algae problems

[kchamp]

thanks for the input really appreciate your time, I just went before you posted and bought 4 5gallons 20 gallons total of chlorinating solution that has 12.5 sodium hypochlorite, should I say suppose to have 12.5 so I will have to use it up. do you think pour 10 gallons of that in tonight and maybe 5 gallons in the morning and then the other 5 tomorrow night

[PoolDoc]

I would add just 3 gallons, or maybe 5. Your 12.5% bleach *may* actually still be 12%, depending on how it has been stored and handled, and you don't want to overdose and bleach your liner out.

Tomorrow, get an OTO / phenol red test kit. With a vinyl pool, you really don't want to go past 'medium orange', until we have a reliable read on your CYA level. (If the HTH kit is available, it is an OTO kit, at least the chlorine test is)

[kchamp]

ok so the green is gone should I keep the bleach to it or let it come back down, it is like a blue whitish cloudy color now. which I new how to post picture

[PoolDoc]

email them to poolforum@gmail.com OR post them using the [IMG][/IMG] code, and links to Picasa, Photobucket, Webshots or Flickr.

[aylad]

The way to tell for sure is to measure your chlorine at night and again in the morning, and make sure you're not still losing chlorine to something in the water. However, if you're sure that all the green is out, and you've thoroughly brushed the pool to make sure there's none hiding in ladder steps, light niches, etc, then you can let the chlorine level come back down--but you need an accurate CYA number to know how far down you can let it drift. If your CYA is actually 90 ppm, then you need to not ever let it get below 5, and you really need to keep it closer to 7-8 ppm. If you let it come down below that, you're going to have algae growing again (see the best guess chlorine chart linked in my sig for more info and the chart).

The chlorine you put in the pool killed the algae, now it's the filter that's going to remove the dead algae from the pool and clear up the cloudiness. Keep your filter running 24/7, cleaning the filter each time your pressure rises 6-8 psi over your "clean" pressure.

[kchamp]

before
. . . after

[PoolDoc]

Looks good, but BRUSH the pool, while the chlorine is high. You may stir up hidden piles of algae, that will turn the pool green again, if the chlorine is not high.

Then filter, filter, filter. Using polyquat, once the chlorine drops into the normal zone (per Best Guess chart) will simultaneously help protect against a recurrence and help filter out the dead algae. However, there's no need to keep using it, once the pool's all cleaned up.

[kchamp]

thanks for all the help, she cleared right up, Should of found this site a couple of hundred dollars ago.

thanks Kevin