Hi. I have a 27′ x 4 1/2’deep round above ground pool. Water has always been clear, but patches of mustard algae appeared and kept coming back after scrubbing and shocking. The local pool store said I needed to add Yellow Remover followed by 2lbs of shock. After ding this, the water turned a bright green, and is still clear. I went back to the store with a water sample, and was told that it wasn’t necessary to test it, the green was caused by metals in the pool and to buy Metal out – which I did. Any idea how long it will take to turn clear again? I don’t have much faith in the pool place anymore, since they didn’t even want to hear the fact that in 5+ years this has never happened and only happened after I added the product they recommended. Thank You!

Question:

Hi. I have a 27′ x 4 1/2’deep round above ground pool. Water has always been clear, but patches of mustard algae appeared and kept coming back after scrubbing and shocking. The local pool store said I needed to add Yellow Remover followed by 2lbs of shock. After ding this, the water turned a bright green, and is still clear. I went back to the store with a water sample, and was told that it wasn’t necessary to test it, the green was caused by metals in the pool and to buy Metal out – which I did. Any idea how long it will take to turn clear again? I don’t have much faith in the pool place anymore, since they didn’t even want to hear the fact that in 5+ years this has never happened and only happened after I added the product they recommended. Thank You!

Answer:

Actually, everything that you just reported sounds right. Some algaecides contain metals to help destroy the algae and it is very possible that this chemical raised the metal level just enough to cause the green coloration. It is pretty typical then to add metal remover after adding certain algaecides (particularly copper based) in order to draw out the metals which are very effective in killing stubborn algae.