re: Algae in pool

Not saying this to be a smart azz-but to be honest. I pay a pool service every month to come every week and do maintenance and all the stuff I am too dumb and lazy to fool with. No headaches.

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to come every week and do maintenance

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bet your wife enjoys that too

Seriously though. I put maybe 1/2 gallon of bleach in my pool every other day and spend all of 15 minutes skimming and checking the pump basket and doing a quick chlorine and PH test every day when I come home from work.

It's not difficult if you pay a little attention every day and personally I like knowing what's going on in my pool and I don't mind if my wife screws the pool boy.

Here, let me simplify it for you. Yes all chemicals are important but lets cut to the chase.

Shock pool before sunset
Add all in one algaecide
Brush pool
Let pump run overnight
Do this one more time and then vaccumm the pool to waste or use the polaris if has the right filter. Your pool sand filter should also help while its running. Once cleaned do a rinse and backwash.
48 hour process

I've done this at least 5-6 times including a completely green pool when I cam home from traveling.

Trouble Free Pool is a great resource to help you understand how chlorine works in a pool, and its relationship to CYA.

You have to manage that over the course of a year, and determine when/how to use chlorine with stabilizer (tri-chlor) and when not to.

Bleach is a great alternative to use when you need to back off of trichlor.

When it comes to a big bloom with lots of dead (and live) algae on the bottom, though... the best advice I can give you is... vacuum that shite to waste. You have to get that material out. Because it's serving as a base for more algae to form on it. In essence, if you leave it there even a day more than you have to, you are increasing the surface area on which new algae can grow.

Who cares if you have to fill some of the water lost? It's bad water anyhow.

For prevention, don't underestimate the value of a good scrubbing. During the summer, you should scrub the walls regularly. Algae forms a chemical resistant biofilm that makes it tough to kill. If you're not busting up that biofilm, shocking the pool will be less effective.

Vacuum out the old algae on the bottom to waste.

Scrub the sides and bottom.

Shock. Like, end-of-the-world level shocking. Use stuff without stabilizer like Calcium hypochlorite and bleach.

Vacuum the dead algae out again to waste.

Wait a day or so, THEN... add algaecide. That will mop up all the stuff that resisted the chlorine.

If you get all the material out of the pool, and it's still cloudy with algae, and your filter isn't cutting it... then floc it, then vacuum it.

Manually removing material from your pool... scrubbing, vacuuming, scooping... is an overlooked method of keeping your pool stable. Double down on that once your pool is clear.

Shock it, brush it multiple times a day and vacuum it once a day until it clears up. Make sure your pump is running at all times and your filter pressure is always low. Also make sure your pump strainer baskets are cleaned a few times a day until you get it resolved.

LE I didn't know you were a pool guy.

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It's not difficult if you pay a little attention every day

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Well that's just it. I don't want to have to think about it every day or have any commitment to remember what I'm supposed to do, or how much and which chemical(s) I'm supposed to add, and when.

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Unfortunately my pool vacuums to the filter, so I don't have a set up to go to waste. Guess I'll have to pull a vacuum and drain the algae bottoms manually in my yard somewhere. I've never tried this, maybe use a shop vac on the end of the hose to get it started?

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Congratulations! You're dealing with the same shite I dealt with when I hired a local company to install new pool equipment and get my pool up and running. They gave me an undersized cartridge filter with no way to vacuum to waste, then let the pool get nasty before they finished the job, so that when I went to clean it, the filter would get clogged after just a minute of vacuuming. Luckily, a buddy was pool smarter than me and he set me up with an appropriately sized sand filter and multi-port valve so I could vac to waste and backwash easily.

What I learned in all of that is that cartridge filters may filter smaller particles, but they are better suited for indoor pools and if you let your pool go green or can't drain it easily (i.e. a vinyl liner, like I have) then they are shite to use.

My advice: tear that piece of shite out and put in a good sized sand filter. Then use the Trouble Free Pool method to maintain chlorine levels.

Good advice Cad.

Big believer in BBB method, and after struggling with pool stores, pool companies, I do it myself now with much less headache and my wallet is a lot fuller.

Do the research yourself people, but Liquid Chlorine Bleach is your friend here.

Winn Dixie has it for 1.25 a bottle. Can't beat it.

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OCLT

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fyi this stands for 'overnight chlorine loss test' and it simply means that the chlorine level in the pool when you went to bed is the same when you wake up in the morning..and with the sun not a factor at night..if its lower that means there's still algae eating your chlorine so you need to keep the pool at shock level a little longer.

you'll need the fancy chlorine tester (not the cheap kit from the pool store) to get the EXACT level of chlorine since at shock level its way beyond the ability of those cheap kits to know precisely how much is in your pool.


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