Pink slime?

[Maxx]

20 by 40 IG, vinyl liner. We've had a nice clear pool all summer, and suddenly pink slime has appeared in a matter of days...ugh! It's clinging to the sides, but brushes off easily. Then it's in the water, looking...slimy.

What's the best way to treat it? Any ideas?

Thanks!

 

[X-PertPool]

Make sure your not using baquacil, it seems to be common when using that type of sanitizer. If it's pink algae it can be as stubborn as mustard algae. There is information on how to get rid of algae in the forums / pool school thingy. There are also specialty chemicals to get rid of this as well.

 

[JasonLion]

Getting pink algae is extremely unlikely if you are using chlorine, far more common with baquacil. Please tell us which sanitizer you are using and what your current water test results are.

 

[Maxx]

We've been using chlorine - tabs and the regular liquid pool store chlorine. (ETA: DiChlor is the name the pool store calls it). The pool is a 20 by 40 IG with vinyl liner, about 28000 gal.

I got hub a TFP pool test kit (for Father's Day), but he's being stubborn and hasn't cracked it open. Soooo, he took some water over to the pool store this a.m. and here's what they say:

Free Chlorine: .1 ppm
Total Chlorine: .5 ppm
Combined Chlorine: .5 ppm
pH: 7.7
Hardness: 160 ppm
Alkalinity (w/stabilizer correction): 270 ppm
Cyanuric Acid: 100 ppm
Copper: .06 ppm
Iron: 0 ppm

They didn't try to sell him anything from the store (a first!) but sent him to Lowe's for a lot of muriatic acid (for the alkalinity). He hasn't added anything, yet, though, as we're having company this afternoon for a swim.

Will this alone (the muriatic acid) get rid of the pink slime? Or do we need something else? More chlorine?

 

[waste]

Welcome to TFP!!

Your chlorine #s are mixed up free cl + combined cl = total cl I'd imagine that you have .5 fc + .5 cc = 1 tc

In any event you haven't got anywhere near enough fc in the pool to even touch the pink stuff See my sig for links to Pool School, CYA vs. FC chart, and Jason's calculator - you'll need all 3 to rid the pool of this

Another point is that over 100 ppm, the cya test isn't very accurate so you might well have a higher level :x

Sounds to me like it's time for you to 'steal' the tf100 and take control of your chemistry

You may have to drain and refill your water to get your levels in line (as long as the fill water isn't too high in alk)

BTW - the alk isn't causing the problem - it's the insufficient fc for your cya level, so the acid isn't going to help

 

[glrfti]

Your CYA of 100 is too high and your usage of tabs is why it has gotten so high. You need to add chlorine immediately. For 28000 gal your with a CYA of 100 your target should be 14 FC. FC+CC=TC so something is wrong with your posted numbers but with a FC of .1 you need to add 3 gallons and 1 quart now of 12%. To get rid of the algae you will need to shock and maintain shock level. Your shock level is 40 with a CYA of 100. To get to shock level from a current level of .1 you need to add 9 gallons and 1 quart of chlorine of 12%. To make your chlorine levels more manageable you need to do a partial drain to lower your CYA. See the pool calculator on this site to determine your levels.

 

[dmanb2b]

maxx your getting good advice up above...you needs lots of bleach or liquid chlorine. In short time you will also need a partial drain and fill to lower the CYA or cyanuric acid...such high levels of CYA keeps your FC from being effective in destroying bacteria.

And my wife wonders why I now freak out when she let's our kids swim in our cousins' pool they won;t listen to me and last week they were bragging about how they only run their pump for 4 hr every other day due to the economy...yet I can smell the cc's from the front yard...he turns around to me and said "you'll go blind from using clorox in you pool....but your water sure is purdy"

Maxx, do yourself a favor and read pool school three times over and tell hubby he is way over worked and that you want to take over the pool maint

 

[Maxx]

Sounds to me like it's time for you to 'steal' the tf100 and take control of your chemistry

You don't know how many times I've debated this!! It's got to be a little bit of tough love, though (for me and the pool, sadly!) If I push, I'll get nowhere, but if he can come around to this in his own time, he'll be sold for life. (He's really a wonderful man, just mulish. Not his fault - it's genetic :lol: )

For his Father's Day gift, I copied all of the Pool School info and printed it in a binder to go with his test kit. We moved here two years ago, and the pool came with the house. We've never had one before, so it's been a huge learning experience that's caused him no end of stress and time. So, I thought it was a great gift! Oh well.

Anyway, I'm going to print out your advice (don't want him in here reading my comments - hahahaha!!) pull out the binder and see if I can't sway him to reason!!

Thanks all!

Your chlorine #s are mixed up free cl + combined cl = total cl I'd imagine that you have .5 fc + .5 cc = 1 tc

I just copied what was on the pool store chart
.1 Free Cl + .5 combined = .5 Total I figured the rounding might have been the reason Total wasn't .6? Still too low, though, yes?

 

[JasonLion]

Assuming CYA is "only" 100, you want to keep FC at 8 minimum, preferably higher, just for day to day use. To get rid of the pink slime you would need to raise FC far far higher than that. It is much better to lower CYA first, by replacing water, so the amount of chlorine you will need to use is more reasonable.

 

[Guest]

pink slime (a bacteria) grows when there is not a lot of sunlight and too low a level of sanitizer. Your high CYA levels from your constant use of stabilized chlorine products has basically deactivated the chlorine you were putting in your pool and I am going to guess the slime occured in shaded araeas of the pool first (or the entire pool gets very little sun.

Get your CYA down and then start shocking to about double the normal level until the pink slime is gone.

 

[Maxx]

Thanks for the info! The pool is usually in a lot of sun, with shade only on the deep end in late afternoon, but we've had a lot of overcast/rainy days this summer, so maybe that's something we'll have to keep an eye on in the future. The pink slime did start in the deep end.

We have a few issues with water replacement - there's no official drain and we're built into a hillside, so water that we take out runs through the landscaping and into our below-neighbor's yard. It's been a rainy summer and they've already had a lot of ponding in their yard.

That being said, DH did end up draining off and replacing a few inches of water because he'd added too much algaecide and the water was foaming like a bubble bath! We also had a lot of rain over the weekend, so lord knows what's in there now! I'll work with DH to break in the new test kit, maybe tomorrow evening. It's going to be raining some more tonight, so I think it's better to wait until that's done.

DH is very sad to hear that the tablets may be to blame. We have a ton of them - is there any 'good' way to use them?

 

[reebok]

some people use them for vacations. for me they worked to kill black algae by scrubbing the black algae spot with them for a couple days. if your cya is say, 30, you can use them until it's 50.
algaecide is not necessary if you follow the methods here, especially the pool-school/chlorine_cya_chart_shock

 

[Fortuneteller]

I'm not a true expert by any means but the pink slime (water mold) is what drove me from baquacil to chlorine due to cost, I did manage to get rid of it while still on baquacil before I switched to chlorine using the conversion process listed here on this site.....thanks to all.

some things I found out while I was going through this.

- High levels of sanitizer needs to be used and kept high to kill the bacteria.
- cause is normally due to darkness and not enough sanitizer (in my case I left the pool covered a little longer to keep the pollen off and out of the pool during spring, had a hot week, had low sanitizer, pulled cover and vola.)
- You can actually get this mold from filling your pool (alot of folks don't realize as in my case that it just needs to be dark, so you get water mold growing in your water hose while sitting on the ground, you put it in your pool, turn it on.....your pool now has water mold, you didn't have enough sanitizer to kill it and its off and growing.

- if filling with a hose, turn the hose on for about 30 - 60 seconds and remove any standing water that was in the hose before putting it in the pool.
- if you keep your pool covered so no sun can get to it, ensure the sanitizer levels are kept high, don't let them dip, its hotter under the cover, great spawning ground for germs
- water mold gets everywhere and tries to hide from sunlight, even though I killed the mold in the water i could not keep my chlorine levels high during my conversion, I found water mold that (not sure if it was dead) was in my gaskets, behind the screw holding the return, in the small clarifing tab holder, I actually turned on the little pretend waterfall built into and above the skimmer, water mold spit out, once I realized and cleaned/scrubbed these areas with a tooth brush I purchased my chlorine levels held.

 

[DBfan187]

it's a bacteria