Dealing with the green mess

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Zaerog8

Member
May 15, 2019
5
Evans, GA
Hey guys, I am a 21-year-old student who just came back from college to find a green mess in my pool. My mother has tried everything the local pool industry guys said but the pool is still green and cloudy. Usually, my younger brother is assigned to do pool maintenance, but due to his laziness, I have decided to try to deal with this issue.
Here is the picture of the pool.
And pictures of tools:
Filter
Aqua Logic Automation and Chlorination machine
Lastly, the picture of the water analysis
This issue occurred last summer too and I believe the local pool industry guys are either a scam trying to drain our wallets or clueless on this issue.
From my research, here is what I think needs to be done:
1. Replace the sand filter
According to my mother, the sand filter hasn't been replaced in 10 years (which is why I think the pool is cloudy). I am planning to replace the sand filter based on this YouTube video.
2. Overload the pool with shock
I'm not too sure about this part since I'm not familiar with pool chemistry. In-Depth guidance will be really helpful.
Other than these two, I don't know what else needs to be done. Please help my pool turn crystal clear blue again.
 
It looks like you have no chlorine in the pool. Look up SLAM and based off your stabilizer number, you need to SLAM until your pool is clear. If the pool was clear before, you likely don't need to replace your filter/sand.
 
I disagree with your plan.

First thing to do is get some test results. Because if someone has been using dichlor "shock" and/or feeding the pool a steady diet of trichlor pucks, your stabilizer level is going to be so high that no amount of chlorine will be effective. You might discover that a partial drain is called for. Likewise if someone has been using Calcium Hypochlorite "shock" then the Calcium levels may be so high that your pool will develop scale -- sort of grown in place sandpaper --unless you replace some water. So start with test results.

Your filter sand was already millions of years old when it was installed. A couple more years is nothing. Unless someone's been using clarifiers and flocculants, which could glue the sand into big clods. When you backwash, they get jumbled and then you have huge channels between the clods so no filtration happens. Even if you do replace the sand, the filter won't be able to filter out the green. No filter can. It has to be killed.

There's a whole bunch of reading ahead of you, so if you want to ease into things by looking at pictures, start here. The newer threads are the last, and I know some of the articles lost their embedded photos and have dead links after a few years, but you'll find plenty of worse looking pools that got cleared. Just do what they did.

By the way, welcome! :wave:
 
Hello Richard,
Thanks for the advice. Because English is not my first language, there are some things that I do not understand. When you meant by "it has to be killed", do you mean by replacing the entire filtration system?
Also, my mother just came back and said that she purchased a $600 cell to replace. Did she do the right thing?
 
Zaerog8 said:
Hello Richard,
Thanks for the advice. Because English is not my first language, there are some things that I do not understand. When you meant by "it has to be killed", do you mean by replacing the entire filtration system?
Click to expand...
No, by killing the algae. Green won't just filter out, no matter what kind of filter or how new it is.
Also, my mother just came back and said that she purchased a $600 cell to replace. Did she do the right thing?
Click to expand...
Now I don't understand. What cell? A new saltwater generator cell? Or a filter?
 
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