morning. You'll have to vacuum the bottom. Unlike with powdered products, your filter will contain it.

Powdered substitutes will not clear the pool. Mark my words.

Re: Green Pool

Yep, straight chlorine. The sun will suck out any overdose.
After one day, check the ph

Re: Green Pool

Despite what has been said here your pool needs to be tested for total alkalinity, ph, calcium hardness total chlorine and available chlorine. All of these things are required to keep a pool in proper condition. You might want to get a second opinion on that liquid chlorine. If you have a vinyl liner you stand a better chance of it fading. You can buy test kits for all of the above tests however they are pricey and hard to read.

Learn as much as you can from your local pool store then buy chemicals online like in the swim.

Re: Green Pool

I had a 10,000 gallon above ground pool for over twelve years. Except for a one year period, I always shocked the pool with massive doses of liquid chlorine and never had any fading of the blue liner.

For ongoing chlorination I used 3" tablets in a floater. I always seemed to wait too long to wake up the pool in the spring. One year I must have been suffering from a pre-senior moment. I let the pool shop sell me 'sock it'. By this time the pool was pretty verdant. The next morning the water was was a mess. I had the filter running all night. I went back to the pool shop and they sold me more sock it. Next morning the water was just as ugly. It had cleared a little but there was this big ball of muck in the center of the pool.

I got out the vacuum and sucked into the filter. It came right back out into the pool. I figured that the cartridge was bad so I bought another one. Same thing. I ended up placing my vacuum head in the center of the ball of muck and syphoning it out on the ground. The water was still hyper cloudy.

As I am scratching my head it dawned on me that this was the first time I had shocked the green pool with powder. I went and got about 12 gallons of 89 cent household bleach (5.25% sodium hypochlorite)) and the next morning the water was crystal clear. I vacuumed the bottom and was off and running.

I recently gave this advice to a customer with a horrible swamp for a pool. I said it looks like you are trying to clear that up. He verified yes, but that he was not having luck. I gave him the same perscription and the next month when I visited, the water was crystal clear.

Super shock treating with liquid will not hurt a plastic liner. pH and alkalinity are important for chlorine stability and for chlorine's disinfectant capability. Plaster pools are more suseptable to pH and alkalinity changes because of the effect of the plaster. Also if the pool has any copper plumbing, those factors are important to keep from coating the pool with blue green copper stains.

Otherwise, shock the living snot out of it with liquid.

Re: Green Pool

I like your methods Boomyal!!

Last night I put all the chlorine in it I had which was a gallon and a half and a pouch of the powder shock it stuff. Ran the filter all night and it was much, much better this morning. Still a little cloudy so I'm going to put in another 2 gallons of chlorine tonight and let the filter run. I figure it will look great tomorrow. And I am keeping an eye on the ph levels.
This has taught me to keep with the old fashion methods and put aside the fancy chemicals. Lots of chlorine for me!

Re: Green Pool

Just for the record ,I've been maintaining a 25,000 gal pool for 21 years and can tell you staright up that all granulated chlorine is not created equal.I fully agree that sock it and other such products by HTH and such are an inert residue leaving clarifier requiring mess.The only chlorine I've used for 15 years going is Leslies chlorbriteII (99% sodium dichloro-s-triazinetrione dihydrate and 1% other)and it disolves readily and leaves an insignificant amount of detritis.One advantage gained from administering the chlorine via granules is the fact that you can target it to specific area and broadcast it around the perimeter of the pool shell where many times organic stains can collect.This gives it a chance to make direct contact to these areas at high ppm levels until the granules completely disipate.Again, this stuff I use doesn't even cloud on the way down.Good stuff.
As mentioned above,when your water goes green,you need to shock it up to 20-25 ppm to perform the needed initial burn out of the waterborn bacteria.Then let it lower to 1-3 ppm where it is maintained until a periodic shock is needed again due to rain,heavy swim load,lack of cholrine maintenance,etc...

Another benefit to the particular chlorine I use is that for several years going the pools ph and total alkalinity have been very stable and required little adjustment.

Algaecide products whose active ingredient is chelated copper sulfate have also proven to be the most effective at controlling and preventing the apppearance of green and brown film algae in our pool over the years.Just don't overkill on the stuff or the plaster can get a blue tinge.

Re: Green Pool

I had the same thing happen to my 10,000 gallon above ground pool. I got 6 gallons of chlorox. I put the first 4 in and let the filter run over night. Then each night after that I put another gallon in. The idea is to boost up the chlorine to higher levels and it kills the algea. After that, clarifier is your friend! Trust me, my pool was something that swamp thing would have been proud to call home. Now it rivals the best inside pools around. Now if I could something about that damn tree that makes my partime "pool boy" job a mess.

Re: Green Pool

sparticus said:

Now if I could something about that damn tree that makes my partime "pool boy" job a mess.

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I'll lend you my chain saw!

Re: Green Pool

RC said:

I like your methods Boomyal!!

Last night I put all the chlorine in it I had which was a gallon and a half and a pouch of the powder shock it stuff. Ran the filter all night and it was much, much better this morning. Still a little cloudy so I'm going to put in another 2 gallons of chlorine tonight and let the filter run. I figure it will look great tomorrow. And I am keeping an eye on the ph levels.
This has taught me to keep with the old fashion methods and put aside the fancy chemicals. Lots of chlorine for me!

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You'll want to be sure to brush the pool while the chlorine level is up to kill. I think that algae can hide from chlorine unless you get it out suspended in the water.

Don't be afraid to super dose it. I don't think you put enough in to have the maximum effects. You can also use some polymer clarifier to help filter. Once you get it crystal clear, use an algacide periodically during the summer, along with keeping your chlorine level up. You will never see the water cloud, with summer use, if you do.

I fact, if you super dose it with algacide before you put it to sleep in the winter (such as you get down there) it will keep it clearer longer until you wake it up.

When I lived in Van Nuys and had the obligatory So Cal inground swimming pool, I did not need to chlorinate all winter. It's been 20 years so I don't remember when I stopped nor started again.

Re: Green Pool

Hopefully it is clear by now. I have a 15000 and have had to use up to 6-8 bags of shock at one time after a bad storm. You should see a signifigant clearing in about 6 hours afte shocking it. If not, more chlorine is needed.

Re: Green Pool

The pool looks great! After the second dose of chlorine the clarity improved greatly. I appreciate all the helpful advice. This is always the place to go!