It Happens To The Best of Us: pool schooled AND algae!

[ivyleager]

So I pull back the solar cover and instantly think: "when was the last time I added chlorine?" Not good. Green everywhere. Immediately added 5 174oz bottles of bleach, and brushed, brushed, brushed. However, on the positive side, my water is a toasty 83 degrees! But, on a negative side, with the cover pulled back and the sun hiding my temperature is going to plummet!

My manual vac head and hose had issues, went to the pool store to get new ones, which they had at reasonable prices w/ end of year discount. Well, I've been battling algae breakouts all season long this year, even with chlorine kept on high side, and NEVER HAVING ANY CC READINGS AT ALL. Guess I've shocked 4 times due to either slippery feeling of vinyl floor or green stuff accummulating on sloping sides of pool. When I told this to pool lady, who has never tried to sell me anything before, she claimed that there's been higher than usual problem with "yellow" algae. I said, "you mean mustard algae?" Upon end of the discussion, she convinced me to buy this non-copper algaecide "yellow rid". I thought she just might be right. Bottle states: sodium bromide. Never gave it a minutes thought. Put the 4 capfuls in my pool, waited several hours, and took chemical readings, chlorine was low (16, w/ CYA of 60) so added 3 more jugs of bleach. (based on my calcs, for a 24K pool, one lg jug adds 3.4 ppm of CL to my pool, hence 3 lgs jug would raise ~10ppm).

It's at this point, I decided to read up on "sodium bromide" and not liking what I've read so far. I have no idea what bromide is or what it allegedly can do to a chlorine pool, as noted on several sites. Chem geeks out there, did I just royally screw up my pool w/ 4 capfuls?

Here's latest numbers:
FC 25
PH 7.8, but I'm leery of this be valid
ALK 80
CALC 70 (not sure of this one either, reading on Sept 4 was 120)
CYA 60-70 (hint of circle at 70, totally obliterated at 60.....did test inside due to rain, which is not my usual testing method...poolside and sunny, under umbrella.)

I'm shooting for FC of 24. I'm brushing and checking FC every couple of hours. I'm just not sure about this bromide Crud.

 

[waste]

Cary, if it's what I think it is, you just converted to a bromine pool :|

The results aren't in, but you may have a bromine pool for a while, this just means that you have to keep 2X the 'cl' reading when you test.

Perhaps Richard knows how to tell when the pool is back to being chlorine, I don't -- Ben had a post on it on PF.

I'll just say that, as long as you rid the pool of the algae, you're doing well.

Hope you get another bird this hunting season!! (and thanks again for your info on Mikvahs! :bowdown: )

 

[chem geek]

You can't really distinguish between bromine and chlorine except perhaps by a somewhat higher usage/consumption during the day under sunlight. Odds are that you didn't add very much to your pool and that the bromine will dissipate over the weeks. I wouldn't worry about it for a single dose. Ben's writeup on this is here.

 

[ivyleager]

Thanks guys. Looks like all I need is some sunlight and patience.

edit: retested: FC 18, added last lg jug of bleach. Only thing left in storage was bag of calhypo from opening (use it to open to get calcium levels up). Running out to buy out bleach supply at grocery store again.

Water overnite turned from pea soup to a lovely caribbean aquamarine! It's getting there. I'm beginning to remember how to do this.

Lesson learned: I really need to switch to a SWCG.

 

[Suziqzer]

An swg is awesome... but even with one of them you can't slack and skip on testing regularly. You don't have to lug around chlorine, but w/o frequent testing you can still end up with a green pool.