Fixing a green swimming pool - step two - balancing the PH, hardness and alkalinity levels

Before we get stuck into the detail of this post about all things pool chemical, we need to set the scene.

We inherited a green pool. We needed to clean the pool and fix it. 35000 litres in capacity. Here's how. Before we can balance it we needed to shock it with chlorine and algae killer. This done, we let it settle for a few days before stirring again and running the filter.

After about ten or 12 days the pool was starting to look a bit more swimmable, however there was more work to be done before we could get swimming.

I needed to add salt - as it was a salt chlorinated pool, and I needed to be sure that the hardness level was right, as well as the Ph level. Too much acidity or alkalinity will affect pipes and liners, as well as the electrolytic converter that changes the sodium chloride - salt - into chlorine.

Now I did year 11 and 12 chemistry but this called for a specialist. So out came the trusty sample bottle - once the coca cola was sorted - and off we went back to Clark Rubber.

Now I do need to say that this is not an ad for this business, but they were very helpful. Most pool specialists would provide similar services I imagine. They told us that the water was too soft, and that we needed to raise the alkalinity - it was too acidic. And yes that means they sold us the necessary chemicals. Fair enough I say.

So we also bought three 20 kilo bags of pool salt and stirred the whole lot in to our 35000 litre inground solar heated swimming pool. Then ran the filters....and waited....and waited.....and.....

The salt level was perfect....

The PH is now perfect, as is the water hardness level....

All we needed to do was let the chlorinator do its job and run the filter a bit more. As the chlorine level came up our once murky swampy pool began to look very good indeed.

And the end result......

Salt water chlorinated in ground swimming pool

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Fixing a green swimming pool : Step one - the shock treatment using chlorine

Swimming Pool Help - A Green Pool!

It really looked this green

Actually that's not strictly true. The first step we took towards rectifying the green pool problem was to get some information, and some good advice from a pool professional.

Thinking I was doing the right thing, I took a nice big sample of pool water down to our local Clark Rubber shop. Why Clark Rubber? Well they do sell rubber but they also sell a huge range of pool accessories, and most stores have a pool specialist on hand.

What I thought I needed was to check the Ph level for acidity or alkalinity, as well as the chlorine level. So in we went, green murky water in a jar, to the local shop. The water actually looked as if it was full of troll bogeys from Harry Potter. Eeeew.

This water is meant to be clear

When we got there, the pool expert politely explained that we could measure the chlorine level, but the amount of algae and bacteria in the pool water meant that we had several things to deal with

These were :

All of the biological activity in the water would mean that the acidity level - or PH - would change constantly. So we had to stop that before addressing anything else.

And that the salt water chlorinator woukd not, on its own, be able to reverse the green pool situation. The pools chlorine level was very low - way under the required concentration to kill algae and bugs. The bacteria in the pool was due to the backswimmers and frogs living and excreting in the water.

We needed to shock dose the pool with chlorine and add an algicide. If you don't know what an algicide is, its a chemical that kills algae. I think it was a potassium based chemical because it was purple.

 These chemicals cost about 70 dollars or so, and while we were there we also bought a new pool vacuum head for about $40. As you may have seen in our earlier post about what sorts of pool tools you might need compared with what we had received you will know why.

So in went the chemicals. Bearing in mind that this is a salt water chlorinated in ground pool of about 35,000 liters in volume that's not exactly expensive. I would say quite cheap.

The concentrated chlorine was in a solid granulated form, and we had to dissolve it first in a bucket of water, then add it to the pool while the filter was running. If we had added straight solid chlorine granules to the pool it apparently could have damaged the liner.

The algae killing chemical was a liquid, and the whole lot went straight in. Then we ran the filter and pump for a while, This spread the chemicals throughout the pool.

It took about ten days for the chemicals to do their job. The green slowly faded, and the pool became clearer but was still a bit murky.

Next step : Balancing the water and adding salt so the electrolytic chlorine converter could do its job!

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