Oak Tree Flowering

[donfranko]

I wanted to get the Pro's and Cons about opening early.
I had the pool installed last March so it was open through the Oak tree flowering period. A messy period of tumble week like masses that clog skimmers and of course line the bottom of my pool. My best estimate is that the trees are finished dropping by the end of May.

My question is; Is it more beneficial to get the water chems balanced and the filter running or wait out the oak trees and their mess?

[duraleigh]

Hi, Don,

Each situation is different and you are the best judge of your particular set of circumstances.

That said, heed "CarlD"'s signature that says "Stay ahead of your water!" If you get too far behind it's a real hassle to catch up.

Dave S.

[Watermom]

Since it sounds like your pool gets hit by a bunch of stuff like mine does, another alternative and one that I sometimes do is to go ahead and hook up the pump and filter and start circulating and adjusting/maintaining good water chemistry but leave the cover on until most of the stuff has dropped from the trees. That way I don't have to continually clean debris out and I also don't have to worry about an algae bloom. Then, when most of the stuff has fallen, we can just pull off the cover and have all the chemistry where we want it and just go swimming. I will also go ahead and hook up the solar heater so that during this time, I can be gaining heat. Here in WV, we have tons of flowering trees which drop lots of stuff into the pool in the spring. Sometimes I just wait it out before taking off the cover. Sometimes I am so anxious to look at blue water instead of a cover that I go ahead and uncover it and just deal with the mess. It is kind of just up to you.

Watermom

[mwsmith2]

I never close the pool down here in TX. I'm also surrounded by about 6 oaks. Yup, it's a mess. Pollen this year has been flat smack insane. I can hardly stand to be outside. I just keep running the letro, and cleaning the skimmers. I've been keeping the main drain wide open to suck all the pollen off of the floor. So far, the pool looks excellent, other than all the trub that keeps getting blown in and floating on the surface. The pool cleaner does a great job of keeping up with the mess.

Michael

[keastman]

I've also got some questions on the Oak Pollen, Our Pool in Florida is surrounded by large Live Oaks and as stated by Michael, this year the pollen is heavy. It's the first spring I've been through with this house and as a pool owner. Since all the leaves have been falling and pollen hitting the pool it's been a nice shade of light green but you can see bottom. Is this the pollen or algae, The pool has a SWG. Dumped in a load of bleach to hit 12ppm for a few days and it still looked the same. I'm thinking it may be the pollen, and I'll wait until it's over to work on it as long as I keep the Cl level up. Do you think I should try holding the Cl at 12 for a long time and see if the green goes away. My CYA is 40 and other chemistries are in line. Thanks. Micheal, I use that bleach calc program all the time and love it!