got the cover off yesterday and the water is pretty green, which i expected after sitting all winter. i picked up some shock and algaecide at the hardware store but the guy there just kind of waved me toward the shelf and wasn't much help. do i need to get the ph and alkalinity right before i shock it, or does the order not matter that much? also not sure if i need to run the pump a certain number of hours before testing anything.
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first time opening pool myself, not sure when to add chemicals
- Thread starter Rob
- Start date
Order matters. Get your pH between 7.2 and 7.4 before you shock, because if it's too high the chlorine just sits there doing almost nothing. With green water I'd also skip the algaecide for now - shock it hard first, run the pump continuously, and see where you're at in 24 hours.
poolmom_sarah
New member
NC_Nick covered the order thing well. I'd also hold off on any algaecide until after the shock has done its work - I made the mistake of adding it too early one year and ended up with a foam party nobody asked for. Once the water clears up and your chlorine comes back down to normal levels, that's when algaecide actually helps as a follow-up. I've been using an aquaDoc algae treatment from mavaquadoc.com for the last couple seasons and it works well as a maintenance piece, not a green-water cure.
Same boat as you last spring, Rob. My water was so green I couldn't even see the first step and I just kind of panicked and threw everything in at once, which was definitely the wrong call. What these folks are saying about order is spot on - I wish I had found a thread like this before I started dumping stuff in.
The thing that made the biggest difference for me was actually testing before I did anything. I borrowed a test kit from my neighbor and found out my pH was sitting around 8.0, which apparently means your shock is basically working at like 20% efficiency or something like that. Once I got the pH down and then shocked, the water started clearing up way faster than I expected. I also had no idea you were supposed to run the pump the whole time, so I was turning it off at night like normal and wondering why nothing was happening. Run it continuously until it clears, seriously. And yeah, hold the algaecide until after all of that or you'll end up like poolmom_sarah with a foam situation nobody wants.
The thing that made the biggest difference for me was actually testing before I did anything. I borrowed a test kit from my neighbor and found out my pH was sitting around 8.0, which apparently means your shock is basically working at like 20% efficiency or something like that. Once I got the pH down and then shocked, the water started clearing up way faster than I expected. I also had no idea you were supposed to run the pump the whole time, so I was turning it off at night like normal and wondering why nothing was happening. Run it continuously until it clears, seriously. And yeah, hold the algaecide until after all of that or you'll end up like poolmom_sarah with a foam situation nobody wants.
Coming from the hot tub side of things, but water chemistry is water chemistry. The order of operations really does matter more than most people expect when they're first starting out.
One thing I noticed nobody mentioned yet - when you're doing that initial test before anything else, check your total alkalinity too, not just pH. If your TA is way off it'll make pH nearly impossible to hold stable, and you'll end up chasing it back and forth while you're trying to get the water under control. Get TA in range first, then dial in pH, then shock. Running the pump the whole time is good advice, and honestly don't get discouraged if it takes more than one round of shock to clear green water. A bad winter cover situation can take a few days to work through.
One thing I noticed nobody mentioned yet - when you're doing that initial test before anything else, check your total alkalinity too, not just pH. If your TA is way off it'll make pH nearly impossible to hold stable, and you'll end up chasing it back and forth while you're trying to get the water under control. Get TA in range first, then dial in pH, then shock. Running the pump the whole time is good advice, and honestly don't get discouraged if it takes more than one round of shock to clear green water. A bad winter cover situation can take a few days to work through.