In our first article of this series, we took a closer look at how to identify, remove, and prevent future infestations of blue algae from your pool water. In this article, we’ll seek to follow the same pattern of identification, removal, and prevention for both yellow and black algae. These two types of algae are not as common as blue algae, but they’re also more difficult to get rid of and pose a more potentially serious health threat.
What Does Yellow Algae Look Like?
Yellow algae will cause your pool water to appear orange or yellow in color. It sticks to the pool walls and looks sort of like the pollen from a flower or like little grains of sand. The less sunlit areas of your pool are the most likely to develop an infestation of yellow algae.
How to Get Rid of Yellow Algae
The bad news is that yellow algae outbreaks tend to be extremely tenacious. It’s not nearly as easy as blue algae to get rid of once it starts to grow. It can adhere to all sorts of surfaces, including bathing suits, pool toys, and pool equipment. It can be a major headache to deal with, so it’s best to keep your pool well chlorinated in order to prevent its initial growth.
If you are trying to get rid of it once it’s already present, you’ll need to shock the pool with an even greater amount of chlorine than you would use for getting rid of blue algae. Then you’ll have to meticulously clean all of the equipment and pool surfaces that have been impacted by the yellow algae. We’ll provide more specific cleaning tips later in this series.
How to Prevent Future Infestation of Yellow Algae
In order to keep yellow algae from returning, become vigilant about checking the appearance of your pool’s water. You may need to repeat the shock several times before your pool will be completely clear of yellow algae. Once the yellow algae has been removed, be sure to keep your pool properly chlorinated, clean out the filter regularly, and use algaecides and shock treatments when necessary. During times of humidity, your pool may need extra algaecide. If you have yellow algae that continues to grow in spite of your best efforts to remove it, it may be time to call in a professional pool cleaning service.
What does Black Algae Look Like?
A black algae infestation isn’t as common as are infestations of blue or yellow algae. This is fortunate because it’s the hardest of the three types to get rid of once it gets into your pool. If your pool does develop a black algae problem, you’ll most likely notice black spots along your pool’s wall surfaces and possibly also on the bottom surface of the pool as well.
How to Get Rid of Black Algae
If you have black algae in your pool, you’ll need to go to some difficult lengths to remove it. You’ll need to briskly and repeatedly brush it off all the surfaces where you see it growing on your pool. Then take a pool vacuum to suck it out of the water. Finally, go through a thorough chlorination and shocking processes.
How to Prevent Future Infestation of Black Algae
As with yellow and blue algae, you can seek to prevent recurrence by keeping up with regular chlorination, surface scrubbing, filter cleaning, and shock treatments.
Next, we’ll go into more detail about the causes of algae growth as well as thoroughly discuss the removal process. Continue with Part 3.
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