My pool water is about 45 degrees. (I let the test water warm before testing, is that the right thing to do?) My automation panel will turn on the pump at low speed when air temp is below 38 or something, but the pool company that installed the pool set up the pump to run 22hrs every day at low and 2 hrs on high. Is that a total waste , esp in the winter?
My step jets do bubble a bit, I just turned those off today. The other two jets are pointed a little bit up, there is some light swirling but no bubbles on the these two.
Is there a particular method you like for adding the muratic acid? This site is what I have been looking for!

When the water temperature is below 50 degrees you need very little pump run time, often only an hour or two a day, to keep things looking great. In the summer long run times on low speed are great, but that isn't worth doing in the winter.

I add acid by pouring slowly in front of a return jet with the pump running.

Do I need to be keeping Chlorine at 4 even in cold water? My system does not make chlorine in cold water anyway...I think

If you're getting any sunlight hitting the water, then you want to maintain your FC at 5 % to 10 % of the cyanuric acid level at all times for a SWG system and 7.5 % to 12.5 % of the cyanuric acid level at all times for a manually dosed system.

You need to keep SOME chlorine in your pool if it remains uncovered. We could give you a lot more meaningful answers if you could post some test results (current ones). Is your water clear? Have you found Pool School in the upper right hand corner of the page?

Sorry, I am new here and I know I posted the info 2 or 3 posts back but maybe I posted to the wrong forum ?? Anyway here is the info:
Pool is 45 degrees, I use the Taylor test kit, K-2005, pump runs on lo for 22hrs, hi for 2 hrs.
FC-.5
TC-.5
TA-100 (will start lower using M Acid as I lower the PH)
PH-8.1
CH-170
Since my AquaPlus does not make chlorine in low temps, should I overide, not even sure if I can being new to this
CYA-50-60

I suggest you adjust the following in the order listed...

1. Lower your pH down to around 7.5 using muriatic acid

2. Bring your chlorine up to around 3-4ppm using liquid bleach and the pool calculator to adjust your dosage. Check the FC every 5 days or so and keep it around 2-4ppm using only bleach

3. Reduce your pump run time to something like 2-3 hours daily on high. Splitting that into two sessions would not be a bad idea.

Let your TA seek it's own level after you lower pH.

Thanks, what a great resource. Will visit your "support" page to see what's involved

We have had an especially cold winter this year and at the beginning of Dec, the water temp dropped below 50F so the SWG shut off and it has been off ever since. After the first week, the FC level read 0 (no cover) and has been that way going on 7 weeks now without any algae. During this time the water temperature has been between 50F and 45F. Plus a ton of leaves dropped in the pool during this time. I am not suggesting everyone can get away with this but my experience over the past 6 years has been that below 50F, I have never seen algae grow even without chlorine.

Me, too, at first. Either the second or third season though I had living algae growing on the sides in water that was pretty darn cold....probably less than 50 but I can't remember. Perhaps the best part of that cold temp (and less sun) is you use so darn little chlorine it's awfully cheap insurance. I check mine about once weekly and don't get excited if I miss a day or so. I rarely add more than 2ppm to get it back up around 4ppm (CYA 50)

I have seen algae grow in temps below 50. Of course, this was water that was devoid of chlorine. Even in cold temps, things still grow. Try leaving spaghetti in the fridge for a couple of weeks to see what I mean. Those with SWCG pools would do well to supplement things with bleach until it warms up enough to start generating chlorine again.

No all SWCG stop producing at a given temperature it depends on brand. But the OP has the Hayward Aqua Rite and Pg 7 of the manual states: The Aqua Rite automatically stops generating when the pool water temperatures drops below 50ºF. This is usually not a problem because bacteria and algae stop growing at this temperature. You can override this low temperature cutoff by switching to SUPER CHLORINATE for a day.

You can override to produce chlorine.

http://www.hayward-pool.com/pdf/manuals/Manual239.pdf

Dave, not sure how to or if I should be trying to get back to you on my PH issue but this response is to your last advice to me. (is there a way for me to reply just to the last advice?)
Anyway, here is what results are so far to controling Ph:
Added 28oz of MA . Ph barely moved dwn, TA barely dwn 100ish
Next day, added 22OZ of MA, Ph came dwn to 7.4, then I added 156oz of Bleach, FC up to 4ppm
Today:
FC 4ppm
TA100 (dwn only 1ppm)
Ph 7.6
CH 170
CYA is between 40-50, my test indicates lower than either of two different pool places (one says 50 the other says 60)
Pool co says salt is a bit low2800-2900 That should not matter in the cold should it?
Am I being too anal about all this?

No, not at all. It looks to me like you have made all the adjustments and have your water nicely balanced and prepared for the winter.

As discussed above you will lose very little chlorine over the winter so checking and maintaining it around 4ppm should be pretty easy.....once weekly perhaps.

I would check the pH weekly as well. Nice job on getting it down but lower it again (using the same method anytime it goes above 7.8 or so.)

Once you restart you SWG, check to see if it produces chlorine. That's really the TRUE test and I wouldn't raise salt until the SWG can't produce.