How can I prevent a Spring Swamp?

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meporchmonkey

meporchmonkey

0
Jun 30, 2012
8
Indianapolis, IN
I'm obviously doing something wrong. I brought the pool to shock before closing in the fall, but every spring I open the cover to this. It also smelt like a horrible fart. When I got the pump running all the kids ran for their lives. Thankfully no one puked.

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sy8URH


In our climate it's almost impossible to lift the cover back and add chemicals mid-winter. The pool was still a block of ice on top in March.

I'm still in process of "S." and have not quite gotten to L.A.M. this year. (Baseball, full time job, three kids, hubby broke his arm so he's no help)
 
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What was water temp when you closed? What was it when you opened? Close when the water temp is solidly below 60 degrees and open before it gets above 60 is a large part of it. The adage is "Open Early, Close Late." I closed last year when my water was low 50s, mid-October I believe. My pool has been open for the most part for 3 weeks. Water just started coming above 60 degrees, was more like 54 when I started opening. Your spring is earlier and winter later than ours here, most likely, so you should be opening earlier than I do and closing later than I do, weather dependent.
 
Our pool came with a mesh safety cover. If I didn't close late enough, late Nov/early Dec, and open early enough, late Feb/1st of March, our pool would be green at opening. Ever since I started using a solid cover to block out all light and rain water, and maintain 50ppm borates, I've never opened to a green pool, regardless of water temp.

Now I close in early Oct and open in early May. Water temp is usually in the mid to high 60s. One season I couldn't open until early June, and despite water temp being in the high 70s, the water was still clear.

I know each pool/environment is different, but for me the key seemed to be the combination of a solid cover and borates.
 
Every year I opened to a swamp despite following the advice here. This year I managed to open and the pool was cloudy but not swampy which is a win for me! I have a mesh safety cover that has seen better days with a few holes here and there. The hole-y cover is probably the reason why I have algae every year since it allows sunlight to hit the water.

For closing, I waited until my pool temp got to 50 degrees with no chance of warmer weather in the forecast. Closing near 50 degrees instead "under 60" degrees really made a difference for me.

I added double the max dosage of polyquat 60 algaecide and I really think it made the difference for me. It was overkill on the algaecide, but using the max dosage didn't work for me. I also have the magical bacteria that eats my CYA every winter. My CYA was gone, but I don't have to battle algae.
 
When I close my pool in the late fall , my cover is always on at least a month before I blow the lines and remove the pump.
When the cover is on, maintaining FC is easy. When the water is at 50 I shock it and next day lower water, blow out lines and remove pump.

In the spring, when the water approaches 50, I hook up the pump, run a few hrs. And test the water and adjust. I always have chlorine in the water from the fall. I don't remove the cover until a month or so after I hook up the pump in the spring. I don't need to slam in the spring at all.
 
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