Left a pool sitting for a couple weeks in a St. George summer and it turned green? It happens faster than people expect. Once chlorine runs out, algae takes off in the heat, and a clear pool can go pea-soup in a matter of days. The good news is most green pools can be brought back, and you rarely need to drain and start over.
What "green" actually means
Green water is an algae bloom, and it means the pool has run out of sanitizer and the water balance is off. It's not a lost cause, it's a chemistry and filtration problem, and both are fixable.
How we bring it back
- Assess it first. We test the water and look at the equipment, some greens are a quick shock-and-clear, others are cloudier fights that take longer. We'll tell you which one yours is up front.
- Balance and shock. We get the water balanced and hit it hard enough to kill the algae, then keep the chlorine high until the bloom is dead.
- Filter and clear. Dead algae has to be filtered or vacuumed out, so this is as much about running and cleaning the filter as it is about chemicals. Cloudy-but-blue is progress, not the finish line.
- Clean out what settled. We brush and vacuum the debris that drops to the bottom as the water clears.
- Set up a plan. Once it's swimmable, we put you on a service schedule so it stays that way, because the fastest way to a second green pool is going back to no regular service.
What to realistically expect
A light green often clears up quickly. A deep, dark, or long-neglected pool can take several days and more than one pass, and occasionally a pool that's been sitting for months is genuinely faster and cheaper to drain and acid-wash than to clear chemically. We'll always give you the honest call and the realistic timeline before we start, not a rosy promise.
Get a green-to-clean quote
