Green Water - Is Shock the answer

[mkiely]

Hello. I am new to this conference. I am desperate. Our above ground pool (24ft. I think about 14k gallons) once turned green when we first installed it two years ago. It was easy to fix, we used a metal out type of product because we knew we had metal in our town water and it did the trick. (Not sure of brand)
Last week, we left clear water on Friday and came home to green water on Sunday. The only thing we did was top off the pool on Friday so we figured, metal. ALso, and this I think is also key, no slime whatsoever. Nothing is slippery, slimy, nothing on walls. Just green and cloudy.

We also figured metal because I thought algae had to "grow" but since I have no experience with it I was not sure how fast it could appear. On Sunday, though the water was green and murky, I could see the bottom of the pool, now I cannot see the bottom.

The pool store said we had no chlorine (We always get this so we are not doing something right with stabilizer or something) The test also said negative to algae, so we figured, metal.

We put their metal out product in the pool. Nothing. On Thursday, we tried a different metal out product, nothing. We can no longer see the bottom of the pool (Saturday). There is absolutely no slime or anything to indicate algae other than color, and that it is cloudy.
The pool store also said that our alk as low.

We supershocked it yesterday and have been trying to keep this level high. (We put 2 bags in, I read that someone said 8 bags, sounds like an awaful lot. Can this damage anything or bleach the liner?) That was 24 hours ago and nothing.
We are feeling that we have to be chemists to get this right. We do not understand stabilized and unstabilized and are not sure if things like low ALK and PH will make the shock not work.... Does anybody have any ideas on how I would go about clearing this up because two different pool stores and analysis have failed. If you could tell me what these chemicals areby chemical name becuase brand names mean nothing to me if I cannot buy them at my local stores (They all carry their own brand)
Thanks. I am desperate. Mike

[sheila]

Mike I wrote a big topic in algae allready, we have well water that has a strong smell turns everything yellow in the bathroom, I didn't use metal out product, I just shocked the crap out of it. and vaccum to waste ONLY! It thankfully didn't bleach my liner, but you can't shock the pool till the ph is perfect. If it rained while you were gone the water probably was not balanced, then algae comes. try what I did I still have a clear blue pool!! Good luck!! sheila