Silly Questions

[vrogan]

This is my second year with a pool - last year was a rogh one. Thought this year would be easier.

I have a 31L X15W inground vinyl pool - I had to add stabilizer a week ago becasue it was low. Since then I have brushed the sdies & bottom of pool and we have shocked it using liquid chlorine. Water is blue (not green anymore), but not clear. Should I also be vaccuming the pool? doesn't seems to be any debris or anything at the bottom or can I just keep shocking it to get water clear?

[CanuckPool]

Hi vrogan, I think we need some more history on what happened last year and we also need some numbers posted (CL, FC, pH, alk etc etc.) to determine what is happening with your water. Are you using an SWCG, filter and pump type?

[eckardsl]

no silly questions. I would vacuum the pool. You may have mustard algae. This requires a "poly" dose. Chlorine(clorox) will not affect the mustard algae. I would try this asap.

[CarlD]

no silly questions. I would vacuum the pool. You may have mustard algae. This requires a "poly" dose. Chlorine(clorox) will not affect the mustard algae. I would try this asap.

And I would NOT!

What we need are proper posting of your test results.

Guessing at what is wrong and throwing in chemicals is what pool stores do. It's a bad tactic.

Polyquat is a great product but it works BEST as a preventative, not a cure.

There is no reason NOT to use our tried-and-proven methods: (in brief)

1) adjust your pH (low end of the 7.3-7.8 range is better)
2) for your level of CYA (Stabilizer), shock your pool with bleach/liquid Chlorine to the FC level specified in Ben's Best Guess Table.
3) Test and adjust your chlorine to that FC level 2 to 3 times a day (3x is better). Don't let FC drop any more than you must. Every time it goes below the maintenance level for your CYA level, you are back to square one, so you need to keep it up.
4) Vacuum to waste and brush your floor and walls every single day.
5) Be persistent and patient.

This is the BEST way to kill any algae in your pool.

Shocking and brushing once then trying, in desperation, a "magic" chemical ain't gonna do it. Once you have an algae bloom you must attack and keep up the attack for as long as it takes. Plan to use a lot of bleach/Liquid Chlorine. I cannot begin to tell you how many hundreds of times we've heard this story.

There is another desperate measure that clears your pool within 24 hours, but you need just a much chlorine and just as much time to clear out the "cure" as you need to kill the algae with chlorine.