OK... Been at war since Saturday with the dreaded Algae. This is the time of the year we are always battling algae, just after the Fourth of July, when everyone goes to the beach. With sweeping, shocking, backwashing, over and over since Saturday, things are on the upswing. No more green, just a little white cloudiness, and the divewell bottom is visible with detail!!
Here's my question, can algae cause ear infections? Stupid? I know infections come from bacteria in the ear, in which the moisture in the ear promotes growth, hence, ear infections. I've somehow inherited the pool 'maintenance' half way through the swim year. This is an olympic size pool, but private pool. The algae's not a problem, nearly gone. The problem is one member's son gets an ear ache yesterday. Instead of going to the doctor, they do the typical call the office and have something called in. At 1 a.m., they're sitting in the ER with a doctor telling them that this is caused from something in the pool. With that said, the kid spent all day in the river the day before getting 'sick'. As stupid as it sounds, can algae cause ear aches? Last month we had about 5 or 6 kids come down with ear 'infections', no algae though. I pretty much contributed the ear problems then with the kids swimming 8 hours a day, everyday to swimmer's ear.
Question number 2, is the algae that tends to grow in pools, any different than the algae that grows in rivers or oceans?
I'm basically trying to stop a mass hysteria of mother's, by gathering as much info as I can to answer these mothers.
Oh yeah, my partner who has also been thrown into the maintenance with me, took a sample by one of the local pool suppliers and had it checked. As far as chemicals and balance, the one problem we had was pH being low, around 6.2. Not a problem. We'll be straightening that out this week with a couple hundred pounds of soda ash.
Thinking out loud to myself of the obvious....
Now... With all that said, one other 'stupid' question. We have one guy who has been 'maintaining' the pool for years. Evey year about this time, we have this algae problem, which he has always solved by a heavy shock and adding about 5 gallons of 20% algaecide. His regular maintenance consists of trichlor 3" tablets added to the skimmers. 5 tabs per skimmer, 7 functioning skimmers. The routine is to backwash and 'shock' on Sundays. NO other chemcials except an ocassional 8 lbs. of pH increase. Water had been great up until this week when it went south. Could it be that by using just the tabs to maintain the chlorine, that we have max'ed our CYA at this point in the year, where the chlorine is less effective? "The CYA that they put into your pool water never goes away and, in fact, continues to build. Building often to a point that it can render your chlorine ineffective. You start to develop algae and don't understand why." ... Pool School The TC and FC have been around 4-4, 5-3 all year.
Here's my question, can algae cause ear infections? Stupid? I know infections come from bacteria in the ear, in which the moisture in the ear promotes growth, hence, ear infections. I've somehow inherited the pool 'maintenance' half way through the swim year. This is an olympic size pool, but private pool. The algae's not a problem, nearly gone. The problem is one member's son gets an ear ache yesterday. Instead of going to the doctor, they do the typical call the office and have something called in. At 1 a.m., they're sitting in the ER with a doctor telling them that this is caused from something in the pool. With that said, the kid spent all day in the river the day before getting 'sick'. As stupid as it sounds, can algae cause ear aches? Last month we had about 5 or 6 kids come down with ear 'infections', no algae though. I pretty much contributed the ear problems then with the kids swimming 8 hours a day, everyday to swimmer's ear.
Question number 2, is the algae that tends to grow in pools, any different than the algae that grows in rivers or oceans?
I'm basically trying to stop a mass hysteria of mother's, by gathering as much info as I can to answer these mothers.
Oh yeah, my partner who has also been thrown into the maintenance with me, took a sample by one of the local pool suppliers and had it checked. As far as chemicals and balance, the one problem we had was pH being low, around 6.2. Not a problem. We'll be straightening that out this week with a couple hundred pounds of soda ash.
Thinking out loud to myself of the obvious....
Now... With all that said, one other 'stupid' question. We have one guy who has been 'maintaining' the pool for years. Evey year about this time, we have this algae problem, which he has always solved by a heavy shock and adding about 5 gallons of 20% algaecide. His regular maintenance consists of trichlor 3" tablets added to the skimmers. 5 tabs per skimmer, 7 functioning skimmers. The routine is to backwash and 'shock' on Sundays. NO other chemcials except an ocassional 8 lbs. of pH increase. Water had been great up until this week when it went south. Could it be that by using just the tabs to maintain the chlorine, that we have max'ed our CYA at this point in the year, where the chlorine is less effective? "The CYA that they put into your pool water never goes away and, in fact, continues to build. Building often to a point that it can render your chlorine ineffective. You start to develop algae and don't understand why." ... Pool School The TC and FC have been around 4-4, 5-3 all year.
