Black Algae in Saltwater Pool

[waterbear]

All the basic info you might need can be found by reading through the forum and the sister website www.poolsolutions.com! There is a lot of misinformation on the net and you have to be careful! The info here and on poolsolutions is sound and easy! If you have any questions just post in the appropriate areas of the forum and you will get all the help that you need!

[sb2323]

Thank you again for your helpful advice. After a couple of weeks of faithful scrubbing and superchlorinating every day, we kept noticing new outbreaks of the algae. :-( Took a water sample to the local pool store and our salt tested at 6100, but chlorine was 0. Oops! Our salt display had consistently read 0 for a couple weeks. From that, we figured out that the AquaTech cell was bad, was not reading the salt, and was not producing chlorine. So yesterday we drained half the pool and refilled it, and replaced the cell. In the process DH turned the handle from "waste" to "filter" without turning the filter off and cracked the casing and broke the handle off. :-( So we are unable to run the filter or heater at all till Monday when we can hopefully get the parts replaced, get the water properly balanced, and get the black algae under control once and for all.

Anyway, I was so frustrated with the black algae situation that I did buy some algaecide at Leslie's and it surprisingly worked quite well. The instructions were very vague, but this is what we did. As I mentioned we had already been scrubbing hard and faithfully once or twice a day. We gave it another good, thorough scrubbing and turned off the filter. Then we dilluted the solution and poured it around the perimeter of the pool, and turned on the filter a couple hours later. The next morning when we drained half the pool most of the algae was gone.

Thanks again for your helpful advice!

[LostboyinVA]

I don't think anyone has addressed your basic problem. You need to know that all the saltwater system does is produce chlorine. You still have to monitor all the normal pool parameters including Chlorine levels. The only difference is instead of adding chlorine manually you ajust the Saltwater system to regulate you chlorine levels. All other pool parameters need to adjusted with the methods discussed here and at poolsolutions.com. Keep an extra vigilant eye on your PH level it will go up faster with the Saltwater system then with other chlorinating levels.

Also you will need to use bleach or some other chlorine source to get a high chlorine level in the pool to help kill the algae. Even in "boost" mode the Saltwater system won't produce more then 5-6PPM of chlorine. (at least mine won't)