Question about growth for this algae/pollen......

[new2pools]

The other day when I was trying to take a sample of the yellow stuff on the bottom of the pool I filled a water bottle full of water. Didn't think I got much of the yellow stuff but anyway....

I was just out on my screened porch and saw the bottle having forgotten about it. There is was, and has been, sitting in the heat as it was since I filled it up 3 days or more ago. Nothing is growing in it. Looks as clear as can be. Now, if I had an algae problem, wouldn't there be all kinds of junk growing in there?? I have not added any chlorine to the bottle of water and it looks perfectly clear??????? I don't get it?? :? :?:

 

[chem geek]

There is no such thing as spontaneous generation -- that is, life forms appearing out of nowhere. So perhaps you got lucky and didn't have any algae in that water sample and no new algae fell in. Or perhaps the conditions in that water were not conducive to algae growth -- even too much sun, for example (algae need sunlight, but some algae do not grow well if there's too much -- kind of like some mosses, which are also plants, by the way, just like algae).

Since it was pool water, it probably at least started out with chlorine so may have killed everything in it, so if no new organisms are introduced, then they won't magically appear. In pools, the reason that algae often develops when the chlorine gets too low is that there is algae outside the pool that falls into the pool -- including algae in the skimmer upper section above the water and in the coping overhang areas, among others (plus whatever gets blown in by the wind).

If you were to actually capture that yellow stuff and put it in a jar and half cover it (so it's partly shaded), then that's a better test for seeing if the yellow stuff is pollen or algae, though looking under a microscope is the most definitive way to know for sure.

 

[new2pools]

Okay, thanks.