How Does Nitrate Affect the Water?
First and most important, nitrates will increase the sanitizer demand in the water. This means that they create a lot of extra work for the sanitizer to do, causing the sanitizer residual to become depleted more quickly. As a result, more sanitizer will be needed and more time and money will be spent on this pool. Even a small amount of nitrate, slightly above 10 ppm, will affect the sanitizer demand. Higher nitrate amounts will wreak havoc on the sanitizer level. A nitrate level at or above 50 ppm will cause the sanitizer demand to double, and the situation will become even worse as the nitrates build up further. Second, the algae in your pool love nitrates like kids love ice cream. They will become uncontrollable in the presence of a high nitrate supply, making a mess before you know it. In fact, you are actually fertilizing the algae! Just as it feeds the plants that we grow in our gardens, nitrate helps algae to grow and develop into a beautiful green or some other color, although
