Imagine taking a cool deep in your pool one sunny day, and while swimming, you come across a murky greenish stain or unpleasant green algae stuck to your pool wall.
How would you feel? Dirty and possibly irritated. That’s how green algae make you feel when they are in your pool.
But then, what happens when they stain your clean white or blue pool wall? You begin to do all you can to get rid of them. But then how do you get rid of green algae stains? That is what we will be showing you in this article.
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How Are Green Algae Stains Removed From The Pool Walls?
Green algae stains are not difficult to notice. They float on top of the pool and eagerly stay glued to the pool walls thereby leaving a stain when the algae fall off.
If you want to get rid of the stain, you must reheat your pool. Re-heat your pool and get it warm at least to help with the easy removal of the stains.
After that, the pre-heated pool will enable you to locate the right location of the stain, and it will help you to know the source of the stain. If the wall stain was truly caused by the green algae or not.
After you must have had it traced, then you can now treat the stained wall.
You can treat green algae stains with;
- Chlorine: This chemical can effectively work the magic! pour some chlorine on the surface of your pool wall. It will also be quite effective if your pool is tiled. When this is done, it will cause slight discoloration, and then you will be able to have your pool back!
- Muriatic Acid: if you own a concrete pool, then you must be excited to know that an acid wash with muriatic acid will help to wash the stains off the pool plaster. However, when this acid is applied, a thin layer of plaster may fall off revealing the second layer.
- Algae stain remover kit: You should also get algae to stain removal kit because removing stain algae stains from pools can be quite tedious because the stains are stubborn. When you lay your hands on any of the kits, spend some time using them to clean your algae-stained pool.
- Ascorbic acid/Vitamin C
- Bleach
How To Remove Green Algae Stains From Pool Walls
Step 1: Pressure Washer
You can decide to engage force. Sometimes, the use of force will sometimes loosen the algae stains real quick especially if your pool is concrete. You can use a pressure washer and a scrubber.
This pressure washer will direct a powerful flow of water towards the stained area.
This pressure washer can either be borrowed or rented or even purchased if you like. And it is often between 3000 PSI. so once you are connected to power and water, the pressure washer will do the trick.
But you can adjust the water pressure to be sure that your wall can withstand such pressure. If it can, apply the pressure over the affected area, and scrub where necessary with a scrubber on the other hand.
Step 2: Oxidizing Bleach
You can decide to go chemical if you wish. Get a bleach preferably, an oxidizing bleach. The oxidizing bleach has more active ingredients, unlike the non-oxidizing bleach.
So when buying your bleach for this purpose, ensure you buy the oxidizing bleach. Its ingredients are; hydrogen oxide, and sodium percarbonate.
So, use about 1 quarter of the bleach depending on how stained your wall is. Then dilute it with water, and begin to spray the stained wall.
You can spray by using a garden hose or any spray can but a garden hose is much better. Then afterward, you can scrub after 15-20 minutes of spraying.
You don’t need to apply much pressure on the walls because the stains would peel off easily.
You can use a long telescoping pole attached to a scrubber head to scrub down the walls if you don’t want to get into the water.
Step 3: Pool Cleaner
In this method, you can use a pool cleaner together with 1/3 laundry detergent, and bleach about 1/4 and water. mix the whole ingredients together.
That is about 2 cups of pool cleaner or household cleaner, 1/4 bleach solution, and detergent.
When this has been thoroughly mixed, you can pour this into a sprayer preferably a garden hose, then add a sprayer head and spray the pool, especially the stained walls.
Soak the entire walls with bleach and wait for 20 minutes. Then allow the bleach to penetrate fully into the stained walls.
Grab a scrubber that is a scrubbing brush and scrub the entire surface. You will see the stains and any future lingering stains sliding down the walls with immediate effect.
Kindly wear rubber gloves to protect your hand against the bleaching effect. Finally, once the whole stains are out, you should thoroughly rinse the wall.
Rinse it with the use of a garden hose as well. This will remove finally, any algae stain that remains on the wall.
Step 4: Chlorine
You can use chlorine if you don’t have algae stain removal kit to get the job done.
Pour the required amount of chlorine into your pool depending on your pool size, and allow it to sit for 10 minutes then use the long scrubber to scrub the insides of the pool while the pump is running.
When you are done, allow the water to settle. You will notice that the pool water will be back to its original state.
Now you can test the water to see if the pH level is balanced.
Can You Clean Pool Stained Algae Walls Without Draining The Water?
It all depends on the pool owner. Draining your pool water might destroy some things in your pool.
And since this is a mild issue, you can simply leave the pool pump running while you clean stained walls with bleach and another detergent.
Once this has been done, you can simply allow the pool water to come back to its original state of bright and clear water.
What the pool pump does is that it filters the water while you’re cleaning it and brightens it back to its original state.
You can also go the extra mile of washing your pool filter and cartridges when you’re done. But this last part of washing the cartridges isn’t really necessary.
Final Thoughts
After the green algae have been removed from your pool, they can sometimes, leave your pool walls and sometimes floors stained.
Such that swimming will be an uncomfortable exercise to engage in due to the stained walls. You can use bleach, muriatic acid, detergent, to clean the stained walls.
Always wear rubber gloves while cleaning the stained walls with any of these solutions.
