I'm in big trouble - I turned water green

[joecus]

I'm sure the copper was added as part of the algicide since the water turned green right after I added it and then shock. Prior to the algicide, I was adding shock without any color change to water. Can you give me some ideas how to remove the copper? I will add borax every two hours until I see a move. Just took another reading, ph is not moving.

[joecus]

If you are going to be home today, I'd start adding borax, 1/2 box every 2 hours, until you begin to see your pH rise -- go from yellow to orange-ish yellow. Then slow to every 4 hours, till you reach 7.0.

Don't go higher. The copper is most likely from your heater (not so good) but if it's not leaking, you may be OK.

Maintain reasonable chlorine levels -- 1 - 3 ppm, but don't worry about alkalinity or anything else, except pH.

Once you see a pH change, you can begin swimming, BUT . . . anyone with light colored or dyed hair is likely to end up with seriously green hair from the copper. This includes blonde OR gray hair. So, basically, only brunettes with no gray hair can swim. (That rules me out! )

PoolDoc

BTW, the color you have been seeing is bromine gas in the pool. Not so good. Try not to do that anymore. It's not likely to get out of the water, but if it does, it will rest on the pool surface and be VERY TOXIC to any swimmers.

Chlorinating by adding small doses of bleach to the skimmer should help avoid that. Once you get the pH up, it will quit.

PoolDoc - I don't understand your comment regarding bromine gas and not to do that anymore? Can you explain? Are you referring to my water turning green when I added the shock? One more question, do you use bleach to shock the pool as well as maintenance?

[PoolDoc]

At low pH levels, both chlorine and bromine can appear in a pool as undissolved gasses. With bromine -- which you have because of the bromide -- the pH doesn't have to be nearly as low as it does with chlorine. In blue pool water, orange-ish bromine gas could easily look yellowish green.

To avoid this, keep working to raise the pH AND chlorinate using small repeated doses of bleach in the skimmer, rather than large doses of anything in the pool.

Shocking -- adding a bunch of chlorine of any kind -- is to be avoided till you get the pH at 7.0 or higher. But, don't go higher, because with all that copper, you'll start staining things like crazy.

You can use bleach for any chlorinating purpose in a pool.

By the way, I don't generally like to use metal control agents, but in your case, it might avoid some trouble if you can put a dose of metal control liquid in the pool. It's only a temporary solution, but it might give us time to get control of the pool before we start having to work on removing the copper. If you can get HEDP (probably no way for you to know, though) it will also help protect your heater from further damage.

PoolDoc.

PS. It's just curiosity, but do you know how your pH got so low?