How do you handle the chemicals in between the last swim and when you close the pool? I am waiting until the water is below 60, but we are probably done for the year. I don’t want to throw a bunch of money in the pool, but I also don’t want it to turn green.
Treating pool in between last swim and closing
- Thread starter IIIpgCIii
- Start date
an1vrsy
Bronze Supporter
- Jul 10, 2018
- 1,144
- Pool Size
- 26000
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Pentair Intellichlor IC-60
I live in Las Vegas, we don’t close our pools. But you still have to chlorinate/sanitize the water until you close your pool so it doesn’t turn green. I read here somewhere, “a pool is like a pet, you may not play with it everyday but you still have to feed it.”
We won't close for another month but we don't have much pool time left either. Admittedly I've gotten lazy with my testing and it's like every 3 days and I'm only testing FC and CC but I do still add 20 oz of LC each day to keep FC at or above 4. For some reason, I have a ton of bugs in the pool now, the beetles, wooly caterpillars and spiders are out of control so I skim several times a day in addition to the filter.
If you have leaves falling, make sure your getting those out so they don't become muck later. But yeah, you do still need to some daily maintenance on it.
If you have leaves falling, make sure your getting those out so they don't become muck later. But yeah, you do still need to some daily maintenance on it.
+1. And it should take much at all. Our UV demand dropped off a cliff recently. Every year at this time my SWG was down to 10% runtime from a max of 60% mid season.
I am in Atlanta so in another month I spend 2 or 3 months getting out leaf's. Once the bottom is clean pretty much leave it alone and it stays perfect. I didn't do it last year but I do like to get a floater and added 3 or 4 tablets to help keep PH down and CL up. My old floater finally broke and I couldn't find tablets without buying a bucket
deerocks
Active member
- Jun 7, 2021
- 41
- Pool Size
- 13500
- Surface
- Vinyl
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- CircuPool SJ-20
I am also in upstate NY and getting ready to close. I still don't understand how to close the above ground salt water pool (I'm a new owner). I bring it to SLAM according to trouble free pools, which would be like 20ppp. Members seem to like the polyquat 60 to prevent algee. But if you wait till water is 60 degrees if that really needed. Anyone use a "Winter Ball" to close?
Lets see what the newyork folks recommend. In Atlanta I just shut mine down and drain the pad but your weather gets a lot colder 
A gallon of 10% liquid will last me 4 or 5 months if the water is 55 or below.
A gallon of 10% liquid will last me 4 or 5 months if the water is 55 or below.
derekm
0
Northeast of you in Canada. Once swimming is over and heating has stopped I move from daily maintenance with bleach to weekly maintenance using trichlor pucks/tabs for chlorination instead, assuming my CYA isn't too high (it lowers substantially over the winter for me, anyway). As the water cools and there are fewer hours of bright sun, chlorine use drops anyway. I add a quart of Polyquat (40, I can never find 60 in Canada) algaecide and let it circulate before closing by disconnecting the plumbing, taking the pump inside, lowering the water below the skimmer, draining the heater and sand filter and installing a winter cover.
Some like the extra insurance. I did it both ways and didn’t see a difference. Wait as long as you can. The even more important part is to open early before the water hits 60 again. If the algae is still dormant the SLAM takes hours (?) to kill it. You’ll still take time to filter it all, but when it isn’t growing exponentially, the fight is easy.
Many do. Or pillows. One member stacked/tied two donut floats together (forget who, it’s been a year since we’ve discussed closing. Lol) for the same principal. Many others gave up altogether after years of popped floating thingies.
With our unpredictable weather last couple years ( just ask Texas folks ) I don’t know what to do this winter.
You just keep maintaining it as normal. It shouldn’t take a lot of money. The FC demand goes way down as the water gets colder and the UV gets less. This means less frequent additions and less frequent testing.