Overwintering question from a new pool owner

[DJCBW]

We purchased our home last fall and the above ground pool was clear but it was too cold to swim so we, drained the pool below the skimmer, put chlorine in the floating chlorine dispenser and covered the pool with the winter cover. It worked well - the pool was clear this spring, except that water and stuff that had collected on the cover did get into the pool while we were getting the cover off.

We used the pool a little this summer, but had an unusually cool summer so the pool water was less than 80°F most of the time and too cold to enjoy! We had issues with the pool turning green, being cloudy, but managed to work through most of that until we went out of town for a weekend a couple of weeks ago.

We came home to a split hose on the filter system so the water wasn't filtering properly. I turned off the pump and the pool promptly drained to below the skimmer and turned a beautiful shade of jade green... at this point we have to fill the pool again to shock it and clean it just to turn around and drain it again and put the winter cover back on.

So the question is - will it hurt the pool overmuch to overwinter with green water? Is there anything I can stir into the water with a pool brush before we cover it again? We have a lot of trees and they are starting to shed their leaves so we definitely want to cover the pool to keep as much of that out as possible.

Thank you for this forum! I think it will be an invaluable resource! I'm intrigued by the BBB method of keeping water clear and have already learned a lot of general pool maintenance I wish I'd known at the beginning of the summer.

[DJCBW]

Just realized I never said what type of pool we have - it's an above ground, round pool with hard sides about 4 foot deep and 28 feet across.

Thanks for any input you can give me.

[PoolDoc]

Overwintering with slime can cause problems. The 2 most common are (a) conversion of stabilizer into ammonia, creating a nightmare start-up situation and (b) biofilm deposition of calcium nodules (what I've called 'sand algae'). But, if you have no stabilizer in the water, (a) is unlikely, and if your calcium hardness is below 80 ppm (b) is unlikely.

If you DO overwinter with slime, be SURE to open a couple of weeks BEFORE you want to swim. It's easiest to clean slime if you open the pool PARTIALLY, by fully enabling circulation, but leaving the cover mostly in place.

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