Hey all, I just have some inquiries about testing when it's cold. The story is as follows.
Perfect water all summer last year, never did a thing to it after firing up the Intex SWG. When water temp dropped below 60° (below 50° actually, I believe) I took it to shock level for 80 ppm CYA. Removed the equipment, drained below the skimmer port, actually forgot about the hose in the pool until my kids playing outside texted me while I was watching TV so I drained WELL below the skimmer port, LOL. Covered it with the cover that came with the pool which I now understand as just a debris cover and not something to use for winter.
All was well until the tail end of hurricane Sandy touched us over here in western PA. Nothing like the coast, but wind ripped the cover to shreds and a good bit of rain refilled the entire pool up to the skimmer hole. I don't have an actual winter cover, thus it was left open all winter.
Pool finally thawed out the end of March. I have no trees around, but there is stuff that was blown in. I have debris at the bottom of the pool, some leaves, mostly bits and pieces of leaves. Water so clear I can see the veins of the leaves down at the bottom. It's freezing cold, getting rain here and there, and I still have probably 2 and a half months until swim season.
Fast forward to Thursday. Temps finally rising through the previous week and we hit I think a record high or close to record of 82°. On Thursday I notice pool water is now no longer crystal clear. It is clear, but now I am seeing what I would describe as balls of green slime forming. They are around the drain caps at the bottom on both sides of the pool, collecting around the seam in the corner around the whole pool, and I see some floating. Never having a pool that was green (previous pools I drained and refilled several times over summer because they were very small and drained completely for winter) and never before have seen algae, I assume that is what this is. Am I on the right track to assume this?
So yesterday I toss the hose in to get it a few more inches so I can connect my pump/filter. I just wanted to get some chlorine into the pool so this morning it turns out it is snowing yet again. It was 34° out. I had 2 partial 1.5 gallon bleach bottles that I'm guessing was 1 gallon each. Dumped them in and ran the filter to circulate. Checked the chlorine level and it was about 11.5 FC and showing just an almost imperceptible tinge of pink when setting up for CC. That was about 10 am this morning. I also checked the CYA and it is reading 40 ppm (pH and alkalinity is a bit low, but I don't have the stuff on hand yet for that.) Water temp this morning was 55° and cooling down from the past 2 days of "hot" weather.
It's been off and on cloudy and sunny all day today along with seeing some snow flurrying down here and there. All I want is some Cl in the pool so I wasn't going to stand out in the freezing temps to play with the filter or try to vacuum. The filter ran all day at a pretty good flow rate and around 3 pm I noticed it slowing down. That's when I turned it off just happy to have some Cl in the pool. I do notice that I no longer see the green slimy blobs of stuff I saw yesterday. Fine leaf debris is still littering the bottom. I just checked the Chlorine level at about 7 pm while it's still light out. Still after since about 10 am I read a solid 10 ppm with an imperceptible tinge for the CC.
So, I have a loss all day in alternating cloud and sun of 1.5 ppm and am measuring <0.5 ppm CC. Also have a not so clear (just slightly cloudy but can still see the bottom clearly) water and debris still littering the bottom. With the cold temperature outside, snow flurries falling, etc, is any of this accurate? Does the cold temps affect anything? I'm not ready to actually open up the pool and run the pump constantly on a daily basis for 2 months before we can do any swimming, but just wanted to get some Chlorine going in it. Some day this week if I can get the vacuum working (stock Intex suction vacuum with stock Intex skimmer and water isn't high enough to run the actual skimmer so I am just sucking through the port.)
I just expected to see a much larger drop than 1.5 ppm of FC from 10 am to 7 pm.
Edit: Sheesh, every time I post something, I hit reply then see that I've written a stinkin novel, LOL. Hope ya read it
Perfect water all summer last year, never did a thing to it after firing up the Intex SWG. When water temp dropped below 60° (below 50° actually, I believe) I took it to shock level for 80 ppm CYA. Removed the equipment, drained below the skimmer port, actually forgot about the hose in the pool until my kids playing outside texted me while I was watching TV so I drained WELL below the skimmer port, LOL. Covered it with the cover that came with the pool which I now understand as just a debris cover and not something to use for winter.
All was well until the tail end of hurricane Sandy touched us over here in western PA. Nothing like the coast, but wind ripped the cover to shreds and a good bit of rain refilled the entire pool up to the skimmer hole. I don't have an actual winter cover, thus it was left open all winter.
Pool finally thawed out the end of March. I have no trees around, but there is stuff that was blown in. I have debris at the bottom of the pool, some leaves, mostly bits and pieces of leaves. Water so clear I can see the veins of the leaves down at the bottom. It's freezing cold, getting rain here and there, and I still have probably 2 and a half months until swim season.
Fast forward to Thursday. Temps finally rising through the previous week and we hit I think a record high or close to record of 82°. On Thursday I notice pool water is now no longer crystal clear. It is clear, but now I am seeing what I would describe as balls of green slime forming. They are around the drain caps at the bottom on both sides of the pool, collecting around the seam in the corner around the whole pool, and I see some floating. Never having a pool that was green (previous pools I drained and refilled several times over summer because they were very small and drained completely for winter) and never before have seen algae, I assume that is what this is. Am I on the right track to assume this?
So yesterday I toss the hose in to get it a few more inches so I can connect my pump/filter. I just wanted to get some chlorine into the pool so this morning it turns out it is snowing yet again. It was 34° out. I had 2 partial 1.5 gallon bleach bottles that I'm guessing was 1 gallon each. Dumped them in and ran the filter to circulate. Checked the chlorine level and it was about 11.5 FC and showing just an almost imperceptible tinge of pink when setting up for CC. That was about 10 am this morning. I also checked the CYA and it is reading 40 ppm (pH and alkalinity is a bit low, but I don't have the stuff on hand yet for that.) Water temp this morning was 55° and cooling down from the past 2 days of "hot" weather.
It's been off and on cloudy and sunny all day today along with seeing some snow flurrying down here and there. All I want is some Cl in the pool so I wasn't going to stand out in the freezing temps to play with the filter or try to vacuum. The filter ran all day at a pretty good flow rate and around 3 pm I noticed it slowing down. That's when I turned it off just happy to have some Cl in the pool. I do notice that I no longer see the green slimy blobs of stuff I saw yesterday. Fine leaf debris is still littering the bottom. I just checked the Chlorine level at about 7 pm while it's still light out. Still after since about 10 am I read a solid 10 ppm with an imperceptible tinge for the CC.
So, I have a loss all day in alternating cloud and sun of 1.5 ppm and am measuring <0.5 ppm CC. Also have a not so clear (just slightly cloudy but can still see the bottom clearly) water and debris still littering the bottom. With the cold temperature outside, snow flurries falling, etc, is any of this accurate? Does the cold temps affect anything? I'm not ready to actually open up the pool and run the pump constantly on a daily basis for 2 months before we can do any swimming, but just wanted to get some Chlorine going in it. Some day this week if I can get the vacuum working (stock Intex suction vacuum with stock Intex skimmer and water isn't high enough to run the actual skimmer so I am just sucking through the port.)
I just expected to see a much larger drop than 1.5 ppm of FC from 10 am to 7 pm.
Edit: Sheesh, every time I post something, I hit reply then see that I've written a stinkin novel, LOL. Hope ya read it
