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Green stains in over chlorinated pool

Posted by Scott Amundsen on December 23, 2008 at 6:42am in Pool Service Topics
I recently took over a pool service account that had a remarkablely large amount of green staining. The client has a Salt machine and PH chem pump. The pool was balanced but the Chlorine reading was well over 12-20PPM. The salt machine was turned up to 80% on a less than 10,000gallon pool. Needless to say i reset the chlorinator to 30% and the staining seems to be lighter every week. I cannot get a copper level on the water yet. I have a HP1100 HeatPro pump(coils wraped in liquid vinyl and the exchanger is plastic) that is not showing issues. Anyone seen this before? could the chlorine level being this high cause the color? Reasoning is a comercial spa i was took over a few years ago had the exact same green stains but the chlorine level was over 30PPM.. once lowered the color disipated.

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Replies

  • Scott Amundsen August 13, 2009 at 5:48am
    Well the green staining is gone now. But wouldn't you know it the client forgot to inform us that the Diamond brite surface she choose was The teal color. This threw off our service tech a bit, but once the pool was balanced and the WHITE top and bottom filter cartridges replaced (Thanks Karl) the green color as dissipated.
  • Lea Jaunakais August 5, 2009 at 11:07am
    It is most likely Copper and the high chlorine level is causing corrosion on your copper pipes in the heating system. You might need to chelate the copper out of the water before it becomes a permanent problem. Do you have a way to test copper? If not, you can get a inexpensive accurate test strip at www.sensafe.com

    Good luck!
  • ALLEN HUNZEKER August 3, 2009 at 3:06am
    CHECK FOR IRON IN WATER? THEN SEQUESTER OR CHELATE.
  • John Balistreri December 23, 2008 at 8:10pm
    I have seen the same green tint with ozone when the water is over oxidized.
    This was with an 8 gram system with an air dryer.
    I reduced it to 4 grams and shorten the run time.
    It could be the high ORP level is causing the minerals to drop out.
    If your PH is above 7.6 you may not get a copper reading.
    Take a sample and lower it's PH to 7.0 and retest for copper.
    Happy Holidays
  • Karl Untch December 23, 2008 at 6:57am
    I found decomposition of cartridge filter top and bottom (which is usually blue or aqua color) as a possibility in one case that is very similar to yours, but dont know if you have a cartridge on this pool.
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