My mustard algae battle and victory

[Pamsel]

Since so many of you have tried to help me with my green pool problem, I wanted to share my success with you to say thank you and hopefully to help someone else who may have a similar situation sometime.

Rather than repeat the history of the problem here, I will say that the original threads about this are titled "My green pool saga" and "A picture is worth a thousand words" in case anyone wants to read about it. Basicly, I had a horrendous case of mustard algae that completely took over my pool. In my ignorance, I didn't recognize it or start fighting it soon enough. Before I found this forum, I had put it 30 gallons of liquid Chlorine (in two 15 gal doses), and a bunch of stuff from the pool supply store...all to no avail. Actually my water got worse during this time. After coming here, I used another 55 gal of chlorine over two weeks and was maintaining a shock level of 15ppm, working on my PH & TA, but nothing changed my pool water. It was a puzzle to most of us - we considered a bad filter, a copper problem - but in the end it was out of control algae, and the solution was --- chlorine! Much more chlorine! :p

Last week, I allowed my CL level to drop below 3 ppm and added one quart of Polyquat on Wed. evening. (Because chlorine can break down Polyquat, I added when the chlorine level was low.) The next evening I began shocking the pool with bleach at 30 ppm - twice the dosage I was using previously. I maintained this for 3 days and my pool underwent an amazing transformation! I simply was not using enough chlorine to get to breakpoint before and when I did - it worked!!

I used the BleachCalc each time I added chlorine to be sure I was adding the correct amount to get my pool to 30ppm. The first evening, I tested 2 hours after shocking to 30ppm and my CL was at 10ppm! :eek: The algae was eating it that fast! So I added a few more gallons of bleach. Each time it dropped, I calculated and added more bleach. And it worked!! The answer is chlorine!

Here are links to photos so that you can see the problem and the photos as we made progress. The first two photos are of the problem; the next two are taken the morning and afternoon after adding polyquat; the next two are the afternoon and evening of the first day after shocking at 30 ppm; next two are morning and evening of day two and the last one was taken yesterday, 4th day after starting the 30ppm regimen.

I want to thank all of you who helped me with this, but especially Ben for his expertise, knowledge and for making this forum available. Also, a special thanks to Dave (duraleigh) for going above and beyond and staying with me with encouragement and advice, to the glorious end! Thank you again, Dave!
I think of you each time I look at my beautiful pool! :)

http://www.mtco.com/~aug20/6-12-06.jpg
http://www.mtco.com/~aug20/6-13-06.jpg
http://www.mtco.com/~aug20/6-15%20-%20morning%20after%20polyquat.jpg
http://www.mtco.com/~aug20/6-15%20afternoon.jpg
http://www.mtco.com/~aug20/6-16-06%20late%20aft%20(2).jpg
http://www.mtco.com/~aug20/6-16-06%20eve%20(1).jpg
http://www.mtco.com/~aug20/6-17-06%20am%20(1).jpg
http://www.mtco.com/~aug20/6-17-06%20evening.jpg
http://www.mtco.com/~aug20/6-19-06.jpg

[Dr. Spike]

Congratulations!

Even though I didn't offer any advice or post in your threads (I am a pool newbie, I had no advice :D ), I was pulling for you and your pool.

Way to stick with it and not let the algae beat you!

[haze_1956]

Outstanding Pam !!!!

Congratulations !!!!


And I have a question for you, why did you add the polyquat?

.

[Rangeball]

this-

http://www.mtco.com/~aug20/6-19-06.jpg

pretty much sums it all up and makes it worthwhile, I bet :)

Good Job!

[Pamsel]

Haze,

I added the Polyquat because Ben told me to. He saw that I wasn't getting results so told me to do the Polyquat and then the high CL shock regimen. I didn't ask him why - I just did it. ;)

[Karin]

Pamsel, I really identified with you; I had no idea what yellow algae looked like either. I assumed it would be clumps of yellow slime hanging on the side of the pool....wrong. Mine looked like brown dirt/dust had blown into the pool and clouds of it could be stirred up everytime I used the brush on it. My pool never got quite as dramatic as yours though.

I sent my ancient Kreepy pool boy to clean it up daily and he did---but it was always back the next day. I wasted a lot of time trying to clean that stuff up before I realized I had to KILL IT!!first.

I used liquid laundry bleach too. I wonder if using that will stain a pool or if the yellow algae leaves stains behind?

Now I am a vigilante; I give every suspicious speck a threatening look...

[Pamsel]

Karen, I do have some staining, but I think it's from the high iron content in my fill water, rather than from the algae. I can't be sure, but I don't think the algae leaves stains.

[brent.roberts]

Congratulations on you persistance.

On another thread with another soul that had a stubborn case I suggested shocking as soon as the sun was off the pool in the afternoon and checking again just a few hours later ... before going to be.

I reasoned that if the pool is heavily loaded with organics there would be a very fast drop in the FC levels very shortly after the shock dose, and that by morning the levels had dropped off enough that things were growing again.

Fortunately, I have never had a visitation from a stubborn algae and could not test the idea, but your case and the method you finally got to, lend some support to this idea. I am thinking that we might need to fine tune the suggested method used to fight an algae bloom to short cycle the retesting and raising the FC levels compared to the proceedure that has been generally suggested.

1) find the break point needed after testing CYA etc and use bleach calc to get the right does.
2) test withing a few minutes of adding to make sure you got it right.
3) test again withing a couple hours to see how fast it is dropping and repeat the process. The faster the retest and re-load to shock levels the faster the algae will be killed.
4) keep it up until the FC levels show little change in retesting after sunset to take sun breakdown out of the equation.

Your experience may have been a turning point in the methods we use.

[ivyleager]

Pam,

Kudos to your persistence. A lot of folks here were rooting for you.

I noticed you have a vinyl liner....did the VERY high chlorine level bleach out or do any other damage to the liner?

Also, what was your CYA prior to this algae problem and what is it now?

CaryB

[Pamsel]

Thanks everyone for your support and good wishes!

Our vinyl liner is old and probably will need to be replaced next year - it's starting to pull away from the side and getting some cracks around the upper edge. (We're limping it along with simple repairs as long as we can.) So I was more concerned about killing algae than bleaching the liner. I do think it faded some, but it was already somewhat faded - the edges where the side meets the bottom are quite a bit darker. But it still has enough color to give the pool a nice light blue color and that's a whole lot prettier than green! :D

I started out with no CYA but now it's around 40 - have not checked it since last week.

[ivyleager]

I started out with no CYA but now it's around 40 - have not checked it since last week.

Okay, was it zero at last seasons closing? I'm wondering if your algae bloom decomposed all of your CYA.

CaryB

[Pamsel]

To be honest, I never heard of CYA until I found this board a few weeks ago. I have no idea what it was at close, but I used the pucks in my chlorinator all last season, so it could have been high. I know I had a high chlorine demand last summer and I had algae growing in August. I really didn't know didly-squat about my pool and how to properly care for it before finding this forum, so didn't know how to kill the algae either. I think we used the copper algaecide before closing, but if I remember correctly, it was not clear when we closed it. The "pool guys" who closed it said it was not a problem. :( I think that all contributed to the big problem I had this spring.