How to Clean A Pool After Green Algae Has Started

A pool can turn green overnight and can be difficult to correct,however, with some basic understanding of swimming pool chemistry your green pool can become blue again within a few days. Once green algae is under control it is important to maintain and shock your pool throughout the summer season in order to avoid another algae outbreak.

If you are taking care of your own pool and have realized that with the change in temperature your pool sanitization has gotten away from you, you are not alone. Algae, or "green pool" often happens suddenly in the summertime. The maintenance of your pool is a full time job, and this is precisely why there are professionals who specialize in the business of pool service. I highly recommend that pool owners choose a reliable, professional pool service, but if you are not ready to hire, here are a few important tips to help you turn your green pool blue again.

Using test strips, make sure you focus on your pool's PH and Chlorine reading. They are the culprits for algae. PH should be 7.4, (keep in mind test strips read slightly lower than they really are by approximately 1-2 readings. Aim lower than 7.4) if it is higher, your chlorine potential is greatly reduced. Chlorine should be 3 or 5.

PH should read 7.4, or slightly lower, especially in summer, and if it is higher than that, you will need to add muriatic acid to bring PH down. This is not a technical article about how to detail out your pool, and if I were to go into how much acid per how man gallons of water to push your PH down, it would go right over the heads of most pool owners, and the goal here is to help out the average person with a green pool. So, Without making an exact science out of this- If you have one gallon of acid handy, add approximately 1/4 of the acid, and test the water again with the strip to see if that has lowered it sufficiently.

It does not take much acid to lower an average size pool's PH. ( average size being 22,000 gallons)

Chlorine can burn out of the pool quite easily, so putting one gallon to maintain a 3-5 is very common. If your chlorine reading is 0, more than likely you should add 2 gallons. (If you have a Chlorine pool as opposed to a salt water pool, you can be sure that you will always put in at least twice as much chlorine than acid)

Algae is not easy to treat once it has grown all over the pool, and there are products that are a combination of algaecides and clarifiers. They are fine to use as maintenance products, but when you have a real serious algae problem, it is time to pull out the big guns.

Swimtriene is the single best product to clear up algae fast.

For the photos here approximately one half gallon of Swimtriene was used, and the photos were taken one week apart.

To really be sure that you have a clean pool- use a brush and scrub all the walls, paying special attention to the steps and shaded areas, as they are places that algae often appear first. This will kill the algae that has grown on the surface of the pool while the Swimtriene kills the algae that is floating in the water.

You may have to scrub the walls often, until absolutely certain that the algae is under control. When the algae is brushed off the walls, the dead algae becomes food for algae and it is a vicious cycle.

The best way to avoid this process is to always keep up on the chemistry of the pool water. Check it once per week at the very least, and brush the walls when the slightest signs of algae appears on the steps. Just because the numbers on the strip seem perfect does not mean there will not be any algae because "mustard algae" that attaches itself to the walls, becomes resistant to chlorine after it has taken root, and even if your chlorine is a 10, it can still keep growing. The key to eliminating algae is to shock the pool often in the summertime when the pool is under a lot of use and the temperature is high. To shock your pool add about twice the amount of chemicals that you normally would. This will quickly cook out anything that lurks in your pool water that has become used to the environment of the normal does of chlorine and acid.