Hi Janet, thanks! I have 8-ft-long double-tube end-to-end water bags around the pool so not even a piece of pine straw or snail will make its way into the pool until I uncover next June (curiously, snails come from the ground here in central AL, far from the coast--can you tell I'm not a native?)! Virtually nothing has changed since I covered it except lack of sunlight. I sure wish I could keep it open year-round like you do (but then there would also be the expense of running the pump). The trees really preclude that. In my naïveté 8 years ago when I moved from the north and landed here and bought the property I uncovered it Jan. 1st after all the trees were bare, only to experience week after week of trees dropping various things in the spring - I mean, the stuff gets so deep you can almost shovel it. You can imagine what it has the capacity to do to a pool/pump, esp. the impeller.

Chem geek, when I took a test sample last night, the water was still fairly warm - I'd guess 81-82 (although this will change fast now that the nights are cooling off). By "anemic" I mean that there was no intensity of hue - it was weak, or, anemic. If I had to extrapolate at all, I'd say it was low vs. high. There was no pink to it at all. I'll retest tonight and look at it more critically. Still, I don't understand why it would abruptly change since the time it was covered when the pH was stable all season long except for having to add two cups of acid every few weeks. That's why I wondered if sunlight is the change component. Nothing else seems to make any sense. Alas, it was easier these past two seasons just not testing pH as I never worried about it. That said, with pools, ignorance is not bliss.