i've looked over some old threads about ammonia and that has me pondering this question.
First some background:
i have a mesh cover that lets in sunlight, dirt, etc. Normally upon opening i find a lot of silt and earthworms. this is my first opening after converting to chlorine. i found NO earthworms this year.
When i closed, i dosed chlorine to shock level the day before and added some algaecide. Now i know the algaecide was probably not a good idea and dont plan on that this time.
CYA at closing was around 40-50. At opening cya was zero.
Opening was to a green swamp but it cleared up in a week using bleach, not technically a slam.
I did NOT notice any particular spike in CC nor have great difficulty in getting FC levels up. yes, i consumed a bunch of bleach, but no CC spikes nor the experiences i would have expected from reading the prior threads on ammonia problems.
Something formed a coating on the bottom that i could not see directly because the water was so dirty but seemed to flake off during the clean up process. I thought it was leaves, but later discovered it was something else, sometimes attached to leaves, other times it was just slimy flakes in various shapes-one looked like a dead squirrel, one a bat, etc. weird.
Where did the cya go over the winter? why no earthworms for the first time in over 20 years?
My hypothesis: Over the winter, FC went to zero, earthworms contributed a source of bacteria to convert cya to ammonia (consuming the earthworms in the process or converting them to an unrecognizable form), then the ammonia dissipated through the mesh cover before i opened the pool.
Does this make any sense or do you have another idea of what happened?
Should i just forget it and go worry about something that makes a difference? Wait, i hear a beer calling....
First some background:
i have a mesh cover that lets in sunlight, dirt, etc. Normally upon opening i find a lot of silt and earthworms. this is my first opening after converting to chlorine. i found NO earthworms this year.
When i closed, i dosed chlorine to shock level the day before and added some algaecide. Now i know the algaecide was probably not a good idea and dont plan on that this time.
CYA at closing was around 40-50. At opening cya was zero.
Opening was to a green swamp but it cleared up in a week using bleach, not technically a slam.
I did NOT notice any particular spike in CC nor have great difficulty in getting FC levels up. yes, i consumed a bunch of bleach, but no CC spikes nor the experiences i would have expected from reading the prior threads on ammonia problems.
Something formed a coating on the bottom that i could not see directly because the water was so dirty but seemed to flake off during the clean up process. I thought it was leaves, but later discovered it was something else, sometimes attached to leaves, other times it was just slimy flakes in various shapes-one looked like a dead squirrel, one a bat, etc. weird.
Where did the cya go over the winter? why no earthworms for the first time in over 20 years?
My hypothesis: Over the winter, FC went to zero, earthworms contributed a source of bacteria to convert cya to ammonia (consuming the earthworms in the process or converting them to an unrecognizable form), then the ammonia dissipated through the mesh cover before i opened the pool.
Does this make any sense or do you have another idea of what happened?
Should i just forget it and go worry about something that makes a difference? Wait, i hear a beer calling....
