How to get rid of pink algae and white water mold

A bacteria, not an algae. The pink or reddish slime is most often a group of bacteria called Methylobacterium, which builds a slimy coat that shields it from normal chlorine levels. It likes shade and slow water: skimmers, light niches, return fittings, ladder steps and the inside of the plumbing.

A water mold that grows in white or gray clumps that look like wet tissue paper or slime, often in the same hidden places as pink slime and often alongside it. It feeds on organic material and usually shows up in pools where the chlorine has run low for a while.

The bigger issue is what it tells you: the chlorine has not been reaching every part of the pool. Treat it before you swim again, and stay out while the chlorine is at shock level.

Go after the hiding spots and the water at the same time:

• Brush everything, the walls, steps, skimmer throat and light niche.
• Shock and hold it. Raise free chlorine well above normal and keep it there until the water tests clean for a full day afterward. See how to shock a pool.
• Clean the filter properly. Chemically clean or replace cartridges, and give sand or DE filters a thorough cleaning, because the slime lives in the filter between outbreaks.
• Scrub what goes in the water. Toys, floats, the vacuum head and hose, the ladder and the skimmer basket.
• Run the pump around the clock until it is gone.

If the water itself has turned green too, book a green pool cleanup rather than chasing the pink spots on their own.

Because it was not killed everywhere. The slime protects it, and the places it hides, behind the light, inside the skimmer and in the pipes, get far less chlorine than the open water. Anything that was out of the pool during treatment, like a float or a toy, can bring it straight back.

Keep free chlorine steady instead of letting it sag between doses, brush the shady spots every week, and keep the filter clean. The CDC minimum is 1 ppm free chlorine, or 2 ppm with stabilizer. Weekly brushing and steady chemistry is exactly what our weekly pool service does, with every chemical included.

Yes. A salt pool is a chlorine pool, and pink slime grows wherever chlorine runs low or the water barely moves. Brush, raise the chlorine with liquid chlorine or the cell's boost mode, and clean the filter the same way.