solar cover and return

[pepsiholic]

Since finishing my conversion I have been faithful about adding my chlorine every night. I was bumping it up everynight to 7 or 8 just so I could stay around 5 ppm's during the day. It held fine when the weather was cloudy, but since the sun has been out, not so much.

I did my weekly test Saturday evening, like I always do and even after bumping up every night, my chlorine was down to 3 with no cc's. I performed an overnite night test and only lost 1ppm with no cc's, so nothing seems to be growing.

Here were my numbers before I brought it up to shock level last night:

FC 3
CC 0
TC 3
PH 7.8
TA 120
CYA 50-ish (was at forty, but added some on Thursday to get it up to fifty)

I read where using a solar cover could help reduce chlorine loss, so I went out and bought one. Here's my problem. It sounds kind of silly, but it's frustrating me to death...lol

I put the solar cover on and it just all bunches up and swirls around. OK, so I got to thinking and my return jet is pointed to the left away from the skimmer so that everything goeas around the pool then into the skimmer, but at the same time it is kind of pointed in an upward direction. The water kind of jets out of it on top of the water (does this make sense?)..lol

It has been this way since the installer put the pool together, so I thought maybe if I turned it down and to the left it would stop the cover from bunching. Well, the problem is the return thing doesn't move. I don't know if it a stationary one or it is just stuck. I have helped my friend with her pool and her eyeball rotates in every direction.

So my question I guess is are there stationary ones and ones that move? I don't know and would it be in my best interest to replace it with one that does move? I'm still getting a lot of pollen on the outer eges in the pool and I'm thinking that the water is not ciculating enough at the bottom to get it mixed up.

Any thought or recommendations would be deeply appriciated.

 

[mickey4paws]

I use a solar cover reel with mine and I have no problems on the end where the reel is. Sometimes on the other end when it's windy, the cover will blow back. Solved that problem by extending the solar cover so there's about 1 foot on the ground, and then I put a couple of bricks on it. Hope that description made sense.

Edit: Oops, just saw that you have a round above ground pool so not sure how to fix that.

 

[PaulR]

You could try tethering it in place, so it resists the whirlpool effect.
--paulr

 

[pepsiholic]

OK

after some more reading and research on the forum, I have found out my return eyeball DOES move, it was just stuck. I stuck a small piece of plastic in the return hole and got it to loosen up. Now we shall see if the solar cover stays in place better.

It's kind of funny, because for a year I was used to hearing the water moving and now I hear nothing, kind of miss the sound of it, but oh well, I'm thinking this will help the water circulate better.

 

[dmanb2b]

pepsi...we have the same pool. Point the return downward...just slightly to the right... and you should be all set...since it's round you'll still get circulation...it just won't move around at 5mph

Funny... I used to have mine pointed to the right at a 90 deg angle....cover looked like it went through the spin cycle and landed on our steps. Pointing it downward stopped the spinning as well as the false alarms from our pool alarm.