Algae Eating Your Profits? Fix It Fast

Algae looks small, but it’s a budget killer. We pull back the curtain on how blooms steal minutes, erode customer trust, and rack up chemical costs across a route—and then we share a prevention playbook that keeps water clear and margins strong. From the real science behind sanitizer strength to practical field tactics, this episode is built to save you time and money while earning client confidence.

We start with the problem behind the problem: why algae shows up even when your free chlorine reads “good.” Using Bob Lowry’s guideline, we explain how cyanuric acid sets the true minimum for chlorine at 7.5% of CYA—and why high CYA quietly weakens sanitizer power. You’ll hear how pitted plaster, dead zones, and seasonal debris turn small lapses into recurring blooms, and how a consistent routine of weekly brushing, longer pump runtime, and clean filters locks down circulation so algae has nowhere to hide.

Then we get tactical with tools that punch above their weight. We compare three proven enhancer strategies: borates at 50 ppm to act as a natural algistat and boost chlorine efficiency, mineral technology like PoolRX to suppress blooms all season, and a one-two combo of enzymes plus phosphate removal to cut organics and starve algae. We also walk through pricing these as seasonal add-ons so clients fund prevention up front, while you reduce emergency shocks, callbacks, and frustration during peak heat.

To make the numbers real, we map the weekly and annual costs of fighting algae versus selling proactive protection, and we show how reclaimed time can add stops to your route. If you want fewer green surprises, clearer water, and happier customers, this guide will tighten your process and your profits.

• hidden costs of brushing, shocking and repeat visits
• customer trust risks when algae reappears
• why CYA sets the true chlorine minimum
• weekly brushing and targeting dead zones
• longer runtime and clean filters for circulation
• borates, mineral systems and enzyme plus phosphate control
• packaging enhancers as seasonal

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Chapters

• 0:00 The True Cost Of Algae
• 2:10 Coaching Program Invitation
• 2:29 Time Loss And Frustration
• 3:48 Customer Trust And Expectations
• 6:58 Common Causes And Missteps
• 9:23 The CYA To Chlorine Ratio
• 13:14 Brushing, Runtime, And Filtration
• 15:44 Chlorine Enhancers That Work
• 18:24 Pricing And Passing Costs
• 20:24 Time Math And Final Takeaways
• 21:04 More Resources And Sign-Off

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 1:02

And welcome to the Pool Guy Podcast Show. In this episode, I'm going to talk to you about the true cost of algae in pools on your pool route as we begin to start the season. I think it's really important to address this, especially now, so you can take proactive action to prevent algae in the pools that you service. Are you a pool service pro looking to take your business to the next level? Join the pool guy coaching program. Get expert advice, business tips, exclusive content, and get direct support from me. I'm a 35-year veteran in the industry. Whether you're starting out or scaling up, I've got the tools to help you succeed. Learn more at swimmingpoollearning.com. I'll start with the big two problems that arise with algae and pools, and then I'll of course get into some more things that you have to be aware of. The first two big ones I think are loss of trust in your business, is one of them. And two is the time that it consumes out there when you're fighting algae and pools. Now I'll give you some preventative tips as well to kind of help mitigate algae and pools. But these two are the biggest kind of fallout when you have algae and pools. And if you do this for a living and you've been out there long enough, you know that the worst thing, especially in the summer when it's 90 or 100 degrees out, is getting to a pool where you have mustard algae on the on the walls of the pool, especially if it's really hard to brush it off. Sometimes it's really aggressive and it's really on the plaster, and you have to use a little five or six-inch stainless steel brush, and you're out there sweating, going you know, inch by inch basically on the plaster to brush the algae. It's really frustrating and extremely time consuming. So if you have two pools out of 15 or 14 that day that have algae, you've added like 20-30 minutes to your day plus frustration. You have that over the course of a week, 10 or 12 pools with algae in them, then you're brushing and treating them. This really slows you down and increases the frustration at the same time. But time is money, and the more time you're spending out there brushing a pool that has algae, treating it, the less money you're making out there, and you're really losing money in the long run because you're treating the pool, you're adding extra chemicals, you're add adding an algacide. All of this, of course, affects your bottom line. Now, the only time that you can really pass these charges on to a customer is if you know, let's say they left the pool in spa mode all week and then the pool had algae in it. But a lot of times you really can't tell the customer, or you can't, you know, blame it on the customer in a lot of respects, saying the pool had algae, therefore I'm gonna have to charge you extra for this, because they're gonna, of course, say something like, Well, I'm paying you to take care of the pool. Why is there algae in there and why do I have to pay for it? So you have to be really careful that it has to be a concrete cause by the customer that you can pass the charges on to them, which is not something that's very typical. A lot of times there's other factors that create the algae in the pool. Now, of course, when it's seasonal and you have an oak tree with pollen falling in there, the customer will understand perfectly that that's because of the pollen. Algae was blooming in the pool, and therefore the extra chemical cost and treatment is something that they will absorb. And the loss of trust is the other aspect when you have algae in the pool. It's one of those things where your job is to keep the pool blue and swim ready. When a customer sees algae in the pool, for some reason they get freaked out. Now, of course, algae can harbor bacteria. We found that out, but most of the time the algae in the pool is relatively benign, it's just unsightly, and you know, you swim in the lake, you swim in a pond, I guess. I guess you swim in a pond, it has algae in it, it doesn't really affect you too much, so it's just one of those things where optically the algae looks bad in the pool. Now, when you lose this trust in the customer, getting it back takes a long time sometimes, especially if you're having trouble clearing up the algae. You can find some causes of the algae, of course, as well when you get a pool with algae in it, but a lot of the times the customer doesn't really pay attention when you when you explain to them why the pool is algae. All they know is that the pool is algae and it should not have algae. Most customers, when the pool has algae reoccurring in the pool, get really frustrated with the pool service, and they may even switch services. I've taken over pools before where the algae problem has been the main reason why they switch service. So losing pools or service accounts because of algae in the pool is a very common thing, and you want to, of course, avoid this by eliminating algae in pools, which of course can almost be one of those things when I say you can have a pool route without algae, in most cases, there's a lot of truth to that. In some cases, algae is unavoidable, like I mentioned when the oak trees are pollinating, or if the pool has some kind of problem that's not caused by the customer, algae can bloom in the pool. Let's say that the filter is impacted and it's not circulating well, and some algae is forming in the corner. A lot of the times, when you have algae in the pool, one of the mistakes that we make out there is we don't take it as seriously as we should take it. In other words, let's say you're you're at a pool, there's a little bit of algae on the step area, maybe some in the spa, and maybe a streak in the corner of the pool. So you don't really take it as something major a lot of the time. So you'll brush the step, you'll brush the wall. In the old days, we used to just take our sodium bromide, you know, take the four ounces of that with a gallon of liquid chlorine, pour it over the spot, and call it a day. Now, of course, you have to understand that if you don't treat the algae aggressively, and you just kind of maybe raise the chlorine level from five parts a million to ten parts a million, and you don't really treat it that aggressively, the algae could actually spread even with a good chlorine level in the pool. I had this one account that I was doing for a while. Of course, I dropped it because it was a real headache, but this account was a pool that really had pitted plaster, it was not really in great shape, and it had a really old filter. And this was a person that was on a fixed income, they were they didn't have a lot of money. The filter wasn't that great, so I replaced it with a used filter. I had a Gand D filter on the side of my house that I put in there. That helped a little bit and improved it, but it was the plaster surface itself that was the main problem. Whenever the chlorine level dropped to a certain point, and I'll touch on Bob Lowry's formula in a second here, it would cause algae to form in the pool, and I didn't really know what was going on. You know, the chlorine level was pretty high, but the algae would form and it would get into the pits of the plaster and be a real problem. Fortunately, she didn't really care how the pool looked because she knew that it was old and it wasn't a big deal. But for me, it was very frustrating to get there and have to brush algae and treat it. And with Bob Lowry's formula, a pool, even with a good chlorine level, can get algae in it because there is a cyaneric acid to free chlorine ratio that needs to be maintained and achieved. So basically, the formula to keep it simple, you need to have a free chlorine at the minimum of 7.5% of the cyaneric acid level. Now the cyaneric acid or CYA in the pool is there to protect the chlorine from being burned off rapidly by the sun's UV rays. However, the large a larger or higher amount of cyaneric acid in the water causes the chlorine to be less effective and slows down its ability to actually work in the pool. So let's just say that your cyaneric acid level is at 80 parts per million. So if you do the formula, 7.5% of 80 is 6. And so your parts per million in that pool should be at 6 parts per million daily to make the chlorine effective and prevent algae from growing. And that's a minimum amount of chlorine, by the way, and that's a daily amount of chlorine to prevent the pool from from the algae from growing and spreading in the pool. But if your cyanaric acid is at 160, you're gonna need 12 parts per million of free chlorine to make that effective and prevent algae in the pool. That's why a lot of times you get to a pool, the chlorine level is at five parts per million. You still see algae in the corner, and you're scratching your head thinking, why is there algae in the pool? The chlorine level is great. It's because it should be at six parts per million if the cyaneric acid is at 80 parts per million. So this is really something to be aware of because of course there is chlorine-resistant algae out there, but there's also a free chlorine level that needs to be maintained to prevent algae in the pools. Once you understand this formula, it goes a long way in preventing algae in pools, and it's going to make life a lot easier out there for you. So, again, the higher the cyaneric acid level in the pool, logically speaking, based on this formula, the higher the free chlorine level needs to be maintained in that pool to make the chlorine effective. Again, once you understand this formula and the correlation between high cyaneric acid and a higher free chlorine level necessary, the amount of algae in your pools on your route is going to drop significantly. Another important aspect of pool care is brushing the pool on a weekly basis when you're there. This will prevent a lot of algae from forming in the pool. If you brush the walls, the step area, any dead areas of the pool, and consistently brush the pool each week you're there, you're gonna find a lot less algae in the pool. So the formula of the 7.5% of free chlorine of cyanaric acid, brushing the pools every week also helps tremendously. And then another element is the runtime of the pool, and I'll get to the filter in a second. But the runtime is also a factor. So if you notice algae forming in pools and there's some dead areas, let's say the corner and the deep end, there's some algae there, maybe a step in the spa, there's some algae. A lot of it has to do with the circulation of the pool. The more you can run the pool, the better it is, and the more the more chance you have of having an algae-free environment. So boost up that runtime. If the pool is running eight hours a day, boost it to 10 or 11 hours. If it's running 14 hours, boost it to 16. Especially if it's a VS pump, you can easily boost that without really impacting the customer's electricity bill. So go ahead and do that and just boost up the runtime. And then the filter also has to be cleaned on a regular basis to prevent algae in the pool. So if you're cleaning the filters regularly, here in California, we have the full-size filter, so we're breaking down the D filters every four to six months, and the full size four quad cartridge filter every four to six months. And this will also help tremendously in preventing algae in the pool. So having a clean filter, longer runtime, knowing, of course, the formula, 7.5%, and brushing the pools go a long way in preventing algae. Now, what I would say would take it to the next level, and this is something that I really promote, and I preach this in a lot of my podcasts, and you're gonna hear me say this that using a chlorine enhancer is something that is highly effective in preventing algae out there. Now, there are three specifically that I use on a regular basis. You have, of course, borates. You can bring the borate level to the pool to 50 parts per million, and borates are a natural algistat, the algae cells can't really form with it, and it prevents algae in that way, and it's really effective in making the chlorine more that lasts longer and have more of a potency. In fact, Bob Lowry has the formula if you're using borates to 50 parts per million, instead of using 7.5% free chlorine to cyanaric acid, you can use 5%, and that's because the borates are a great enhancer and make the chlorine much more effective. So borates are a great way to prevent algae in pools. The second product that I like using is the Pool RX, it's a copper mineral kind of product, and you put it in your pump basket or skimmer basket, it releases the minerals into the water, and this will prevent algae from forming and it'll kill algae also. And it's a highly effective mineral technology that prevents algae in pools. And if you use these on your pool route and drop them in in April or May, you really have an algae-free pool all season long. In most cases, it's highly effective, and it's a great way to prevent algae in pools, not just for problem pools, but for all the pools on your route, just to prevent algae from forming, and that way you don't have to worry about brushing pools and spending extra time out there on your route. The last product that I recommend, and I've one season I use this exclusively to test it out. I was like, you know, I'm not I wasn't a believer in it, and I was like, I need to try this to see if it works. But it's a combination of using an enzyme and a phosphorylate remover in the pool. These two products, in conjunction with each other, kind of are like a one-two punch for fighting algae and preventing it. So the phosphorylate remover, of course, putting a maintenance every week prevents or eliminates one food source for algae, which is phosphates, and then the enzymes really help the chlorine work more effectively as well. So both of those together are a great way to prevent algae in the pool. And these enhancers work highly effectively. So you want to adopt one of these or a variation of these methods and really promote these with your customer. You can even sell or your customers, you can even sell these at the beginning of the season as a seasonal algebraic. That's what I like to do. I'll just have a one-time charge in April, saying it's a seasonal algiside. If you sell the Polar X, you can maybe charge 110. If you sell the borates, you kind of want to get an idea of how much boric acid to add to the pool based on the size, and then give that customer a one-time charge for that. If you're using enzyme and phosphates, what I like to do is buy the bottle, bottles, and put them out there by the pool, and I'll just use those at that pool, and I'll tell the customer that these are chlorine enhancers that I'm adding to your pool, and you just have they just have to pay for it every three or four months, and that's a great way to prevent the algae. And also the customer pays firm, and so that's something that's going to help you out as well. And leaving the bottles there by their equipment is an optical way of showing the customer that this is their product that they paid for, and they're using it at their pool. All these are really important factors in preventing algae. And I think regular maintenance is, of course, important, but having these enhancers also is a great way to prevent algae in pools and save you a lot of time, money, and effort out there on your pool route. So let me quickly break down the costs. But let's just say you have three pools that week that had algae in them. Each pool is gonna cost somewhat, you know, depending on how much chlorine you put in there, of course, and the pool size, but I would say somewhere in the range of 25 to 30 dollars of extra chlorine is you know, an average fighting the algae. If you're gonna really shock it and bring the chloride level up to 20 parts per million, you're going to need to spend some money to do that. And if you're gonna use an algae site, of course, there's a cost associated with that. Let's just say altogether the algosite and chlorine, I'll just say$25 for that pool. And let's just say you had three of those a week, and that means that you had 15 green green pools, 15 pools with algae. Hopefully they're not green, and$25 in chemical cost. So that's$375 for that week it costs you just to bring those pools up with the shock level and some algae. That's a significant amount of money, and if you times that by a month, of course, you're at twelve hundred dollars a month. And you can have employees treating pools with algae, and they're probably a little more heavy-handed, so you could probably add more money to that. But yearly that's about$14,000 in extra cost because of algae. When you can simply pass all this cost on to the customers with enhancers, so if you're struggling and you're thinking, well, I don't really want to use Pool RX or Borease on my route, if you really do the math, it's gonna pay off and save you a lot of time and effort and cost on chemicals by using these enhancers and selling them to the customer. Certainly, you wouldn't spend$14,000 for the enhancers yourself, and it's something that's going to save you a lot of time and money again, and headaches fighting algae out there, and they're highly effective. So, I would definitely recommend getting these products, selling them to your customers so that you're not actually losing that money, you're actually having a net gain because they pay for it. You might have a little markup on the Polar X or the Boreates, plus, you don't have the algae in the pools, you're not putting the extra chemicals in, and it's a really a big gain for your pool route, for your time and effort. And I didn't touch on the time aspect either, but if you're spending 20 or 30 minutes extra each day fighting algae and treating it, if you do that math 30 minutes times five, that you can add probably you know five or six more pools a week easily with that extra time. And so this is something to consider as well. You're losing money because you're spending time on pools that you probably shouldn't be, and you're losing money because you're adding extra chemicals to these pools to get rid of the algae that's formed in there. When a lot of times, in most cases, the algae can be prevented by following the steps I outlined here in this podcast. If you're looking for other podcasts, of course, you can find those by going to my website, swingingprolearning.com. On the banner, click on the podcast icon. There'll be a drop down menu with over 1800 podcasts for you there. And if you're interested in the coaching program, you can learn more at PoolGuyCoaching.com. Thanks for listening to this podcast. Have you guys your week and God bless.