Salt Water Swimming Pools?

Question

We have a salt water pool and are having BIG trouble with alge. Can anyone tell me an easy way to get rid of this problem without spending so much on items from the pool store? Is there anything from your everyday household items that you could use? Pleeeeeease help!

Answer 1

I assume you are talking about the kind of "salt water" pool that generates it's own chlorine via some chemical process I don't fully understand.  But we have one and have been learning for the last three years.  #1 Don't let the mineral content get too low.    I think they say 2600 to 3000 is okay, but we do much better staying at 3000.  #2 Do add the balance pack to stabilize the water; they say every week , but we do better when we really do do that.  #3.  Check for wierd things in the pool water via the use of a GOOD water testing pool place with Staff that really care and know you.  They want customers and so they do try to help or you'll go elsewhere.  We had something in our pool last year that was eating up the chlorine just as soon as it was being generated.  I wish I could remember the name, but I can't.  When water is high in this; I think it's phosphates, then the chlorine just dies off.  hence algae.   So we had to add  gobs and gobs of relatively not expensive stuff to kill that and voila, chlorine started staying in the pool.  Of course use the algae killers when things are really bad and try to get the non=foaming ones cuz just yuck with foaming bubbles floating around in the pool.  But the key is chlorine.  Temperature is a huge factor too!  We have a sliding polycarbonate greenhouse type thing over our pool so as to be able to start the season earlier and end it later., and have it be either indoor or outdoor.   But , when closed in the hot summer then the pool water heats way way way up. So if  your water is hot for some reason, then you really need that chlorine generating and might want that filter running full time instead of just ten to 12 hours while the chlorine is bad especially.  But we do better just leaving it on.   Also . . . the type of filter matters and we are considering changing our  diatomite (DE) filter to a cartrigge one.  Diatomatacious earth is great for keeping all the tiny little particles in the filter and not in the pool, but when algae buildup is bad and it is cleaning out the algae, then it is a god awful chore to change and change the DE and clean the filter out to get all the stuff out of the pool.  When the filter pressure goes up and the water isn't flowing well, then you know the filter isn't working well, of course, and all the backwashing in the world will only last for a little while, when there's so much algae in that filter.  Use that pool company, when things get bad and make sure they teach you what they are doing and why.  Just testing ph and chlorine will never do it.  It's a help, but having water professionally tested every little while is a huge help.   And I'm not a pro, so I hope one has more to add to this.  oh, I almost forgot.  Brush the stupid pool walls hard per the instructions on the algae killers.  If there's algae alive it will keep growing!!!   Oh, I almost forgot something else.  If you have anything like the kind of salt water pool I have, then there is a gauge that you can put at anywhere between off to 100%, the latter of which is the "shock" level.  You have to play around with where that gauge needs to stay so you keep the right concentration of chlorine in the pool.   Good luck!! .    me

Answer 2

Call the local pool store and tell them this

I have a salt water swimming pool

I am having alge issues and they are getting bad

Do you have any affordable solutions

If not browse google ! They do make it I am positive