What Are Phosphates in Your Pool?

What are Phosphates?

Phosphates are a natural mineral that is mined and used in many of today’s off-the-shelf products, including some pool treatment chemicals, personal hygiene products (deodorant, shampoo, etc), and even some food products.

How Do Phosphates Affect Pool Care?

Phosphates are food for algae. The higher the level of phosphates in a pool, the more microscopic algae that you’ll also have in the pool. Since more of your free chlorine is then occupied killing algae, less is available to form a sanitizer residual. High phosphate loads, when left untreated, will generally result in higher chlorine demand and can even lead to algae blooms in your pool. A higher chlorine demand can tax, or even overwhelm, the production capacity of a chlorine generator. For operators using granular or liquid chlorine, for example, high phosphate levels can result in unnecessarily high chlorine bills, due to using more chlorine than otherwise would be necessary to kill the algae in the water.

How Do I Get Rid of Phosphates?

You need a phosphate remover. Bring your water to Parrot Bay Pools or your local pool store and ask them to test it for phosphates and depending on the level in the water they can tell you how to treat your water to keep it algae-free!

You can check our Knowledge Base section of our website knowledge base for more discussion on phosphates.

Parrot Bay Pools & Spas
(919) 888-0327