Importance of Proper Chemistry in Your Swimming Pool

The importance of proper chemistry in your swimming pool is vital. No matter what time of year it is, making sure you have adequate levels of sanitation, proper pH, and the proper amount of cyanuric acid go a long way. But, what happens if a tree or other type of vegetation were to fall into your swimming pool? Well, this past weekend, we received a call because that is exactly what happened. Anytime, you introduce vegetation, soil, tree branches, leaves etc into a swimming pool it causes major issues to not only your swimming pool but the chemistry as well. The purpose of this blog post is to inform you on the steps you need to take to make sure you keep your swimming pool looking good and preventing stains to the interior finish.

As you can see from the picture above, we were recently contacted by a customer who walked out to their backyard to see a tree limb in their swimming pool. Unfortunately, when this happens there a variety of things that need to happen beyond just removing it. First, you will need to cut the limb down and remove the branch as soon as possible. The longer this limb stays in the water the quicker your pool will turn green. Tree limbs and leaves love to eat up chlorine and you would need to dump a lot of it in your swimming pool to keep it clear. Next, as soon as you remove the limb from the swimming pool you will need to remove all the leaves, other branches and anything else that is in the swimming pool from the tree. When leaves, branches, and other debris remain in the swimming pool and especially on white plaster it can cause staining. In addition, when this happens, you will also need to check your phosphate levels too. Phosphates come from vegetation like this and when those levels increase it can cause algae to grow. Phosphates are food for algae and if they aren’t removed with the proper amount of phosphate removers algae will grow no matter how much chlorine you have in your swimming pool.

Finally, if staining occurred to the interior finish of the swimming pool you might need to drain the swimming pool and chlorine bath the finish to remove the stains. Please keep in mind that the biggest take home with this is to remove everything from the swimming pool as soon as possible and increase your chlorine levels. After that, make sure you monitor or check your phosphate levels to keep your pool looking clear and blue. If you should have any questions in regards to this, please contact us today!