purple water

[oldblueford1200]

pool water was clean an clear when algae started growing at bottom corner of pool, I added algaeside an next water was purple. I am a lost newby

pool is 21x4 ft vinyl am using pump that came with it but installed 20 gal sand filter after pump an left cart out of pump. what do i do now..



thanks for any help you can give

 

[Isaac-1]

By chance was this a cheap copper based algaecide you used? If so it sounds like this was caused by a build up of a certain type of Copper compound in your water causing it to turn purple, we have had reports of this before, but it is rare, usually Copper presents itself as emerald green water. Copper also tends to turn blond hair green.

 

[Swampwoman]

Welcome to TFP. Can you post a picture of the purple? Name of the product you added? Eg. Was it PoolRx by any chance?

Copper can react but so too can magnesium (more blackish) and in some circumstances, cya can become involved in staining if certain things have interacted. Its kinda hard to dx, but I suspect in your case that adding copper to a pool with very high cya specifically caused the purple. Its a rare but known phenom and can create copper-cyanurate.

If this is the case, while metal sequestrant may help some, you'd be better off doing at least a patrial drain to lower both the cya and copper.

More importantly and essential to water balance is test numbers - do you have one of the TFP recommended kits? Here we use either the tft100 or Taylor k2006 specifically for accuracy in cya test and ability to read higher levels of FC - see http://www.tftestkits.net

If you have a good kit, post up your numbers so we can try to help figure out what's going on and get your water restored.

For general newbie assistance, check out ABCs of Pool Water Chemistry in pool school. It will help you get up to speed on sleuthing this out

 

[oldblueford1200]

product
was hth super algae guard 600 4 in 1
contents are dimethyl benzyl ammonium chlorides 30%
dimethyl ethylbenzyl amonium chlorides 30%
other ingredents 40% no discreption
purple is almost gone this morning i doubled up on chlorine last night. liner is stained an will have to vacuum soon.
thank you for your reply!!!!!

- - - Updated - - -

product was hth super algae guard 60 4in1
i didnt say before but i had blueing in the pool for a party that may be part of color.
thank you for your reply!!!!
also how much sand should be in filter? its about 1/3 now

 

[oldblueford1200]

i want to thank every one who help me. i have my pool under control by using pool school i never thought it could be so easy.
my ca is 1.2 and rising, ph is 7.2 an stable pool looks great crystal clear.

 

[Texas Splash]

Glad to hear things are going better for you. Also, you'll notice I merged your two "Purple Water" threads together so everything stays together nicely. No need to create a separate thread for this topic. Best of luck and enjoy your swimming season.