Can I leave the winter cover on in MN until it gets warmer?

blondemarcello · May 24, 2013

We still have our winter cover on. We siphoned most of the water off the cover. Yesterday I hooked up the pipes to the pump/filter so I could bring the water level back up. Slipped my hand under the cover (there's a gap because we couldn't get the wire any tighter). Here are my results with 2-3 more inches of water to add yet:

7.5 ph
15 fc
.5 cc
14.5 tc
140 ta
70-80 cya
56 temp (dang that's cold)

I know the temp was closer to 70 before I started adding water. Is it feasible/advisable to keep the cover on until the water gets closer to 70? I would keep an eye on the chemicals and start running the pump/filter today or tomorrow if you think this is a good idea. I am so not looking forward to our weather forecast of "rain/maybe we'll hit 75" one day next week.

JasonLion · May 24, 2013

Re: Can I leave the winter cover on in MN until it gets warm

It is best if you can open the pool before the water gets to 60 degrees. You can put it off longer than that, but the odds that algae will get started go up quickly as the water warms above 60.

blondemarcello · May 24, 2013

Re: Can I leave the winter cover on in MN until it gets warm

JasonLion said:
It is best if you can open the pool before the water gets to 60 degrees. You can put it off longer than that, but the odds that algae will get started go up quickly as the water warms above 60.

Do the odds for algae increase because I wouldn't be able to brush thus not able to "stimulate" the water?

samt · May 25, 2013

Re: Can I leave the winter cover on in MN until it gets warm

I still have my cover on in Ny. But my pump is hooked up and I run it every day for 4 hrs.

I also put a little chlorine in and I keep a close eye on it everyday.

Smykowski · May 25, 2013

Re: Can I leave the winter cover on in MN until it gets warm

samt said:
I still have my cover on in Ny. But my pump is hooked up and I run it every day for 4 hrs.

I also put a little chlorine in and I keep a close eye on it everyday.

This is exactly what I'm doing as well. Cover will come off next week.

pwrstrk · May 25, 2013

Re: Can I leave the winter cover on in MN until it gets warm

I'm doing the same thing also. I check FC level every other day and run pump for 4 hrs. I'll be taking off as soon as all the seed pods are off the maple tree. I don't need a pool full of
those things.

Water temp was 72 on the bottom when I checked the other day.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk.

linen · May 25, 2013

Re: Can I leave the winter cover on in MN until it gets warm

blondemarcello said:
Do the odds for algae increase because I wouldn't be able to brush thus not able to "stimulate" the water?

I don't think that really matters. Basically, algae growth rate increases with temperature. Most likely over the winter your FC level went to 0, so once algae starts to grow, there is nothing stopping it.

If you can get some chlorine in there and circulating like mentioned above, I would.

By the way after fixing the leaks in my solar panels today, our water got up to ~64F this afternoon.