What FC levels for a colder pool?

[wayner]

Swimming season is done but my pool won't be closed for a couple more weeks as I prefer the look of the yard with an uncovered pool. So I asked the pool closing company to come around the end of October.

The pool water is currently about 60F and the CYA is around 50. What FC should I be maintaining until the pool is covered? I was keeping it around 3-4 while still swimming but I am guessing that I can use lower levels with colder water. FYI - the filter is running about 12 hours per day right now.

 

[Patrick_B]

Until your water is consistently below 10c, you should hold your normal levels of FC. Once it drops below that Algae growth is nill.

 

[BoDarville]

FYI - the filter is running about 12 hours per day right now.

I was wondering why you were running the pump 12 hrs/day until I saw that you have a SWG. However, here is a suggestion that will allow you to greatly reduce the pump run time until you close the pool for the season...How about manually chlorinating with bleach now that the water has cooled down? While we recommend maintaining FC within the recommended target range until you close, the chlorine consumption goes down considerably as the water cools and the days get shorter. If you did this, you would only have to run your pump for about a half-hour or so after adding the bleach. Just something to consider...

 

[wayner]

Actually the SWG isn't working as the cell needs to be replaced. But I was running the pump during daylight hours as it allowed the solar tubes to heat up the pool so that I would need to burn less gas to get the pool back up to swimmable temps if the weather was amenable. But that stopped being a possibility two weeks ago. I will turn the pump down to a couple of hours per day.