Pool water is green

[PamCal]

We have shocked- adjusted ph and brushed until our muscles ache but still can not get a blue clear pool. any suggestions?

[Watermom]

We will need more information than that to be able to help. Tell us about your pool --- type, volume, type and size of pump and filter and exactly what all you have put in it, meaning ingredients and not just 'shock.' Do you have a test kit? What kind? Can you give us some current water testing results taken with a drops-based kit?

Welcome to the Pool Forum!

[PamCal]

I have put in baking soda, shock-our pump is a hayward sand-we use the drops test kit and up until today our PH was at 7.6-currently it is 7.2. Our chlorine was good yesterday but no chlorine today. Our pool is inground-don't know the exact volume but it measures 30x9 and is 8 ft deep and 4 foot shallow end

[PoolDoc]

1. What drops kit?

2. Get a cheap local OTO / phenol red kit and 12 gallons of PLAIN 8% bleach from Walmart or equiv.

3. Add chlorine in 3 gallon doses each PM, till the green turns gray or brown. Test chlorine beginning the 2nd evening; skip chlorine dose if OTO test result is orange.

4. Stop adding other chemicals unless pH is below 7 or above 8. Only test pH when OTO result is medium yellow or lighter.

[PamCal]

We use the HTC OTO/phenol red kit and our pool is a 30,000 volume pool-(my husband just told me that). I may have gotten that wrong before. Will my water really turn orange?? Thanks for your help
Pam

[Watermom]

Your pool water won't turn orange. He was talking about the test sample! ;)

[PamCal]

Oh my gosh!! I am really not that crazy!! lol But I did read that wrong -thank goodness! But am I reading it right that the water will turn gray or brown??

[Watermom]

Dead algae may be bluish gray or brownish before the filter removes it.

[PamCal]

The pool dimensions on my profile are wrong. How do I change this? --(9x30 inground pool ~10 gal, sand filter, skimmer tabs)~~ Our pool is 30,000 gal and is 16 ft wide 36 ft long.

[Watermom]

Click on the 'edit your signature' tab in my signature below.

[PamCal]

We have added the 12 gallons of bleach and our water is still green. We are showing high levels of chlorine and our ph is 7.8. What next?
Thanks-
Pam

[Watermom]

What does "high" chlorine mean? A reading that we really need is CYA. Your needed chlorine levels are dependent on that reading.

[PamCal]

Our tester is reading at the highest mark on our chlorine which is 5-not sure what the CYA is you mentioned?

[PoolDoc]

What kind of tester?

You need a K2006 or an OTO kit to be able to read chlorine levels high enough to accomplish something useful with some types of algae.

And . . . as Mom told you , CYA levels are CRITICAL! It's not possible to answer your "what's next?" question without that information.

1. You need to get a local OTO kit, and test your pool chlorine with it.

2. You need a CYA reading, preferably with a HTH 6-way kit from Walmart, since you can't get a K2006 for 3 - 4 days at best.

3. You need to read these 2 pages:

http://pool9.net/cl-cya/
http://pool9.net/test/

[Watermom]

You really need a better tester. It will test everything you need to know including CYA. The one we recommend is the Taylor K2006 or 2006C (better buy). Test kit link is in my signature.

CYA is kind of like sunscreen for your chlorine. It keeps it from disappearing especially on hot sunny days. Your needed chlorine level to kill algae is based on your CYA reading.

If your pool is still not clear, keep adding bleach as Ben suggested and run pump 24/7.

[PoolDoc]

www.walmart.com/ip/17043668

http://i.walmartimages.com/i/p/00/07/31/87/91/0007318791905_300X300.jpg

Not available at all Walmart stores.

[PamCal]

Thank you-our Walmart did not have that tester --we will try to get a test reading from the pool store in the morning!

[PoolDoc]

Test strip based testing for CYA is horrendously bad. The computerized readers pool stores often use are a little better than eyeballing the strip, but not good enough to provide very useful results.

If you want us to help you, you are going to need get a K2006 . . . and use it. Otherwise we're all flying blind.

You have to understand that accurate testing HURTS pool stores, because good testing results in large reductions in chemicals sold. A few stores go to the trouble of testing accurately, but it's hard to expect them to spend time and money on activities that they can't sell (testing), when doing those things (testing) well will REDUCED their sales on things that do bring them income.

Test strips are easy. Everybody likes easy. And until you have the K2006 (or some of the more expensive alternatives) you'll never realize how much easy -- but bad -- testing hurts you.

[PamCal]

I have ordered the K2006-but will not be here for 3-5 days. After reading all the information plus other posts it seems we have been "flying blind" for a long time. At this point all we can do while waiting for the kit to arrive is to trust our local pool store reading-I will send those results as soon as my husband gets back with those~~

[PamCal]

Okay-here are the readings from the pool store --
FAC -5
TAC-5
PH -7.8
TA- 100
CYA-40
TDS-2800

[PoolDoc]

Assuming the CYA test is accurate (which we really can't assume) . . . 5 ppm FC @ 40 ppm CYA is effective against some, but not all forms of green algae.

If you get a gallon of distilled water at Walmart, you can use a test sample composted of 1/4 cup pool water and 3/4 cup distilled. Mix, test, and multiply result x4.

Then dose to 15 - 20 ppm FC. Five gallons of 8% bleach added late in the day should do it . . . IF YOUR POOL WERE 30K gallons.

But, that's very unlikely. On rectangular liner pools WITH a deep end, typical dimensions and volumes are:

16 x 32 => ~20,000 gallons
18 x 36 => ~24,000 gallons
20 x 40 => ~30,000 gallons

So, unless your have an atypical liner pool, your volume is more likely to be 25,000 gallons, than 30,000 gallons. If so, 4 gallons of plain bleach would be a more appropriate dose.

Good luck!

[PamCal]

Okay-thank you! I will try to verify the dimensions again. We have added 10 gal of bleach over the past 3 days and have had no clearing

[PoolDoc]

Adding insufficient chlorine repeatedly tends to be useless against established algae . . . even when you use more in total than would have been needed in one dose to kill the algae.

We need dimensions, an accurate volume, and a trustworthy CYA reading.

However, if you're in a hurry, and not too concerned about a lightened (or bleached) liner, in the EVENING add 10 gallons of PLAIN 8% bleach in a SINGLE dose. Follow that on succeeding days with 6 gallon doses each evening UNLESS your OTO shows an ORANGE chlorine test result.

[PamCal]

The accurate volume for our pool is 23,800. I feel you are getting frustrated with me but I am trying to do my best in getting information. Believe me --I am beyond frustrated. Our pool liner is already lightened -so I am not worried about that. We are on water restriction in our town and I will not be replacing the liner this year for sure. Once again-thank you for your help

[PoolDoc]

Not frustrated, just wanting specific answers. But, I was kinda pushing back against the urgency you felt, and emphasizing that a reliable 'fix' requires specific accurate info from you. I end up doing that fairly often.

It's sorta like a doctor saying, "Yes, yes, I'm sorry it hurts. But WHERE exactly does it hurt, and WHEN did it start hurting?"

If you're not worried about bleaching, use the chlorine bleach as suggested.