Best Way To Clean Green Pool In 24 Hours!

1. Shock the Pool: Before you can clean a green pool, you have to kill the algae. This requires a lot of chlorine. I usually use 5-10 gallons, depending on the size of the pool and how thick the algae is. You will know you used enough chlorine if within a short time the green starts to lighten in color.
2. Brush the Pool: You need to brush the entire pool. Brush all the algae off the walls and floor, and get it mixed into the chlorine.
3. Wait: Yes wait with the pump off. you want all the algae to die and fall to the floor. Running your circulation system (pool pump), will stir up dead and live algae, and keep the water cloudy.
4. Vacuum the Pool to Waste: Filters are not designed to catch massive amounts of dirt, they are designed to maintain clean pool water. So by-pass the filter and pump what you are vacuuming up, straight to waste. You will lose a lot of water if you do not do this fast. Most filters have a multi-valve with a waste setting.
5. Filter the Pool: You can vacuum dirt off the walls and floor, but you can’t vacuum what is floating! Floating debris/particulate/dirt has to be filtered. The best filter for this is D.E (Diatomaceous Earth). If you have a good pool filter and have followed the steps above, your pool should be clear in 24-48 hours. You may need a light vacuuming even after the pool clears. Some dead algae that is not caught by the filter, will continue to fall to the floor.

Extreme Cases Of Green Pool

If you have an extreme case, with a ton of algae and leaves on the bottom of the pool. As in cases where the pool has been closed for the winter, or for multiple seasons, or even worse, the cover has fallen into the pool. You should attempt to vacuum the pool to waste before proceeding with the above instructions.

If there is to much debris, and you cannot vacuum. You have no choice but to leaf rake the entire pool with a leaf net. Continue removing debris with leaf net until you can make a pass, and only catch a few leaves in the net. You may have to let the pool settle, and then leaf rake the entire pool again.

Vacuuming Pool To Waste

This means we are not going to try and filter the water, we are going to pump it onto the lawn, or nearby wood line. This is a recommended procedure when opening a pool with a mesh pool cover. Algae grow in pools with mesh covers, and dirt sifts through the as well. Again, filters were never meant to clean super filthy water.

I use a side vac (pump), meaning I bring my own equipment. I use a  Hayward 1.5 HP Super Pump, a 30, or 40-foot I-Helix Vacuum hose, a vacuum head with bristles, and relief valves. Many pool filters have a waste setting, but you run the risk of clogging the skimmer line with acorns, broken pieces of tile, small rocks, etc. With a hose connected right to the front of my super pump, I don’t run the risk of clogging or damaging the customers plumbing.

You can see an example is this, in the short video below. When customers are not around to see how bad the pool looks under the cover. I like to shoot a quick video to show them, and justify my bill! I usually charge 150.00 for a side vac.

The pool in this video, had minimal leaves, so I was able to vacuum the heavy algae and dirt straight to waste. I usually run a garden hose adding water to the pool while vacuuming to waste, even in cases where the pool is overfilled.

In this next video, I narrate as my helper Hugo does the vacuuming. This pool had a very green bottom. If someone was to come and brush this pool, they would stir this mess up, and then the only way to clean this green pool, would be by filtering it. That means cleaning the media in the filter, countless times over the course of 2 weeks.

With this method. My customer (Harry), will have a clean and clear pool by the next day! Watch the next short video below to see complete set up.

It is this process that makes people think I’m a miracle worker. You can see the pool turning to blue, as the algae and sediment are pumped directly out of this pool.

Hayward Super Pump: I use a 1.5 HP because I like the extreme suction power. But you could use a .75 HP, or a 1 HP Super Pump. The cool thing about this pump, is that it runs on 110V or 220. I put the jumper on 110V and wire a long extension cord to a water proof switch, right on the side of the pump. This way I can power it in any yard I go into. You can often find cheap used ones on Craigslist, or the cheapest place I’ve seen them is on Amazon.

Vacuum Head: I use this one because of it’s special design. I keep a few of them on my van. The trick is to cut the bristles of in 1 inch increments. On mild green pools i use my head with only four cuts, for heavy algae pools, I use a head with 6-8 cuts. Cutting the bristles prevents the vacuum head from getting stuck to the bottom of the pool.

I-Helix Vacuum Hose: This is the best vacuum hose on the market! I only use it on the vacuuming side of the pump. I use a cheap hose for the waste side. I actually sell this hose in my online pool store.

Obviously, you will want a good service pole too. but I am sure you have one. The last thing I recommend for professional, and I like to use for pools with lots of leaves, is this debris pot. I hook it up between the vacuum hose and the front of the pump. It helps me to keep vacuuming, instead of constantly stopping to clean the small basket of the super pump.

How Much Chlorine To Use

If I test the water and there is no chlorine present, which there usually isn’t. I add 5 gallons of chlorine per 10,000 gallons of pool water. Liquid chlorine will raise your pH and Alkalinity, so if those are already high, use powdered chlorine.

NEVER MIX CHEMICALS / ALWAYS ADD CHEMS TO WATER NEVER WATER TO CHEMS.

How to Clean a Green Above Ground Pool

The procedure is the same as has already mentioned with a couple exceptions. You may need to remove your pool ladder or drop-in-steps to remove algae.

Any live algae will grow fast, if you do not brush it all into chlorine, it will definitely return.

What ever it takes, you have to remove leaves and debris. This can be challenging with above ground pools as you may have to work over the pool wall. Or your service pole may not reach across the entire pool, or you may have an annoying perimeter fence around the top.

I usually remove sections of the fence when working on above ground pools with such an obstacle.

How To Clean A Green Pool That Has A Salt System Or Ozone

Salt systems create chlorine, and if your pool is green, either your salt system /chlorine generator is broken or you do not have enough salt in the pool. Take care of these concerns but follow all the instructions alread mentioned.

Ozone generators last 3-5 years and require a chlorine or monopersulfate residual to stave off algae. If you have algae you probably have not kept up with adding supplemental sanitizer, or it’s time to replace your ozone generator. There is a new Oxygen Pools System that fights algae and make pool maintenance easy.

Even with monopersulfate, or UV light, if your Ozonated pool turns green, shock it as prescribed with chlorine to get it back under control.

Green Pool Water Not Algae

One fast way to turn your pool water green is by accidentally adding chlorine to a pool with bromine. You are suppose to shock bromine pools with chlorine, just make sure not to mix the two chemicals, and do not add to much chlorine.

Usually the green will go away fast if you do not add to much chlorine.

Another way to get green water without algae present is if you have a lot of copper in the pool water. This can happen if you fill your pool with well water, or use to much copper based algaecide.

This is a little tougher to clear up. It is best to avoid this situation which you can by using the Hayward filler sock which helps catch the copper while the pool is filling up. Once it happens, you can add some metal out and cotton material in your skimmer to try and filter it out.

One other thing you can do is use a chlorine remover to lower the effect.

You can still use the pool as long as you can still safely monitor swimmers.

Conclusion

If you want to clean a green pool fast, remember filter are not made to do it. So kill algae, wait, and vacuum to waste… Then filter the pool constantly, monitoring filter pressure as you go.

Two final pieces of advice and information. 1st. When vacuuming to waste, keep an eye on the wastewater, you can easily flood the neighbors or even your own basement with all the water you are pumping out! 2nd. For tough jobs, I often bring a DE filter, even if the customer has a DE filter. People with cartridge filters should clean them often, and people with sand filters will just have to wait longer for cloudy pools to clear. It’s not that you didn’t do everything right, sand-filters just don’t filter small debris well.

*Bonus Tip: Maintain a chlorine level at all times, no lower than 2PPM while cleaning a green pool.