Need advice in keeping it clean for the next month(no pump)

[Guest]

Hi all, I have a salt water 28'x'16'x 6'deep pool which at the time has no pump. I am trying to keep the keep the water clean for the next 2 months since the house it's being sold as is. So far I managed to keep the water clean for a little over a month without the pump, but just a couple of days ago I decided to brush the bottom of the pool and now the water has turned light green. Is there anything I can do to get the water back the way it was now that the pump is not working? Should I just add a bag of salt or bleach to the water? Thanks for any advices you guys can provide.

[Guest]

You really need a pump to keep it clean.

It's the only way.

[chem geek]

As was already said, you really need circulation to keep the pool clean, but the next best thing is to add a lot of chlorinating liquid or bleach to kill off the algae that is now developing -- keep adding it to keep the Free Chlorine (FC) level up and then after it is gone add PolyQuat 60 algaecide, wait a day, then add some chlorine. Brush the pool and try and mix the water around as best as you can. If you can cover the pool to keep sunlight off of it, that will help; otherwise, you'll have to add chlorine almost every day. You'll add more PolyQuat 60 once a week unless the pool water is very cold.

Richard

[Guest]

Thanks guys. Yes I've been adding a bottle of bleach every other day and the water is looking better. My only concern is that every time I brush it the algae gets loose and clouds the water then days later it all settles again on the bottom. Is there anything that maybe I can rent such as a portable vacuum so that I can vacuum the floor of the pool and get rid of all the stuff that settles on the bottom after I bush it? Thanks again.

[chem geek]

If you add more chlorine whenever it measures below shock level, then the chlorine alone will get rid of the algae though you'll need to keep mixing it up to do that. That would most certainly be more than once every two days -- probably twice a day (but measure the level to see). Some pool filters have a vacuum to waste option though that's tricky to not stir up the algae too much.

You need to maintain a shock level Free Chlorine (FC) that is 40% of the Cyanuric Acid (CYA) level if you want to clear the pool quickly; 20% of the CYA level will clear it slowly and anything less than that might not keep up with the algae growth at all, especially with circulation being so poor.

Take a look at this thread where a pool is cleared of algae using chlorine alone, though there was a vacuum/brush at one point (and the pump was working in this case).

Richard