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Answer Phosphates often come from dead and decayed organics in your pool. This can be from fertilizer in your own lawn, or it can be blown in from the wind (even invisible amounts). They also come from an abundance of debris. When you often get leaves, pollen, flowers, bugs, or anything like that in the pool they will sit in your filter and break down into phosphates. Another common cause is dogs, and lots of people swimming in the pool. Phosphates from people can come off their bodies in things such as skin cells, and detergents from the suits, and dogs are usually covered in phosphates.
One cause of Phosphates in the pool are due to lawn chemicals getting into the water. If you have a lawn service who is putting down chemical .. you may want to cover the pool when the lawn service is there .. or ask them to stay further away from the pool. Next the family may be walking across the lawn to get to the pool .. or retrieve the errant ball when it gets away from them... then back in the pool .. with lawn chemical on the feet.. transferred to the pool .. and now you have phosphates in the pool. Laundry detergent also use phosphates and have been known to find their way into pools
To prevent phosphates use a phosphate removal or maintenance preventive, skim the pool every day, clean the skimmer basket every day, and clean/backwash the filters as often as possible (every month if you live in a high-dust/debris environment)
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Maxine
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DevinPhosphates are biological building blocks that are formed when phosphates exist in many different forms. Most of these come from natural sources such as rivers, lakes, oceans or mined rock. The U.S. is one of the largest producers of phosphate rock.
Phosphate is termed a "pollutant" and is primarily used in soaps, detergents, shampoos and even soda pop. Other phosphate sources include fertilizers, organic debris such as leaves and bark, and some pool chemicals. Phosphate pollution in lakes and streams is caused mainly by overdevelopment, which causes extreme amounts of byproduct waste to end up in natural water systems.
Most of the phosphate in pool water enters in the form of compound such as tri-sodium phosphate. Algae cannot use these combined phosphates as a nutrient for growth. It is not until the compounds of phosphates are broken down in the water to a free ortho-phosphate that algae can begin to thrive.
Once orth-phosphate is removed from water, it's harder for algae to obtain because it is not readily available until the phosphate compounds break down as a result of oxidation, hydrolysis enzymatic digestion.
In short, all phosphates end up as ortho-phosphate, which feeds algae. Think of it like this: Phosphate compounds are the smoking gun, but the orhto-phosphate is the bullet.
Not at any levels you're likely to experience, no.
I must add that I live in mid/lower TN and there is a lot of mining for phosphates in this area which allows it to be more prone to be airborne in this area. So if you are having a lot of trouble getting your pool cleared up, make sure and have your water tested so that if you do have this in your water you can buy a product to rid your pool of it because it can turn into a big problem since algae thrives on it. If you live in TN and probably some of the surrounding states, this could be a bigger problem than the rest of the country. I had it in my pool this year very bad for the first time and I've had a pool for 20 years. There is always something new to learn with Swimming Pools. I don't care how long you've been doing it:)
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