Closing with "pink slime and white water mold"

[CarolineM]

PoolDoc, please help! Will I be able to kill all this stuff in the spring??? Wanting to turn off the pump and winterize, but I'm afraid!

[CarlD]

Have you looked at our Best Guess table? With a CYA of 45, you need to maintain an FC of 15 at least. If it's a concrete pool you can safely go higher.
I'm not sure what the exact new stronger bleach is, but I'm going to assume it's 8.25%. Now with your pool, each gallon will add about 3.3 ppm of chlorine, so you'd need at least 4 1/2 gallons all at once just to get it to 15 if you didn't have algae...then it gets consumed killing algae.

If I were you I'd be planning on adding up to 5 gallons 3x a day until I could maintain an FC of 15ppm. Or, if you can get 12% liquid chlorine, each gallon will add nearly 5ppm, so I'd plan on adding up to 3 gallons of that 3x day.

[CarolineM]

Thanks for your reply CarlD! Guess I'll have to reopen the pool - peeked under the cover yesterday and it already looks like a swamp

[CarolineM]

Oh my goodness!! Took the cover off - green swamp - added (5) 121 oz 8.25% Clorox two hours ago - just tested and showed 1.5ppm!!!!! Adding 4 more now. Can this really be happening?? Been scooping out chunks of green slime for 2 hours - using kneehigh hose in the skimmer - getting clogged every 10 minutes - rinsing and replacing. I'll have to take the hose off skimmer for the night - will my filter blow up???

[CarlD]

Gotta get that junk out of the pool.

[CarolineM]

Tested this morning and found "0" CYA - it was 45 a few days ago. Is that possible? Expected the sand filter to have way high pressure this morning, but it didn't go up - could I have a filter problem? When I turn off the pump water rushes back into the pumps skimmer - it loses prime and I have to add water to get it started again. Thanks for your advice!!!

[CarlD]

MASSIVE amounts of algae have been known to consume CYA and leave (I think) ammonia. If the filter pressure didn't go it, it's filtering--but you may have a leak in your plumping. It should be self-priming.