Chlorine is high, CYA is ok, but pool is still green

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Lizrd28570

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Aug 10, 2015
16
Newport, NC
I have been battling algae, first mustard algae and now green, for about 3 weeks now. These are the results of my water analysis today done by pool store:

temp - 88
sat. index - .4
CYA - 40
Tot. chlorine - 9.2
Free chlorine - 9
ph 7.9
tot. alk - 141
adj. tot. alk. - 129
tot. hardness - 138
copper - 0.2
iron - .2

The chlorine is high because I read where you can kill algae with high chlorine levels. I put liquid bleach in the pool on Saturday after the new sand was put in the filter. The pool store gave me a free bottle of microfloc clarifier today, which I hesitate to use since algae is not dead. My son changed the sand in the filter two days ago. The pool people don't seem to know what to do so I really need some help! Thanks so much to anybody that can help me fix this problem....
 
The first step will be to quit relying on test results from the pool store. They are wildly inaccurate and we'd hate to offer advice based on erroneous data. You need to purchase a quality testing kit such as the taylor 2006 or the tf100 and do your own tests.

Once you have good numbers then we can guide you through performing a SLAM which will be your next step.

You can read the pool school and chemistry articles to get an idea of the cya/fc relationship and the procedures for slamming.

But you are correct TFP methods use only bleach to sanitize your pool and kill algae. But the levels are critical and follow cya and hence the importance of having good test results.
 
Your chlorine is not high enough to kill the algae. If you want to trust the pool $tore. We don't trust their numbers around here. They are usually wrong and sometimes VERY wrong.

But if we use their CYA number of 40 then you should be at least 12 chlorine to kill the algae. And you have to keep it up there until the algae is all gone and the pool is clear like glass. There are other things you need to test for but first you have to get a good test kit of your own.
 
Richard was commenting on your comment. There is no real way to predict how long a SLAM takes. It's very dependent on you and your ability to dedicate time to testing and adding and testing and adding and testing and... you get the idea. And also how far down the rabbit hole your pool has gotten.

DE will be helpful later when you are near the end of the fight. Once your pool is blue and clear and just needs a little more polish to make it sparkle.
 
Lizrd28570 said:
Thanks for the quick responses! I just ordered the test kit so I hope I will have a clean and clear pool shortly.
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I got my test kit a week ago and started SLAM...It was very dark green, now it's blue and white cloudy, slowly filtering out the dead algae. Definitely a difference from when I didn't know what I was doing....

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pabeader said:
DE will be helpful later when you are near the end of the fight. Once your pool is blue and clear and just needs a little more polish to make it sparkle.
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Does DE help get the cloudy white dead algae out? Or more just when it's almost done?
 
You can use it once you are on the downhill side. White cloudy is a good sign. You just have to be VERY careful to watch the pressure gauge. It does a very good job of filtering. Too good in some cases if you get what I mean.
 

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pabeader said:
Richard was commenting on your comment. There is no real way to predict how long a SLAM takes. It's very dependent on you and your ability to dedicate time to testing and adding and testing and adding and testing and... you get the idea. And also how far down the rabbit hole your pool has gotten.

DE will be helpful later when you are near the end of the fight. Once your pool is blue and clear and just needs a little more polish to make it sparkle.
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Ok.....didn't want to go another 3 weeks with this mess! I will be diligent when my test kit comes in.
 
mgoblue said:
I got my test kit a week ago and started SLAM...It was very dark green, now it's blue and white cloudy, slowly filtering out the dead algae. Definitely a difference from when I didn't know what I was doing....

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Does DE help get the cloudy white dead algae out? Or more just when it's almost done?
Click to expand...

That is very encouraging....can't wait to start cleaning it up.
 
It has been a little over 72 hrs. since I started slamming my pool. Pool is still as green as ever. Got my test kit Thursday and started slamming on Friday. Results for alkalinity were off the charts and so was the CYA. Ph was only off slightly. So, I started slamming regardless of those test results. I have kept the chlorine levels between 17 and 20. Saturday morning it got down to 13. I backwashed today. At 12:30 pm today chlorine was 19 and at 4:15 it only went down to 18.5.

The prior owner of my pool patched up a spot on the bottom. It started pulling away and when you step around it a green substance comes up from the leak. We usually avoid that spot. We have had a tremendous amount of rain this summer. Could water be coming up from under the pool and causing that green to come in the pool?

Also, the people at the pool store said my numbers showed that my pool was algae free. They said I shouldn't have algae because I wouldn't be able to keep chlorine in the pool if I did.
 
Define the green.

Is it sort of olive green? Is it murky or clear? Do the walls feel slimy?

We have had people here chasing algae when it turned out to be copper sulfate algaecide that made the water a beautiful crystal clear emerald green. It also made blond hair green. Adding some metal sequestrant cleared the pool up in minutes. So it's important to know what sort of green you have.
 
It is sort of olive green and I can't see more than about 2 or 3 inches down. The walls are not slimy. I put copper in the pool since I had none and the pool store lady said I needed copper to kill the algae, but copper level is only .2 and the pool was green before I put the copper in.

Another member mentioned CYA levels. My CYA was high, dropped pool level about 12". According to pool store, my CYA dropped to 40. I have since replaced sand and lost another 3 of 4" of water, backwashed and have not used any product to increase CYA levels.
 
Also, I have used yellow out two times. First time it worked but on the 10th day algae came back. Used it again, algae turned gray and for some reason I added more water to the pool and it quit working. Then I brushed pool and it turned this horrible green.

The original problem was mustard algae.
 
The original problem was mustard algae.[/QUOTE]

you need to test your CYA and give us that number. your CANNOT do a SLAM without knowing your CYA. if by "off the charts" you mean over say 80 then you are going to do a partial drain and refill to get your CYA levels to around 40-50 or so. this will also help remove a lot of that copper and other pool store magic potions that are currently in your water. the only thing that those products clear is your bank account.

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Lizrd28570 said:
So, I started slamming regardless of those test results.
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well I wish you wouldn't have done that, we are here to help, please ask questions before you do something. if you would have posted your results we would have gave you the info you needed. you said your CYA was off the charts. we would have asked you to do a diluted test to get an exact number. most likely, your first course of action is going to be draining and refilling a large portion of your pool before you can SLAM. the chlorine levels you have to hit with really high CYA are difficult to do and its going to be a lot cheaper to bite the bullet and drain water to get your CYA levels reasonable.

you bought the test kit to get exact numbers...so do that. do a full set of tests and post everything here and we will help you. we don't just "do" things here in hopes it will help. we use precise testing to evaluate the problem and then do only whats needed to fix it. you have the tools you need (the test kit and this website), so I implore you to use them
 
pooldv said:
Copper can stain at 0.2 ppm and above. More on metals here, Pool School - Metals in the Water and Metal Stains

Sounds like you have an algae issue. The way TFP recommends eradicating algae is to SLAM - Shock Level And Maintain your pool.

You can Perform the Overnight FC Loss Test (OCLT) first if you want to verify that there is organic matter in the pool consuming chlorine.
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Thanks for the info....I will do that test tonight.

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