Algae I.D. PLEASE!

[amjohn]

Well, budysr that sounds very familiar. We had a solar cover on 24/7, and I was misreading my CYA tube as well, so I was under chlorinating and not brushing regularly. I had started using a skimmer sock, and was catching a fair bit of yellow/green stuff in it, but thought I had the problem at a maintainable level- we live in the country- there is always something in the pool. Compared to the lakes around here, a little stuff on the bottom is nothing.
One day I pulled up the solar cover and the whole bottom of the pool was covered in a green poofy layer. The wild part is that the water above it was quite clear and we had been running the pump 12 hours a day.
We put the autovac to work, which of course stirred a bunch of it up, and the pool ended up greenish and cloudy. We had our first big fall cool front about that time, so I decided summer was over, and we put the solar cover away. The water temps dropped 10 degrees in 48 hours.
I started shocking at a higher level, vacuuming every couple of days and backwashing immediately after vacuuming. My sand filter seems to let the pollen gradually back into the pool over a couple of days, so I backwash immediately, regardless of the pressure reading. The vacuum really is picking up the stuff, because the water that comes out of the filter is bright yellow every time. Plus, the pollen level will reduce by about 1/3 with each vacuum/backwash cycle. Unfortunately, the way my skimmer is configured, I cannot leave the skimmer sock in while I vacuum.
I also brush while I vacuum, and then put the skimmer sock back in as soon as I pull the vacuum out- the next day, it is yellow/green with stuff, and I make a point of cleaning it out daily. I got a pack of 5, so I replace the dirty one with clean one and wash the dirty one with soap and water. BTW- they are just panty hose material with a wide enough opening to fit around the skimmer basket lip.
So I have been shocking, brushing, vacuuming, backwashing for about a week now, and the water is CRYSTAL, with just a little bit of yellow/white stuff on the bottom- like I said: country=stuff. It has not been this clear in a while- though it was usually reasonably clear when the "pollen" was sitting on the bottom.
And I had very little FC drop and never showed any CC's either- even when the whole bottom was green.
The takeaway from this for me-
1. Now I know how to read the CYA, I will do better with that. Here is the link that was given to me in another post about when the test is done: http://www.taylortechnologies.com/Chemi ... ntentID=44
2. My area has just too many contaminants to let me get away with the minimum FC for my CYA- I need about %20 more.
3. Brush more often (like every other day) and keep that skimmer sock in there, cleaning/changing daily during pollen season (which is 11 months of the year here). I may invest in a nicer skimmer sock- one that has a coating on it that helps trap more stuff: "Bioguard skim mor" http://www.poolgeek.com/BioGuard-Skim-Mor-P2243.aspx
One of them costs more than my pack of 5 el-cheapos, but if it helps, I'm willing. I know at least one person on this forum got one, and I will post to see how they are doing with it.
4. If I get can get a decent manual vacuum head (mine is junk), I will try vacuuming to waste when the stuff on the bottom starts to build up.
5. I started adding borates, and got up to around 10ppm (just guessing, I have not got test strips for borates yet), but when I removed my solar cover, my pH jumped big time. I will go back to working on adding borates gradually this winter with a goal of 50ppm. Hopefully, that will help prevent some of the surprise algae attacks.
6. My plan is to keep the pool open this winter, with just a leaf net for fall and spring tree drop (which is about to happen any day- I better get on it). Winter is only about 4 months here, and we have extremely high winds, so I am thinking a cover is a waste of time and effort. I will run the pump a little each day- I will keep the brushing up- any time I start to see an accumulation of stuff on the bottom. Also, reduce my CYA a little, as I got it too high without realizing. With the winter torrential rains that should not be hard.
7. I will not take off my solar cover when my neighbor is mowing his pasture- I should have known better-bad,bad,bad!

Hope that helps- I think my lesson here is that pollen happens, but not to get complacent, because algae follows if I let it.

 

[budysr]

Sounds to me like you may be fighting algea and not pollen. Have you actually gone through the entire shock process as if what you have is algae? As I have learned, you can't neglect ANYTHING during the process of killing it. I had heard many times that MA was a b@#%$ to git rid of and I can see why. All the while, I still thought that I was dealing with a pollen problem that my sand filter wasn't catching. I even tried those skimmer socks myself, but it just didn't seem like that little sock was gonna solve this kind of problem. You shouldn't HAVE to use something like that to clean up your pool. And I may be wrong, but I don't think you should have to backwash that often either. It might be worth it to go through a very aggressive MA shock process for a few days and see if it turns the Crud into white dust.

 

[amjohn]

Yes, I am just finishing up the shock process and am down to just some yellow deposits in the crevices on the bottom. My FC is at 16 without bleach addition for the 2nd day in a row- no FC loss there. I definitely had an algae problem, and I had it once before and did not truly kill it out, so I know better this time. But I can also sit and watch the pollen falling/blowing into the pool from the all the pastures around - ragweed season is raging. So I am of the opinion that I am dealing with both.
Now that things are cleared up, I won't backwash as frequently- that was just for a couple weeks while I was dealing with the worst of the stuff.

 

[Cherie]

Hi guys! Just thought I'd drop in to say I haven't done anything other than the very basic maintenance on our pool. I have a very ill mother and am homeschooling our children and am politically active, so my time is extremely limited right now. I may sweep once every couple of weeks, and the same with vacuuming. I only vacuum manually and I use a gunite cleaning head which rolls on wheels and there are no bristles on it. I figured early on that a head with NO bristles would work better, because there's nothing to stir up the stuff - so I catch more that way! I do change out my sock daily and check my water. Water got a little cloudy when I lost all my CYA and used some tabs to put it back in (to take a break from adding bleach). But it's clear now. I don't trust my reading of pH OR CYA (and using Leslie's readings is a nightmare), so I shoot a little high on my FC to be on the safe side. I still have a little stuff on the bottom, but not much at all. And my sides got pretty poofy when I finally got around to sweeping (my fault). But given the lack of attention in the last 6-8 weeks, I should have full-blown algae by now - and don't. So if it is MA, then just keeping my FC at around 4-5 (with CYA of 30-40) seems to be holding it at bay. I never had green stuff - just the sandyish poofy stuff. But I'm convinced that mine is pollen, mainly because I've found drowned honey bees by the scores in our skimmer. I was washing out about 30-50 each day (yes, the sock was full). SO I'm convinced they were sensing that pollen was on the water and would land there to retrieve it and drown! I may try the MA kill when I get the time. But I don't expect that happen within the next month or so.

We're still hoping to get the time to buy/install a 2-speed pump so we can leave our pool open all winter and run the pump 24/7. But too much going on right now to pamper my newest baby - it will have to weather the weather (ha! pun intended) on it's own for now!!

 

[chem geek]

Finding a lot of brown crud under the steps is more likely to be algae that grows -- unless somehow pollen can accumulate there (seems unlikely to me). Another place to look is in the light niche -- pollen shouldn't accumulate there, but mustard/yellow algae can grow there a lot. A key to getting rid of it for good is to kill it wherever it lurks. If some stays around, then higher FC levels are needed to prevent it from coming back into the main pool water, but if you kill it everywhere and it doesn't get re-introduced, then "normal" FC levels will work from then on.

Interesting info about no overnight losses in FC. Perhaps it takes a larger amount of algae before one registers such losses; it's certainly a great test for green algae even before it becomes visible. Thanks for the update.

Richard

 

[budysr]

Richard, the thing that was most odd to me was that when I moved the steps out of the way and found such an incredible amount of brown stuff on the floor, I didn't have ANY growing on the wall of the pool, or even on the inner sides of the steps. Strange and still led me to believe that I had a TON of pollen, dust buildup under the steps. Of course when I vacummed up all the crud and in the process, stirred it up, the water became extremley cloudy and murky(and stayed that way till about 3 days into the shocking) I didn't check religiously, but when I was shocking each night, I did seem to have some FC loss the next morning. At least I did the first couple nights.
The other thing is that some of the brown spots on the bottom didn't go away at shock level until I vacummed or stirred them up. I was thinking that all the spots would disappear while at a high shock level.

 

[chem geek]

budysr,

If there are areas of poor circulation, then the algae can grow even when the bulk pool water is at very high FC. The chlorine needs to get to the algae so if it's protected in a light niche or under steps, then the surface layers of the algae help protect the deeper layers from getting attacked by the chlorine. So it's not surprising at all to find the pool clear due to shocking but find areas of poor circulation still having algae. Some of it was probably dead near the surface and very slowly oxidizing from the poorly circulating chlorine in that area. Getting this larger amount of algae dispersed into the water then lets the high FC attack it. If some remained, then it could just be more resistant (more slimy) so slower to breakdown or could have been some dirt mixed in with the algae.

Cherie,

If there is yellow/mustard algae in your pool, then other users have found that an FC that is at least 15% of the CYA level seems to keep it away, so with a CYA of 30-40 that's an FC of 4.5 to 6 ppm -- not too far off from what you've been doing. Of course, it could just be pollen as you have surmised. Too bad there's not a really easy way to tell -- the best seems to be the microscope test but even then that's not completely obvious.

Richard

 

[amjohn]

Chem Geek- does mustard algae never completely go away then? You said maintaining FC at %15 percent of CYA keeps it away- does that mean that something stays in the water that can cause it to come back with a lower FC, and that it is never completely "dead"?

 

[chem geek]

It will completely go away (i.e. be killed completely) if exposed to the shock level for mustard/yellow algae, namely an FC that is 60% of the CYA level, for an extended time of a few days after all visible signs are gone. However, this only applies to that algae that is exposed to that shock level of chlorine. Any algae hiding out in areas of poor circulation, such as behind light niches, may not get completely killed so may come back when you lower the chlorine level below an FC that is 15% of the CYA level. Some people have successfully gotten rid of all yellow/mustard algae and not had it return even after lowering the FC to the more normal levels of 7.5% of the CYA level; a few others have not been successful and needed to maintain the higher FC level or use other algaecidal means (including use of Borates).

Richard

 

[amjohn]

So if I was able to get rid of all visible signs of green algae by maintaining shock levels of approx %40 of CYA for about 5 days, then does that mean it was probably not mustard algae? The whole mustard algae vs pollen thing is hard. My pool is now clear of both algae and pollen, and I am letting FC levels start to drop to "normal" now, but I am trying to determine the best way to keep it that way without adding more bleach than necessary (the stuff is getting high $). I am working borates into the equation over time.
Picture below is the after picture- just a little bit of deposit- it is hard to tell from the picture, but it is a bright yellow. Water is very clear. FC is still at 14 and I have not added bleach in 3 days since a high of about 16. Water temp 65 chilly degrees. CYA is around 60 (I was not reading correctly before). TA 100, pH 7.5-7.8

 

[JasonLion]

Mustard algae will go away temporarily at normal shock levels and not come back until several days after you return to normal day to day FC levels. So you can't be completely sure you got it all till about a week after returning to normal levels.

 

[amjohn]

So how did I get mustard algae in the first place? Does it float in the air- there are icky ponds in the pasture next to my pool- could it have come from there? This pool was put in place in the middle of august, and I started having pollen problems right away, but the mustard algae only seemed to have developed when I started leaving the solar cover on all the time (which was also brand new).

 

[chem geek]

Mustard/yellow algae tends to prefer shade so that might explain why you saw more growth after using a cover that cut down sun intensity. As for how it got into the pool in the first place, it can come in via swimsuits used in lakes or ponds that have the algae. Though I suppose it's possible to be blown in, it doesn't seem to appear in most pools in an area which would indicate that it's more likely to be physically brought into the pool, but that's a guess on my part. It's certainly not nearly as common as green algae which most pools will develop if not properly chlorinated (and no algaecide or Borates). Of course, having "icky ponds" close by could have something blow in since it's so close.

Richard

 

[Cherie]

Hey buddysr, I noticed you have a 1hp 2-speed. When you did your MA shock, did you leave your pool running on the 2.9 amp speed or did you put it on high? Do you leave your pump running 24/7, since you have a low speed? We just received our Pentair 1 HP 2-speed today and will be installing it this weekend, with the intent of running it 24/7 from now on. Our final step next spring will be to get the box thing that disperses the bleach automatically (don't recall the name of it). BTW, the guy at Leslie's tried to get me to go to work for them....sooooo......

HEY MODERATORS, YOU'VE DONE A FANTASTIC TRAINING JOB HERE!! Leslie's is convinced that I know everything there is to know about pools (LOL)

 

[frustratedpoolmom]

Hey buddysr, I noticed you have a 1hp 2-speed. When you did your MA shock, did you leave your pool running on the 2.9 amp speed or did you put it on high? Do you leave your pump running 24/7, since you have a low speed? We just received our Pentair 1 HP 2-speed today and will be installing it this weekend, with the intent of running it 24/7 from now on. Our final step next spring will be to get the box thing that disperses the bleach automatically (don't recall the name of it). BTW, the guy at Leslie's tried to get me to go to work for them....sooooo......

HEY MODERATORS, YOU'VE DONE A FANTASTIC TRAINING JOB HERE!! Leslie's is convinced that I know everything there is to know about pools (LOL)

Congrats! LOL - when do you start.....hehehehehe

I run my pump 24/7 on low, the only time I use the high speed is if I need to vacume.

 

[Cherie]

Hey Frustrated, what type of cleaner do you use? We have the one that we just plug into the hole below the skimmer. Now that we have two return jets, we're thinking we may be able to just plug up the cleaner and leave it running all the time, so we can get better circulation in the deep end. Does that sound feasible, or would there not be enough pressure?

 

[frustratedpoolmom]

Hey Frustrated, what type of cleaner do you use? We have the one that we just plug into the hole below the skimmer. Now that we have two return jets, we're thinking we may be able to just plug up the cleaner and leave it running all the time, so we can get better circulation in the deep end. Does that sound feasible, or would there not be enough pressure?

Well I honestly don't know, that would likely be more of a question for the equipment guru's like Ted/Waste.

The type of cleaner I use is the manual vac. I'm an ol' fashioned kind of gal. Seriously tho for next year for Christmas I want an auto-vac. Truthfully I don't have to vacume much, we have a center/bottom drain, and running the pump 24/7 keeps the pool pretty clean. If it does get cruddy, I just have the kiddies make a whirlpool, and all the stuff goes to the center, I flip the bottom drain over to 100% and most all of it gets sucked into the filter. I found myself vacuming more this year, I had a mild case of 'sparkly poolitis' and the little cruddies were annoying me.

 

[Cherie]

LOL! Yep, I'm having a bit of that sparkly poolitis right now. We just got walluped with a big rain and now I have TONS of backswimmers and bugs. Caught about 4 water scorpions last week. My numbers are all good. We drained a lot of water a few months ago to install the 2nd return, then the CYA balanced out to 30. THEN, it dropped to below 20 somehow. So I used 3 old pucks for 5 days and it flew up to 50! Haven't done anything else, but it dropped back down to 35 and now tests at 50 again! I'm a little confused about that! But we definitely have that "itis" thing going on right now.

NEXT SUMMER..... a deck around the pool--YEA!

 

[budysr]

Hey buddysr, I noticed you have a 1hp 2-speed. When you did your MA shock, did you leave your pool running on the 2.9 amp speed or did you put it on high? Do you leave your pump running 24/7, since you have a low speed? We just received our Pentair 1 HP 2-speed today and will be installing it this weekend, with the intent of running it 24/7 from now on. Our final step next spring will be to get the box thing that disperses the bleach automatically (don't recall the name of it). BTW, the guy at Leslie's tried to get me to go to work for them....sooooo......

HEY MODERATORS, YOU'VE DONE A FANTASTIC TRAINING JOB HERE!! Leslie's is convinced that I know everything there is to know about pools (LOL)

I didn't see your post Cherie till now. Anyway, if you are still checking this thread......I ran my pump on high continuosly during the shock process. Under normal conditions, I run it on low for about 12 hours a day, turning it on high(for a few min.s) each morning when I add a daily dose of bleach. Now that the weather has cooled and the swim season is over I have dropped down to about 8 hours on low and don't have to add bleach as often. The water stays clear using just low on a daily basis and its easy on the power bill.

 

[Cherie]

Hi budysr. I'm curious now as to why you ran it on high for the MA shock. Wouldn't it have been just as effective keeping it on low, since you were running 24/7 anyway? And how many gallons is your pool? Ours is about 19K and it takes 10 hours to run the water through once. So on low, I think it will take us 22 hours to run it through once, from what I've figured so far (could be wrong). I've read on here that algae can't grow in water below 60 and am supposing that's why having it run a complete cycle is not so important in the winter. But we're currently spending about $75-80/mo to run the high speed for 10 hr/day. It will only run us about $30-35 to run it on low 24/7. So that's what we plan to do.

Also, we installed our new 2-speed Sunday, but didn't finish getting water back in the pool until after dark. When we turned it on, we had air bubbles coming out of both returns and there is some air in the pump basket. So looks like we have some more work to do on it. There is some water dripping down from the pipe leading from the pump to the filter - and that's where he used a short piece of tubing to connect the two pvc's because he said they didn't line up. You'd have to see our set-up to know what I'm talking about. I think he's going to cut take it back apart this evening and try to put a piece of pvc in anyway. I'll see if I can take a picture and get it posted on here. I'm a bit nervous about messing with everything with winter just around the corner. So hopefully we can get the air bubble thing fixed tonight and I can watch it with the new pump and make sure all will go well when old man winter hits.

Hey buddysr, I noticed you have a 1hp 2-speed. When you did your MA shock, did you leave your pool running on the 2.9 amp speed or did you put it on high? Do you leave your pump running 24/7, since you have a low speed? We just received our Pentair 1 HP 2-speed today and will be installing it this weekend, with the intent of running it 24/7 from now on. Our final step next spring will be to get the box thing that disperses the bleach automatically (don't recall the name of it). BTW, the guy at Leslie's tried to get me to go to work for them....sooooo......

HEY MODERATORS, YOU'VE DONE A FANTASTIC TRAINING JOB HERE!! Leslie's is convinced that I know everything there is to know about pools (LOL)

I didn't see your post Cherie till now. Anyway, if you are still checking this thread......I ran my pump on high continuosly during the shock process. Under normal conditions, I run it on low for about 12 hours a day, turning it on high(for a few min.s) each morning when I add a daily dose of bleach. Now that the weather has cooled and the swim season is over I have dropped down to about 8 hours on low and don't have to add bleach as often. The water stays clear using just low on a daily basis and its easy on the power bill.