Killing mustard algae dead dead dead deader than Elvis

[jwoodyu]

Howdy,

So i am a 2nd year newbie with a 24' round above ground that travels for work some and through a series of mistakes with the family got a raw case of mustard algae.

With the help of TFP I nearly have this thing licked. Holding a mustard SLAM levels vacuuming twice a day and brushing twice a day in between (it is good to have teenage boys for the brushing) now the water just sparkles.

The only indication at all is while brushing the bottom if you look very very closely you can see a slight cloud come off the brush once in a while. Maybe it is dirt even i am not sure because color is hard to detect.

My question now that i am getting to the end how do i absolutely insure my gear is not introducing the algae back into my pool. Once the pool passes the test for a couple of days running I am seriously considering raising the pool shock level to 2x again, lowering the water below the intake, removing all the hardware valves, hoses, baskets, dumping my sand scrubbing every inch of it in bleach and then setting the lot of it on the bottom of the pool for a day at the kill shock level. If i do it i intend to submerge the ladder on its side, skimmer net thermometer all of it.

Sand is cheap compared to the hours put into straightening this out. In fact all new hoses, valves and fittings would be cheap compared to the pain of letting this get started again.

Am i off my nut for thinking this way?

 

[duraleigh]

Am i off my nut for thinking this way?

Perhaps , but let's start with some basics.

Posting current test numbers is first. Then tell us if you have been generally maintaining those number for a while.....in other words, give us a little chemistry history over the last couple of weeks as much as you can recall. We'll go from there.

 

[jwoodyu]

I have not been journaling my numbers but here they are from this morning and I am allowing the FC to drift down.

Cya 25
Ph 7.4
Ta 70
Ch 50 Sort of stuck with this being on a well and my poor water softener can only do so much.
Fc 10
Cc .4

After posting the first time I headed out to work on my pool filter. I tried to remove the valve/head but it stuck on the pipe and i wound up pulling the hole thing up through the sand. I decided to go ahead and just dump the darn thing and start over. The water was pretty darn "gacky" as it came out. Before it was done:

I dumped the sand and filled the tank with a strong bleach water and dunked it over night.
At the same time I scrubbed the valve/head with a brush and dunked it over night in strong bleach water and scrubbed it again.
I removed the direction jet thingy from the return port scrubbed and dunked it and scrubbed it again.
I covered the intake and return with plastic bags and rubber bands, removed the valves, disassembled scrubbed dunked scrubbed.
Took the basked out of the pump scrub dunk scrub.
Next day i put it all back together but I left the tops off the Intex valves which allowed me to mix a strong bleach solution and fill the lines, pump (off) and let it sit a good 6 hours or so finished putting it all back together and fired it up. Scrubbed all the other junk like latter, thermometer etc.

I don't know if there was any living mustard on all the bits but they all had at least some yellow staining before the i started. Behind the directional jet and the inside of the valve bodies looked the most suspect not counting the crud in the sand filter.

Intex ultra frame pools have at least one drain with a plastic flap cover on the inside of the pool. Not wanting to get into my high FC pool I also made a "pool water pick" from a fixed spray nozzle on my garden house and extra pole. I used this thing to blast the flap cover, opened the cover and blasted that out. It removed a fair bit of suspect looking debris. I suspect this might be a serious source of re-occuring problems with Intex above ground or similar.
https://flic.kr/p/uCoDPN

I also rigged up a Intex vacuum at the begging of this nightmare to a 1/10 HP transfer pump to vacuum the crud straight out of the pool.

IMG_0744 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!
IMG_0745 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

I am nearly there i think on this deal but i don't want to screw it up in the last mile so and advise is most welcome.

Woody

 

[woodyp]

1. Algae can not live in a darkened,sun-less environment--(inside a filter).

2. Elvis ain't dead-------He's just gone home!

 

[jwoodyu]

Sounds right to me but maybe that super light cloud coming off my brush was dead gack the filter was putting back in the pool. In any event I am going to subscribe to the theory that there is no such thing as overkill when it comes to mustard algae.

When I kick the pump on now the return is clear where before the first few seconds then go clear so that has to be a plus.

Odly enough I live just south of Kalamazoo Michigan where Elvis frequents the Burger King.

 

[borjis]

I hear ya. Just slayed a mustard demon in my pool recently.

I kept my shock level at mustard level most of the time.

Had to be sure it was gone for an open house to sell my home. had it clear just 2 days prior. close!