Bad closing - compost tea mixed in!

[armedmetallica]

Soo I rushed to close my pool this year. I had two weekends of being out of town before a deep freeze and HAD to close it before that.

Okay now that my excuse is out of the way - here's the problem. My above ground pool has a partial deck... so on that part, I cover it "like an in ground" meaning just put waterbags on top of the cover. Two out of the three water bags had small leaks, and weren't heavy enough to hold the cover. Couple that with the fact that we had heavy winds last week and you get a cover that is breached. I have an oval pool, so imagine the entire curved part. is open.

With the rain and the continued falling of leaves, there was some richly disgusting water on the cover. This water is now in the pool along with some of the leaves (but not a whole lot) . Water in the immediate area is no longer clear.


My options at this point are to leave it as is, and just deal with it as early as possible in the spring. Or essentially re-open, reshock and stablize the water, and then re-close. The latter seems to be a bet with nature that there wont be frosty weather for a week or more.

What do?!

 

[samt]

I would just wait and deal with in the spring. It really doesn't take much to clear a pool if you understand what your doing.
Spend a little time on this site and come up with a plan for the spring and don't waste in money now on it.

 

[easttn]

If it were mine, I would peel back the cover and drop in my utility pump rig to circulate the water and slowly add some bleach to bring it back to shock level and to mix the gunk with the chlorine. I usually do this about every month anyways to keep a check on my chlorine level when its closed so it would not be a problem for me. This seems more feasable than reopening the pool.

We have some gunk in our pool now from where we had to replace the winter cover but I dont expect it to be a problem because of the method I use above.

 

[Divin Dave]

I think both of the above answers are spot on. Go ahead and bring your FC level up if you can, and then wait till early spring and open when the water is still chilly....like 50 - 60 degrees. The cold water will help immensely in cleaning it up. If you wait till it gets above about 65ish, you are likely to get a quick algae bloom and the opening will take a lot longer and be a bigger pain.

 

[armedmetallica]

I would just wait and deal with in the spring. It really doesn't take much to clear a pool if you understand what your doing.
Spend a little time on this site and come up with a plan for the spring and don't waste in money now on it.

Thanks - i had a green pool opening before. and followed TFP advice to a T. got sparkly fresh, but it did take a little while. Then again, i didn't open it until like june that year. so it was stewing!

If it were mine, I would peel back the cover and drop in my utility pump rig to circulate the water and slowly add some bleach to bring it back to shock level and to mix the gunk with the chlorine. I usually do this about every month anyways to keep a check on my chlorine level when its closed so it would not be a problem for me. This seems more feasable than reopening the pool.

We have some gunk in our pool now from where we had to replace the winter cover but I dont expect it to be a problem because of the method I use above.

Funny - minus the utility pump, i was thinking of doing that - just drop in some bleach. This sounds like a decent idea. If i drop a pump in, i can run a hose literally to the other side, where the skimmer is, and put water into circulation.

I think both of the above answers are spot on. Go ahead and bring your FC level up if you can, and then wait till early spring and open when the water is still chilly....like 50 - 60 degrees. The cold water will help immensely in cleaning it up. If you wait till it gets above about 65ish, you are likely to get a quick algae bloom and the opening will take a lot longer and be a bigger pain.

Time to put in a reminder on the calendar. As soon as the threat of frost is gone, i'm safe to get in there, right?


Thanks all for your replies. Gotta see when i can get back out there to get this done!

 

[JasonLion]

Don't add bleach without sone kind of circulation. You need some water movement to help mix it in or it can damage the pool surface.

 

[armedmetallica]

Don't add bleach without sone kind of circulation. You need some water movement to help mix it in or it can damage the pool surface.

Thanks - I was only thinking of doing that before I posted here ... it was my first thought when I saw the mess. But, I don't do anything wild like that without consulting the Oracle [aka posting here ]. My utility pump is not usable in the pool any more (my parents used it to pump Sandy material out of their basement). i'll have to go get a small pump for this. when I can get near HD without being run over by a mob of blackfriday shoppers!

 

[Kiss4aFrog]

My vote would be to cover it and get at it early but since you're choosing to toss in some bleach I'd get the rake out and try to get as much of the solid stuff out too.

 

[stebs]

One more tip from previous experience... Pay attention to the bottom of the pump especially if you have a vinyl pool... Dont want any support studs on the pump puncturing the liner...