The local pool store keep telling me my Phosphates are way high (+1000). Should I be concerned? The water is clear and my chemicals are balanced - except for the Phosphates... Are they just trying to sell me expensive chemicals I don't need?
I had 3000+ ppb phosphates in my pool but prevented algae from growing by maintaining the proper Free Chlorine (FC) level relative to the Cyanuric Acid (CYA) level. Others have had even higher levels -- not just high phosphates, but high nitrates as well. The thing is that providing all the food in the world for algae will not make them grow any faster than their limit due to sunlight and temperature and that's roughly doubling in 3-8 hours. If the chlorine kills them faster then they can reproduce, then they won't grow and your chlorine usage would be that of new algae getting blown into the pool which won't even be noticeable (i.e. loss of chlorine from sunlight is much higher than that).
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