phosphates and algae

[waterbear]

Melba,
I appologize in advance for answering the questions you asked in your last post. My answers can be long winded
My pool water currently has a phosphate level of over 1000 ppm. Phosphate remover manufacturers recommend that anything over 170-200ppm is too high. I have NEVER had an algae outbreak AND I no longer use phosphate removers! One time (when the pool was first put into service) was enough for me to go through the milky pool and the constant filter cleaning for a week. There are several factors that can cause an algae bloom. The most commen is letting your FC levels drop too low or running too low a level of FC for the level of CYA in your pool. Other factors that can affect algae growth are the amount of dissolved oxygen in the water (Borax is supposed to be helpful for that but the jury is still out....but borax is the BEST thing to use to raise your pH when needed) and the amount of nutrients (phosphates AND nitrates) in the water. If you lower the phosphates and it was NOT the 'limiting factor' in algae growth in your pool (because, for example, you also had a high level of nitrates which are also algae foood) then it will be of no help. Every pool is different and had a different 'limiting factor'. If your chlorine levels are not high enough or go up and down like a roller coaster you can have 0 phosphates and STILL have an algae bloom! That is why the advice you are being given is to maintain your FC levels and don't worry about phosphate levels unless everything else fails to get rid of the algae. To find out where to run your FC for the level of CYA in your pool and also how high to bring the FC level when you shock (whether with bleach or cal hypo) can be found here:
http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthread.php?t=365

The way you switch to bleach is by just using it instead of cal hypo. To figure out how much you need you might want to download and use mwsmith2's BleachCalc program. Most of us on the board use it...It's great AND free!
Get BleachCalc 2.6.2 here: http://www.hal-pc.org/~mwsmith2/BleachCalc262.exe

There are cases where high phosphates are the 'limiting factor' and a phosphate remover can be of value but, IMHO, that is only when all other methods have failed. If you don't have algae don't worry about phosphates....just get your CYA and Chlorine levels in line from the first link I posted above.