Mustard Algae

[PoolDoc]

-- semi closed thread! No posts here but andrea's and mine, please!! --

Hi Andrea;

I understand your frustration, but you are going to have to be patient. I mean that: if you are not patient you WILL make your problem worse! This is a common issue; you are not alone. I've written long pieces before on the secret pool owner miracle additive: P.O.P., or Pool Owner Patience; I won't reproduce them here.

Part of our (my) problem is I can't tell what's going on, because you have done, and are doing so much. Back off, slow down, and STAY AWAY FROM THAT STORE! You've got metals, possible algae, and a potpourri of chemicals in your pool, and God only knows what that combination will do. Again, I mean precisely that: there is no one on earth who understands and predict how that mixture will behave.

And without divine revelation, I have no good idea about what, of all the things you've added, is STILL in your pool. What I do know is that CHLORINE, TIME, and SUNLIGHT will remove many of those things.

You've GOT to stop going to that store. Not only are they selling you stuff you shouldn't use, I can look at your test numbers, and tell that the test results are bogus. 10 years ago, those numbers could only have come from a BioLab "Alex" system. Now, there are probably other copy-cat systems that sell chemicals by delivering bogus test results. The bottom line is, I not only have no idea what's in your pool; I don't know what the chemical conditions in your pool are, either.

You need to remind yourself of this every day: "The longer my pool is screwed up, and the more frantic I get, the more money my pool store makes." Whether they know it or not (not all do) , pool stores DEPEND on stringing you along for their financial well being.

You've GOT to back off, and work this through, one bit at a time. BUT, keep your chlorine high.

If your liner is slippery, you may have algae. If it's not, you probably don't . So I have 6 questions:

1. Is your liner slippery, or not?
2. Is your pool clear, or not?
3. Are there orange or brown stains on your steps, and inside your skimmer, or not?
4. Is brown dust still dropping to your pool's bottom?
5. Have you ordered a Taylor K2006 (links in my sig) and if so, when will it arrive?
6. If you fill the pool with same water that is in your bathroom, tell me what color the INSIDE of your toilet tank is. (Brown, orange, dark brown, light tan, etc.)

Meanwhile,

1. Keep filtering 24/7
2. Brush your pool every 2 - 3 days; vacuum as needed.
3. Purchase a cheap OTO testkit (Walmart!)
4. Add 4 gallons of chlorine every night -- unless OTO shows dark orange.
5. Let me know when your K2006 arrives.
6. Do NOT do anything else, except clean your filter, but ONLY if it needs it.

There is one more thing. If you can buy, or beg, a small amount of DE (diatomaceous earth) filter powder, you can dump some into the skimmer, and then watch the returns. If it shoots back into the pool -- your filter is messed up. You might have been sold the wrong sand; your sand might be gone, or several other things. But, a filter than won't catch DE, won't catch algae or iron dust, either. Home Depot has it online for $20 for 25#, but they may have a smaller container locally. Alternatively, if it's algae dust, a broken filter will let a stream of dust BACK into the pool if you vacuum up a pipe of dead algae dust.

PoolDoc

PS. There are several possible reasons for clear green pool water that I know of, and that could apply to you. One involves iron in an odd condition, but it still comes back to the fact that I don't know what's in your pool, whether your filter is working correctly, or what your actual pool test results are.

[AndreaA]

PoolDoc,

Thanks for responding. This is Andrea's husband, Tim. She's finally handed the reigns over to me and I can assure you I have the patience your looking for. I don't think there's as much chemicals in our pools as you've been led to believe, but we'll walk through it one step at a time to be sure. Honestly, we've been using only bleach for at least two months now. About two month ago after reading one of your POP pieces, we shocked with only bleach with chlorine levels over 15ppm for 10-14 days brushing every other day at least. While the pool was clean, the water was still greenish-brown and cloudy. I began to question the filter. I had a pool maintenance guy out who said it looked as if anything that may have been in the pool was dead but the filter was not filtering. He added some DE to the skimmer but it shot out the jet, and he recommended we replace our filter sand (no additional chemicals added). I purchased 125 lbs of good pool filter sand from a local/accredited pool store and replaced the sand in the filter myself. I made sure to clean and inspect the fingers in the bottom of the filter and all checked out good. Refilled with sand and ran the filter for days with no real change to water color/cloudiness. I decided to turn off the pump as I had seen once before that dirt/debris sank to the bottom of the pool when the pump was not running. Sure enough, after 4-5 days everything that was in the water settled out. I was able to vacuum to waste and for a few days I had a clean pool. Unfortunately days later, in late March, the pine trees rained down the pollen as they do every year and the top of our pool was covered with yellow dust. To boot early spring sprigs (for lack of a better term) began falling from nearby tees and again we had a pool that was cloudy/green by time the pollen and tree debris stopped raining down. For the life of me, I'm not sure how previous owners dared to keep this pool uncovered during the winter months. There is so much debris that falls from nearby trees, my wife and I have skimmed or vacuumed with a leaf bag vacuum attached to the hose almost every day since November. Now on to your questions:

1. Is your liner slippery, or not?
No, I don't feel it's slippery.
2. Is your pool clear, or not?
I would say the pool is clean but the water is not clear. I can see the bottom of the deep end which is about 8' and the shallow end looks pretty clean. The water has a green color, but as I'm a new pool owner, I can't determine if the water is cloudy and the blue liner makes the water look green or if the water is actually green. When I take a pool sample using a small pitcher, the water looks clear in the bottle, not green.
3. Are there orange or brown stains on your steps, and inside your skimmer, or not?
No, there are not distinct brown or orange stains on the step or inside the skimmer. I would say they are a dingy in color, but not sure if that's from age (pool is 7 yrs old) or from a metal in the water. I think it's important to note we live in GA so even the toilets will get a pink/orange ring if not cleaned regularly. We do have other neighbors with pools though and they don't have green water nor do they treat for any metals from their tap water.
4. Is brown dust still dropping to your pools bottom?
I would say the bulk of remaining dust/dirt/organic material or metals are contained in the cloudy water.
5. Have you ordered a Taylor K2006 (links in my sig) and if so, when will it arrive.
Yes, we ordered the Taylor K2006 and have been testing for more than two months. We've recorded many of our tests so I can send them to you. We recently ran out of the Chlorine test solution, but have ordered more which should be here very soon.
6. If you fill the pool with same water that is in your bathroom, tell me what color the INSIDE of your toilet tank is. (Brown, orange, dark brown, light tan, etc.).
Yes we fill our house water. The tank is orange/brown. I can send a picture if it will help.

I have been interested in adding a floc, so I did add 5 oz. directly to the filter tonight. I want to say my filter pressure has kept me guessing as well. With only the skipper open and all other valves closed, my pressure is at 10 PSI. When I open the main drain at the bottom of the pool, it raises to about 12 PSI, but when I open the outlet to far side of the pool, PSI drops to 1-2 PSI. To add the floc, I used mainly the skimmer, but opened the main drain and outlet valves only half way keeping filter pressure at 5 PSI. The pump has now been running for 6 hours with no pressure increase. I'm beginning to wonder if my sand filter is actually catching anything. Please read over and provide your thoughts.

Thanks again,

Tim

[AndreaA]

I failed to mention in my previous reply that we have again been using only bleach with Chlorine over 15 ppm for the last two weeks (min 14 days while brushing daily). You can probably go back through my wife's thread to see how that transpired, but for the last couple of days the free chlorine wasn't dropping overnight. As I mentioned we are now out of test solution so we have purchased more. Chlorine should still be over 15 ppm as I added 3 gallons of bleach last night after we ran out of test solution. Tonight is the first time I've added floc.

[PoolDoc]

Hi Tim;

If the chlorine is no longer dropping overnight, you've made real progress.

+ The fact that the pool walls are not slippery rules out algae, for the most part. You might have some black algae (not common on liner pools) or some isolated spots of mustard algae, but you don't have any significant growth.

+ If the pool is cloudy, your color will not be right. I don't understand all that I've seen over the years, with pool color. But I've gotten to the point of telling local customers not to worry about color, till the pool is clear. Now, I don't mean that slime green (from algae) or dark orange (from iron) is OK -- just that the color won't be 'right' till the water is clear.

+ Your local debris may well be a big part of the problem. I just created a YouTube account for the PoolForum, and uploaded a video my son and I made (for a Scout project) of loblolly pollen. The quantity of pollen from a single branch is amazing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kppgWFdTEMw

+ At this point, I agree that your filter is suspect. I would encourage you to go ahead and get some DE powder. If your filter is working, it will help remove fine debris; if it's not working . . . it will make that clear. Dump about a quart of powder into the skimmer -- with the pump running! -- and then watch the returns. If you don't see anything, that's good. But, the DE will cause the filter to stop up sooner (pressure will go up), also good, but can be a nuisance.

+ If the inside of your toilet tank is orange / brown, you DO have iron in your fill water. That will cause steps and plastic bits to get dingy over time.

Other than that, hang in there. It actually does sound like you are making progress. But don't put any more floc in, please. If your filter is working, you don't need it. And if it's not working, it's just one more thing that has to be removed later.

Ben

[AndreaA]

Just wanted to give you an update on our pool. This is Andrea and Tim has been meaning to drop by and post the update. Well-- right after this all came to a head... I decided to throw in the towel with the filter and just go buy a new one. Right before we purchased the new one "Tim" figured out that the cap on the sand filter was put on incorrectly back in FEB before sand was changed and the pool was just re-circulating the water and had been for 3 months. I have to say once fixed our pool was cleared in a matter of hours. I know this is all a crazy story but true... We did all of this work and knew nothing about our sand filter to know that the cap on the top was put on incorrectly buy the one and only hubby. I just wanted to let you know what happened and apologize for all the headache I caused. I had NO clue that the filter was not working properly and had not clue that my husband could of put the cap on wrong so I just assumed that all the stuff everyone was saying was CRAP and not working. LOL. I seriously was ready to fill in the pool with dirt-- but here we are with a clear pool and the kids/family and friends are all enjoying it all too much! We are still using the BBB method and it's perfect.. Again I wanted to thank you all for all of your help and most of all your wonderful pool methods. I'm still new at this but I've learned so much! Thank you PoolDoc and again I'm sorry :-(