Mustard Algae: Algaecide with Copper

[dejavu]

I think I screwed up. I had a new vinyl liner installed last week. My pool is 18' x 38' and it takes 3 truckloads of water to fill it; however, since water is $225 per truckload, I bought 3 truckloads and decided to fill the rest of it with my water hose (to save $). It took 2 days to fill it because I didn't want to leave the water running while I was at work. So, I couldn't put chlorine in it until it was deep enough to run the filter. But the pool store said no problem: city water has chlorine. Anyway, now I have mustard algae!

Now for the screw up: I went to the pool store. They sold me some algaecide. I dumped in about 2 ounces (maybe 3), and then looked at the ingredients.

Eek! COPPER. I had remembered somewhere that copper stains liners. Now I'm freaking out. Do you think my new liner will stain? I'm not using that stuff anymore. I should have looked at the ingredients first. I'm having a pool party tomorrow at noon. I'm also freaked out that the water will turn green because of the copper.

Please answer fast. I've already had 3 rum and cokes.

Thanks in advance.

Dejavu

 

[dejavu]

I meant it takes *4* loads to fill it. sorry.

 

[dmanb2b]

with 3oz...I doubt you have done any harm and I also doubt you have a mustard algae outbreak in 3 days. You do need to get your chlorine level up quickly though , post up some test results and try to perform the overnight FC loss test tonight...otherwise the pool party is at risk.

 

[dejavu]

I had it tested at the pool store 6 hours ago.

TA: 20
PH: 6.4
CYA 0
Total Hardness: 270
Total chlorine: 2.0
Free chlorine: 2.9

Oh, and about the CYA. They told me to add 4 lbs. CYA slowly in the skimmer last week and not to backwash for a week. When I asked about the CYA today, they said not to worry because the Trichlor will increase it.

Thanks so much for your help...

 

[JasonLion]

TA and PH both need to come up right away. If you are going to continue using trichlor, raise TA to around 120 to 150 and PH to around 7.8.

 

[teapot]

TA and PH both need to come up right away. If you are going to continue using trichlor, raise TA to around 120 to 150 and PH to around 7.8.

A note of caution, I wouldn't raise the PH to 7.8 both chlorine (less effective at high PH) and even a small amount of copper that close to PH 8 could if you over shoot drop out of suspension (staining) safer to stay around PH 7.4 especially as you are going to be adding to the TA.