Bathing Suits Turning Green

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yossarian

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Jun 8, 2011
73
Ridgefield, CT
I am finding that the white material on my daughter's bathing suits is turning green. This has happened on 2 suits so far. It doesn't seem to happen to my suit or my son's, but we don't have the same material. I haven't added any algaecide for at least 4 or 5 weeks and now am only adding chlorox and occasionally baking soda. Plus, I have cleaned my cartridges at least twice since I last added algaecide. The last test I ran had these numbers, although the FC obviously fluctuates a little bit.

FC -- 6
CC -- .5
TA -- 130
pH -- 7.5
CH -- 330
CYA -- 30-40

I know that copper can turn things green, but I would not have thought that was a problem. We use well water, and the last water test we had, about a year ago, did not indicate elevated copper levels.
 
I am not sure if I still have the empty container to check. My wife is convinced it is chlorine that is doing this, but I find that hard to believe. Whatever it is, it has a staining effect. We are not able to wash the green out in the washing machine.
 
Chlorine on clothes typically has the exact opposite effect. It removes color, doesn't add color. The only thing I've seen chlorine turn green is blonde hair.

An FC of 6 with CYA of 30-40 is not excessive anyway.

What is she wanting to use instead of bleach? Another product that still uses chlorine for sanitization? Here's a little hint, some brands of bleach have a label that is nothing but a thin plastic band around the bottle. It is easily removed. You can pull that off and say you've switched to something from the pool store. :)
 
The algaecide Costco carries now is copper based. You may also have use 3-in-1 chlorine tabs that have copper as well.

If bleached turned clothes green in a pool, what would it do in the laundry?
 
I have only owned the house since last fall. I added the algaecide this spring, but cannot speak as to what the prior owner did. I used a little bit of trichlor this spring and I know the prior owner used it for his chlorination as well. However, since I became more sensitive to CYA levels, I have only used chlorox, as well as some calcium hypo, which I am no longer using as my CH levels were getting too high.

I have never used a sequestrant, although I guess I will be using one soon.
 

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I've read that bluish-green copper stains show up on kids first because they spend so much time in the pool and many kids have blond hair when they are young.

The green color shows up on blond or white hair better than on brown, black or red hair. The white part of fingernails are next, then cotton, white swimsuits.

So, I was just wondering if you noticed the same transition from hair to fingernails to swimsuit?

Well, a sequesterant should fix your problem and please let us know how it goes :)
 
I did not notice anything with fingernails and no one has blond hair, so we cannot use that as a gauge. The thing is it only shows up on the stretchy swimsuits (nylon/lycra), not the regular polyester or cotton ones.

I checked the active ingredient in the algaecide and it is dimethyl benzyl ammonium chloride for whatever that is worth.
 
Test the water for copper to see what the level is.

Also, try crushing a vitamin C tab and rub the powder on the green material with some water to see what effect it has. You can also try a little bit of white vinegar on the green material to see what effect that has.
 
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