Opened green - pump not working

[Tallguy]

I opened on Friday to a green swamp and to complicate matters the pump would not start. It just hums and then trips the breaker, pool store suggested changing capacitor, did not help. Had to pull pump and bring in for service.
With the holiday, it will probably be several days before I get the pump back.

My question is what to do in the mean time. Poll store suggests continually shocking with brushing to disperse and possibly adding Green Treat. They say you shouldn't run the pump when you have actuive algae anyway.

Just recently joined and don't have good test kit yet. Dipstick numbers were:

FC=0
pH=7.2
TA=low normal- forget the number
CYA= between 30-50

By the way pool store guy said not to use Clorox since it has phosphates!

Thanks for any suggestions

 

[woodyp]

Welcome!

They are mistaken about running the pump with active algae as well as their assessment of clorox. Adding clorox per your cya level, keeping it there, and brushing are all you can manage at the moment. Kill it now..filter it out later.

 

[JasonLion]

Welcome to TFP!

Where do they come up with these things. We recommend running the pump 24/7 when fighting algae. And there certainly aren't any phosphates in bleach. Though I wouldn't care if there were, since phosphates don't matter anyway.

I'd stay away from Green Treat. It is only useful when your CYA level is way too high, and then we recommend getting CYA down right away rather than use more complex/expensive chemicals.
If the pool already has algae, I'd just wait until the pump is back and working before dealing with it. You can add chlorine by pouring it slowly around the edge of the pool and then brushing the entire pool to mix it in, but it is a huge amount of work and doing that while fighting algae is going to be a major task.

 

[Tallguy]

Thanks for the replies. Turned out the pool store turned the pump around same day. Unfortunately i won't bea ble to re-install until Monday night.

Bill