Ways to turn your pool green fast!!
Adding chlorine tablets to your pool once per week
Chlorine tablets dissolve within 3 to 5 days during the heat of summer. During extremely hot stretches, they can dissolve even quicker than that. If your routine for maintaining your pool consists of only adding tablets once per week, you are running the risk of inviting algae to bloom when the chlorine levels drop below 1ppm. To properly ensure that your chlorine levels stay in the appropriate range for fighting algae, you should check your chlorine tablets at least twice per week, making sure to replace tablets before they have completely dissolved.
Brushing your pool only when there is visible dirt or algae
If you are waiting to brush your pool until there is something visible to brush, you are not effectively preventing algae from blooming. There are millions of invisible spores of algae in every ounce of clear water, and these spores are attaching themselves to the surface of your pool. If you are not routinely brushing your pool at least once per week, even if there is nothing visible on the surface, you are allowing algae spores to bloom the moment chemical conditions in the pool become ideal. To prevent algae from having a chance to bloom, it is imperative that your pool be brushed at least once per week.
Shocking your pool only when you start to see algae
Along with brushing the pool once per week, you should be shocking your pool once per week as well. Algae in poorly-circulated areas of the pool can become immune to the slow-dissolving chlorine from tablets, and you will eventually notice algae blooms throughout your pool even with an appropriate chlorine residual in the pool. Shocking weekly can help eliminate this threat, as well as shocking after every heavy rain and every heavy bather load. To ensure maximum shock effectiveness, you should always shock after the sun has set to reduce the amount of shock eliminated by the sun’s UV rays.
Waiting until algae blooms to add algaecide
The final key to weekly maintenance is adding the appropriate maintenance dosage of algaecide once per week, preferably in the morning after you have brushed and shocked the pool. The reasoning behind adding algaecide in the morning is because algae is a plant, and plants bloom in direct sunlight. By adding algaecide in the morning right before or during the algae blooming, the algae will have the most intake at that time, and it will absorb the most algaecide in the morning, making it more effective at that time than at any other.
Not cleaning your filter at least once per season
This does not mean you should replace your sand in your sand filter or cartridges in your cartridge filter. What this means is that you should be regularly cleaning your cartridges and D.E. grids with filter cleaning chemicals, as well as cleaning your sand once or twice per season with sand filter cleaning chemicals. This prolongs the life of your filters, as well as improves the clarity of the pool water and effectiveness of your filter. Ask one of our associates about filter cleaning chemicals.
High phosphate levels going unchecked
Phosphates are chemicals that, when found in high levels in swimming pools, help aid the growth of algae. There are five sources of energy for algae, two of which are sun and water, which will always be available to algae as long as you have water in the pool. The other three sources are nitrates, phosphates, and carbon dioxide. To completely prevent algae growth in your pool, you would want to eliminate as many sources as possible, but by severely limiting one source (such as phosphates), you will still have a very high chance of preventing algae blooms. We recommend that at least twice per month during the summer you have your phosphate levels tested by the professionals. Once your phosphate level has been determined, your technician will recommend the appropriate dosage of Natural Chemistry PhosFREE to reduce your phosphate level.
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