The winter months are flying by and soon we will return to enjoying the hotter Florida summer days. It’s during the summer months that some Orlando area residents deal with the dreaded algae and ever-so-irritating GREEN swimming pool “syndrome”. Is there anything worse for any pool owner, whether living in Central Florida or any other city in the Sunshine State, than having a green pool? Here are the reasons why your pool is green and how you can get it back to sparkling and swim-ready.
Why Do Pools Turn Green?
Algae usually grow when the chlorine in a pool goes below 1 ppm (parts per million). Once the algae grow it will begin to change color…this is when you’ll start first noticing the greenish tinge in your pool’s water. The moment that you see this greenish color start to appear, take immediate action and the correct measures to treat your pool before it becomes a bigger problem. In order to get rid of the algae, you may need to “shock”, or super-chlorinate, your pool as the chlorine will kill the algae. Typically one pound of granular chlorine is needed for every 10,000 gallons of water to shock a pool for regular upkeep. If you’re dealing with an algae infestation, it’s going to require quite a lot more than just prevention does.
The 3 Colors You’ll See and What They Mean
Teal – this is the least problematic of the colors you may see. A teal color requires two (2) pounds of chlorine shock for every 10,000 gallons of water in your pool.
Green (swamp-like) – this is a little more of an issue but still fixable. If you see a green swampy color you’ll need three (3) pounds of chlorine shock for every 10,000 gallons of water that your pool holds.
Black – this is the most serious of colors. Black pools require more work and you’ll need at least four (4) pounds of shock for every 10,000 gallons of water. (If this is your pool, it may be time to call in the experts at Certified Pool Pros!)
How to Shock Your Pool
The first step before you do anything else is to test the chemicals in the water. You want to make sure that the pH balance is between 7.4 and 7.6 with the alkalinity between 100ppm and 150ppm. Shocking your swimming pool should be done at night, plus it’s important to remember that you will also need to keep the pool’s filter running. After you’ve tested the chemicals you:
- Pour the bag of calcium hypo-chloride (shock) into a bucket of pool water.
- Pour the contents of the bucket into the water around the perimeter of the pool.
- Leave your pool filter running and see what the pool looks like in the morning. If it’s still discolored, then you’ll need to repeat the process with a second shock treatment.
Stay in Control:
After the shocking process, your pool will look cloudy instead of green. You need to keep the filter running for 24 hours at this point and watch for a rise in filter pressure. If you see that the pressure rises ~ 20-25%, you’ll need to clean or backwash the filter. When the cloudiness fully clears up, then reduce the filter’s run time down to only running the filter for 15 hours a day.
It is also important to continue testing the chemicals to make sure that the pH and alkalinity are within the desirable range (pH between 7.4 and 7.6; alkalinity between 100 ppm and 150 ppm) and that the chlorine reading stays between 1 ppm and 3 ppm.
Don’t forget to continue balancing your pool water weekly!
Once everything is back to normal, you can then go back to running the filter between 10 to 12 hours a day. You may choose to add an algaecide weekly to keep your pool sparkling, but that is completely up to you.
Choosing a Licensed Pool Service & Pool Cleaning Company
Certified Pool Pros is a LICENSED professional pool service company that holds the highest level of license and certification in Florida for Pool Contractors – a statewide Florida Commercial Pool Contractors License (#CPC1458803). We have been dedicated to helping Central Florida families enjoy their swimming pools for the entire swimming season for over three decades now! With offices in Lake Mary and Maitland, we are a local company owned by a life-long Winter Park resident with over 30 years of experience in the swimming pool industry.
Reliability, plus always keeping our client’s best interests as our primary goal, has led to a reputation that far surpasses any of our competition. We are proud to say that Certified Pool Pros is Central Florida’s #1 pool service and pool cleaning company. Servicing Orlando with our corporate headquarters in Lake Mary, CPP covers all of Central Florida including Orange, Lake, and Seminole counties with satisfaction guaranteed.
Whether you are an existing client or not, we urge you to contact us online now or call us TODAY at 407-859-POOL (7665) if you have any questions regarding keeping your pool clean and sparkling. Let the CERTIFIED experts do the work for you!