Algae and other questions

[Joementum87]

Sorry for what will be numerous questions.

I came back from a week away and it seems my SWG stopped producing enough chlorine to keep up with demand. The big change is my heater kicked in. Is this common, to see a large reduction in CL when the heather is running? I have read the CL demand goes up similar to the summer time, but I am seeing that I need to set my SWG to 3 times higher than I did this summer. I will be checking CYA and assume I will find it low, but it was around 60 when I left. It did rain, but I dont think enough to change things drastically. I could be wrong of course.
So, due to this occurence, I have noticed several green algae spots on my sun shelf. I am going to begin the slam process, once I get back from the store and test all my water levels. A question regarding this process...can you swim during it? If not, if I get CL back to usual levels, is it safe to swim with the few algae spots? I have out of state coming for the holiday and they are looking forward to swimming. I would like to let then if at all possible.

Thanks for the help
Joe
14k pool
SWG

 

[Jimrahbe]

Joe,

As long as you can clearly see the deep end and the FC is below the slam level for your CYA, then you can swim... See the saltwater part of this chart... FC/CYA Levels

I can't think of any reason that your heater should cause your FC use to increase, except that the hotter the water the faster the algae will grow.. The faster the algae grows the more FC you will use.

I suspect that you let your FC get too low and you got an algae bloom, even though you did not see it yet.. Then you went away, the heater came on, and the algae took over.

But, no matter what happened in the past, I like your plan of SLAMing.. I would do the SLAM with the current CYA level, as I suspect it is lower than what we recommend. Then after the SLAM is complete, get the CYA back to where it should be.

Good Luck,

Jim R.