I'm in big trouble - I turned water green

[joecus]

I woke up this morning and pool back to being clear, wow. I turned the filter on and the residual water that was in the tank came out bright green/yellow. So, something happened, overnight, that caused another reaction. I checked the chlorine, zero reading (I'm using the kit with the drops). The PH was low. Any suggestions? Thanks.

[Watermom]

Glad it is clear. Post your current water testing results. Also, did you look at the ingredient label?

[joecus]

The shock I've been using is Pace Clear Shock - 99% sodium dichlorio-s-triazinetrione hydrated.

OK, hopefully my troubles are almost over. Like I said, when I woke up the pool was clear. I took a water sample to a local store and here's what they found.

CYA - 40
Tot Chlorine 0
free chlorine 0
ph - 6.2

Tot Alkalinity 0

They wanted to sell me 50 lbs of Balance pak 100 to increase the Alkalinity.

I didn't buy anything, I just added two lbs of "pace" shock. It's 99% sodium dichlorio-s-triazinetrione hydrated.
Please help. What should I do about the Alkalinity, PH and pool using so much shock? I can't keep the levels up. Thanks again.

[joecus]

OMG - Like my previous post just said, I added the shock. I just looked out my window and the water turned bright Green/yellow again. What the heck is going on? I don't know what to do. This has to be related to the Algicide (sodium bromide). Please, please help.

[joecus]

10 minutes since my last reply, the water totally clear again. Something in the algicide is reacting with the shock. However, not the chlorine. Please help.

[Watermom]

I do not know what is going on with the green water/bromide thing. But, I can tell you that you must get your pH up ASAP. Any readings below 7.0 are acidic and will damage your pool. You can use some 20 Mule Team Borax to raise your pH. Look for it in the laundry aisle at Walmart. Can't suggest how much because I don't know the volume of your pool. Also, what type of pool is it?

I doubt that your alk is 0. Pool stores often give inaccurate readings. That is why we suggest buying a good test kit like the Taylor K-2006 so you can do your own tests. If it is, you can raise it with some baking soda.

Is this a newly filled pool? You have no cya in there and that is one reason (in addition to the algae/green pool mess) that is causing you to lose chlorine so fast. The dichlor is stabilized which means it has cya in it, so if you continue to use it, your cya will rise. We like 30-50ppm for cya. You might just want to use bleach for your chlorine right now. It won't contribute to any cloudy water problems. If you want to use dichlor later after you get this all cleared up, that is fine. (As long as you monitor the cya level and don't let it get too high because that creates a whole different problem.)

Right now, the most critical problem you have is the low pH. Must get it up ASAP. Also, more chlorine. Like Ben noted above, it is probably going to take a lot of chlorine over a period of time to rid the pool of the bromide/bromine.

[joecus]

I just had the water tested for copper. It came back with a positive reading of 1.7. According to the local pool store, that's why my water turns green when I add shock. Does that make sense? He sold me something called pool magnet plus. He said the algicide probably contained copper. I looked at the ingredients of the algicide and it was not listed but did have 51% OF "Inert ingredients". Any suggestions on the removal of copper? I am working on getting the PH up. I added 6lbs of baking soda. How long do I need to wait to retest PH?

[Watermom]

I'll let Pool Doc or Marie talk to you about the copper issue. But, just wanted to tell you that baking soda is used to raise alk, not pH. You need Borax to raise pH. Wait a couple of hours before retesting. If you are dealing with a metals problem you'll want your pH to be no higher than 7.4 and probably 7.2 is better.

[joecus]

Won't the baking soda raise both the ph and alkalinity?