Green pool - new pool owner

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Dad of 3,

I have reread this thread briefly and it appears to me you have been completely overlooking the cause of your green pool.

It is because you lack chlorine. Chlorine kills algae. You have algae. However, as it's killing the algae, the chlorine itself is consumed so you must add more chlorine constantly to get your pool cleared up

You need to spend some time in Pool School and read How to Shock you Pool and the ABC's of Pool water chemistry.

You should leave Pool School with the knowledge that you need to put massive amounts of chlorine in your pool to get it cleared up and that you then must maintain chlorine in your pool constantly or your pool will turn green again.

You should also come away understanding the function of CYA......it's sole purpose is to protect the chlorine from UV rays from the sun.
 
Hi Teapot,

We are not far from Colchester. Any suggestions as to where we might be able to get it, or what name it goes by?

Have been told that there is sufficient acid in the stabilised chlorine that we are putting in, and that to add any more will only make it harder to shock the pool.

It is the lack of effect that the shocking is having that really bothers me. I pump a load of chemicals into the pool at around 1830 each evening, only to find that they have no effect. As the sun doesn't catch the pool for another 12 hours, will locking them in with extra cyanuric acid for longer really make any difference?

Would welcome your thoughts, or any other ideas that you might have.


Thanks in advance.
 
Hi Dave,

Thanks for the response. Fully understand that chlorination is the key to this, but the sheer quantities that I am adding, with no evident effect, are mind boggling.

This week for instance I have added 2.5kg (6lb) of shock (65%), and 90 litres (20 gallons) of 4% bleach. I get the CL up to over 10ppm each time, but it really makes no difference to the state of the pool.

Are you suggesting that I up the dose, or that I persevere for longer?


Thanks again for the advice, look forward to your further comments.
 
adadof3.
It is called cyanuric acid or pool stabiliser.

The 4% bleach sounds a lot but 4% is quite weak so doesn't really amount to much, as duraleigh has said the chlorine is getting used up very quickly because it is killing the algae but algae are also growing as the chlorine reduces so you need to maintain 5-10ppm to hold the algae at bay until they are dead and can be filtered out. Persevere with what you are doing there maybe more than algae consuming your chlorine, don't worry once you get over this problem you will not be using anwhere near as much.

As we do not have the amount of sun that the USA have our need for CYA is lower so obtaining it from tabs is possible. The shock you are using may also have CYA in it, some do some don't. Look for isocyanuricacid, trichloroisocyanuricacid, or dichlorisocyanuricacid on the labels. How was the pool chlorinated before?

I can pm you the stabiliser details but that is secondary to clearing your algae.
 
Did you read How to Shock your Pool? Did you come away from that realizing that chlorine must be constantly held at high doses for however long it takes to clear your pool..........that you cannot let it come back down or you really need to start over.

There is not a product that is "shock". Shock is a verb. It is what you do to your pool to clear it. Shocking a pool usually takes days and is not a one time event.

Do you understand why you need to have CYA in the pool to shock the pool properly?

All these ideas are in Pool School and will help you gain an understanding of what you need to do. Once you understand what to do, clearing your pol will be quite easy but you must be prepared for the high volume of chlorine you will consume.

Find a resource for CYA before you go any further. You cannot maintain your pool without it.

The tabs will not work as your source of CYA. It will simply take too long to get any effective amount into your pool. If you cannot find CYA, find dichlor. It is a powdered form of chlorine and you can use it somewhat effectively in your case. Calcium hypochlorite is a poor third choice.
 
That green monster has an insaciable appetite. It will consume so much chlorine, it has already boggled your mind.

As duraleigh said, you need to add chlorine and keep it up there, even if you have to baby sit the green meany for hours at a time just pouring bleach <6% or more>. The CYA is important too! Once the sun is on the pool, the light eats it up along with the green monster. They are fighting over it, taking what they can, leaving you and your pool with nothing but a mess.

Starve the sun's appetite with the CYA and then nuke the green meany with CHLORINE and you will see progress but you have to be consistant. :whip:
 
adadof3 said:
Hi Dave,

Thanks for the response. Fully understand that chlorination is the key to this, but the sheer quantities that I am adding, with no evident effect, are mind boggling.

This week for instance I have added 2.5kg (6lb) of shock (65%), and 90 litres (20 gallons) of 4% bleach. I get the CL up to over 10ppm each time, but it really makes no difference to the state of the pool.

Are you suggesting that I up the dose, or that I persevere for longer?


Thanks again for the advice, look forward to your further comments.
Click to expand...

If the 6 lbs of shock product you added contain CYA, then the shock product is either trichlor or dichlor? Because if it's cal-hypo that doesn't have stabilizer in it. Pretty sure CYA is available in the uk, look for conditioner/stabilizer on the label. You can also try internet sales.

4% bleach will be rapidly consumed as it's added.

Persevere longer, and add it more frequently. Testing and adding bleach hourly, if possible. The sooner you reach 10 and hold it there, until it stops dropping in between bleach additions, is when the algae will die.
 
Many thanks for the repsonses, and for the details on the cyanuric acid that were sent to me by teapot.

Doubled the dose, adding 9 gallons on Saturday evening, and the same again on Sunday evening. Was out most of yesterday, so was not able to check the CL level until late afternoon, when it had dropped to 5ppm. No change in the pool this morning.

Really not sure I am going to continue. We probably only have another fortnight here where the pool can be used, and I just don't have the heart or the time to keep tending to this, pouring gallons of bleach day after day after day, into a pool that is not going to be used. I appreciate the advice re hourly checks, the reality is that I work, and thus am not around to do this.

Every day I get up and see a green pool, and it simply disheartens me. It has really taken the shine off this summer, and the new house. Am tempted to simply close the pool, and forget about it until next spring, when maybe I can get someone in to look at it for me.

Thanks anyway for the advice, will let you know if I do continue.
 

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If you close the pool with the temprature now you will have a swamp, thick green and dangerous. You will have to empty bleach and refill. If it is the end of your swim time and the pool can be emptied that would probably be your best option.

Appreciate it is hard at the moment, you should have seen some change over the weekend unless you have a high ammonia level in which case it will consume even larger quantities of bleach.

BTW where are you getting your bleach from and how much is it costing you? have you ordered you cyanuric?
 
Keep at it.

I have located a source of 14% sodium hypochlorite bleach at a pretty good price, probably cheaper than buying pool shock.

It would be useful if you could post some water test results to see where you are, particularly the overnight test.

Test after sun down, test before sun up to see how much chlorine your pool is consuming over night. that way we leave out the effects of UV degradation during the day (if we actually get any sun that is ) :lol:

Any news on your cyanuric acid?
 
Now I have some suggestions to make but I really, really need the experts to think about this, since I am way over my head on this theory. I'm just wondering if ammonia might be what is the issue in this particular pool.

I seem to recall that many European countries have high levels of nitrates and phosphates in their tap water. When I used to do planted fish tanks, quite often we had forum participants from areas with substantial nitrates, occasionally even rural areas of the US, but European countries had particularly high levels. This meant that rather than add fertilizers to their planted tanks like we did to get plants to grow thick and fast and then doing lots of waterchanges like we did, they added tap water to get fertilizers instead and rarely changed water at all to avoid overdosing on fertilizers.

So, I am suggesting here that if this is the case here, then the tap water itself may be the source of the green water, due to ammonia/nitrates/nitrites which is the N in the N-P-K numbers you see on fertilizers and P is the phosphates. That may be why the local wisdom for this persons area is to remove phosphates to starve algae. If your fill water contains nitrates, that might be the proper solution. If you fill water contains nitrogen sources (where ammonia goes to nitrates goes to nitrites), adding chlorine may be the more difficult path, wouldn't it?

Again, I am out of my league with this, but I want to bring it up to those who can better ponder it, in case it makes any sense to this situation. I really never claimed to understand the chemistry and different groups tend to focus on certain chemicals in water and ignore other chemicals that are occasionally still important. So, I'm just wondering if ammonia might be what is the issue in this particular pool.

Anona, doing some serious dog paddling in very deep water
 
The short answer is, I would not be surprised if ammonia was not the culprit too.

Our water suplies are not as bad as some of the posters here on the forum but that does not mean that the bacteria in the water have not converted some to ammonia

I feel inclined to visit adadof3 its about an hour from me and do some tests, at the end of the day it will take a very large amount of chlorine to bring his pool back into operation and if he is not on a water meter it may be cheaper to drain it clean it and re-fill.
 
Very kind offer teapot, let's see how I get on over the next few days, and it might be worthwhile if I am still getting nowhere.

Shock wasn't delivered until yesterday, so got started last night. Added 3kg of shock at 6pm, method was:

- mix 500g at a time with 20 litres of water
- pour very slowly just above jet
- top-up container with pool water when it got to half full

All in all, this took me two hours to add the shock.

Free chlorine increased from around 2ppm at 6pm, to 20ppm at 9pm. pH remained stable at around 7.2. The FC increase was virtually spot-on what pool calculator indicated would be the case for a pool of my size (30k gallons).

Tested again at 6am this morning, and FC was down to around 15ppm. Added another 500g of shock, using same method as before; my guess (based on pool calculator) is that this has taken me back to around 18ppm (only just added the shock, so too soon to take another reading).

Cloudy forecast for today, but will leave instructions for the wife as to when to check, and how to add.

Fingers crossed, will keep you updated.
 
OK, 24 hours in, and no progress whatsoever to report. Today's readings:

6am - 15ppm - added 0.5kg shock
11am - 15ppm - added 0.5kg shock
5.30pm - 10ppm - added 1kg shock

5kg of shock over 24 hours, pool has been above 15ppm almost constantly, and never below 10ppm, and no signs of progress at all. How soon should I expect to see any sign of improvement?

Not even a glimmer of hope, that is what really gets me down.
 
Are you running the filter 24/7? Brushing, removing any/all organic material with a leaf rake/net if any is present? IF the filter is working properly and the chlorine is holding, you should see visible progress daily, at the very least a change in color if it was green you should see it changing color.
 
Sorry, was away from pc. Thanks for replies.

frustratedpoolmom said:
Are you running the filter 24/7? Brushing, removing any/all organic material with a leaf rake/net if any is present? IF the filter is working properly and the chlorine is holding, you should see visible progress daily, at the very least a change in color if it was green you should see it changing color.
Click to expand...

Yep, doing all this. Chlorine does seem to be holding. Will see if there is any improvement tomorrow. Latest reading (9pm): 15ppm, so hasn't lost much in the couple of hours since I last added shock. Think I will leave it at that for the day, and give it a further boost at 6am.

teapot said:
Hi adadof3,
Have you any means of testing for cyanuric acid (CYA)?
Click to expand...

Did have, but am almost out of those strips. Previous readings showed a very low level of CYA. Have not followed up on ordering any as yet, as I don't want to make the shock process any harder than it already is. Will get balance right, then think about CYA. This might well be next year now!

Thanks again for the replies.
 

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