Is your pool water, green? Well, the good news is you don't have to drain your pool and start over to get rid of it? Here's a quick guide on how to kill, pool algae fast and keep it from coming back. Let's dive in real quick before we continue. If you want more help taking care of your pool, be sure to grab our free pool care, cheat sheet at swimuniversity.com, cheat sheet, it's totally free and will help keep your pool clean and clear all season long first. Why do i have a green swimming pool? Well, the culprit for green water is pool algae.

If it's light, green, the algae is likely just starting to take hold, but a deeper green means. You have a bigger algae, bloom problem. Green algae happens when your chlorine levels are too low when your chlorine levels are low. Your chlorine can't sanitize, the water and algae can start to develop.

Algae can also grow if your pool filter hasn't been running properly and the water hasn't been passing through your filtration system. If you've added chlorine and you're running your filter and the algae just won't go away, here's how to fix green pool water fast make sure you follow every step in order to make sure you're as efficient as possible. 1. brush.

The pool walls and floor attach a pool brush to a telescopic pole and scrub. The pool walls, floor, steps and any surface the algae might be clinging to the goal is to get the algae floating in suspension in your pool water, giving the chlorine a better chance to kill it. If you have a concrete pool, it's best to use an algae brush, algae is tough and will stubbornly clean to the pool's surfaces, especially porous concrete. So a heavy duty brush works better than soft nylon bristles in this case two test, your alkalinity and ph.

Using test strips or a liquid test kit test, the ph and alkalinity levels, your ph should be between 7.4 and 7.6. It's okay! If it's a bit lower since you'll, be adding shock later. That actually raises the ph. Your total alkalinity should be between 100 and 150 parts per million.

Again it's okay! If this is a bit lower, if your ph and alkalinity are too high, now is the time to adjust them start with lowering your alkalinity first, which should bring your ph down in range, then retest, your water, and, if needed, adjust your ph afterward adjusting your ph And alkalinity at this stage will ensure the shock treatment will be as effective as possible, also testing your water can happen before brushing it won't affect the algae killing process and if you need more help, balancing your ph and alkalinity be sure to check out our other Video on pool water, chemistry, three shock, your pool with chlorine to kill algae. This is the most important step in clearing up a green pool, because shock is what kills the algae. Pull shock contains a high level of chlorine that will kill algae and sanitize. Your pool water for the best results use a calcium, hypochlorite shock, aka cal hyposhock, that contains at least 70 percent available chlorine.

If you usually use a non-chlorine shock, you must use a chlorine shock to kill algae non-chlorine shock, just won't work to get rid of algae spores and keep in mind it's best to shock at night. Otherwise, the sun can burn off the shock and it will be less effective. So how much shock do you need to kill the algae in your pool? It depends on the color of the algae. A normal shock treatment is one pound of shock per 10, 000 gallons of pool water, but that's if your pool isn't green.

If your pool is a light, green you'll need to add double the shock to your pool water. If your pool is dark, green you'll need to add triple the amount and, if your pool is black, you'll need to quadruple shock your pool. For example, if you have a 20 000 gallon pool or about 7 500 liters and your water was dark. Green you'll need six bags of shock, that's a triple dose if you need more help about how to add shock to your pool water, be sure to check out our other video four run, your pool, filter for eight hours and shock again, if needed as you, let The shock work run your filter system for at least eight hours overnight, but if you can run the filter 24 hours a day until your pool is clear, this will help clear your water faster.

If the pool is still green or teal in the morning hit it again with the same amount of shock the following night and by the next morning, it should be cloudy blue, in this case, cloudy water is actually a good thing. If your pool is cloudy blue, that means you've successfully killed all the algae and it's floating in the water. Keep your filter system running for at least 24 hours to get the dead algae out of the water and to ensure the shock has fully dissipated. If you want to speed up the process, you can use a pool clarifier to help clear the water more quickly or if you want a more powerful treatment to clear up the cloudy water use, a pool flocculant, keep in mind that you'll need to vacuum.

Your pool after using this, and it only works if you have a filter with a waist setting five clean, your filter, make sure you backwash your filter or change the cartridge. After all, the algae is gone. All that dead algae is caught in your filter medium. So now it's time to clean it, if you need more help on when and how to backwash your sand or de filter be sure to check out our other videos, number six test, your water again and adjust your pool chemicals.

When your pool isn't green anymore or you have cloudy blue or clear water test, your water again, this time test for ph alkalinity, calcium, harness and your chlorine levels and add chemicals as needed to balance things out once you make sure all your levels are where they Need to be you're ready to enjoy your pool again. So now that your pool is clear, how do you keep pool algae from coming back? Well, the best way to keep algae away is keeping your chlorine levels in the right range. This means testing your water at least once a week or more often, if you're noticing fluctuations. If you notice your levels are a bit on the low side, don't wait for things.

To get worse, add chlorine immediately and if you have a saltwater pool, make sure your saltwater generator is keeping your chlorine levels consistent. If you want to take more preventative measures, you can also add algaecide during your regular pool maintenance, but your best bet is to just stay on top of your chlorine levels. If you need more help with pool maintenance grab our free pool care cheat sheet at swimuniversity.com. Cheat sheet and if you found this video helpful, leave a comment hit the like button and subscribe for more pool maintenance tutorials throughout the season.

That's it thanks again and happy swimming.