What should I treat my pool with before closing?

[krdowns]

We recently had some stone/tile work done around our pool, resulting in a drain and refill. I haven't added anything to it yet, but wonder if I need to add salt or anything else. The system has been winterized, so I can't circulate anything that would be added. Thanks.

[swimdaddy]

Is your pool covered? Are there any chemicals in the pool at all? What is your pools temperature, pH, alk?

[krdowns]

We have an auto cover, so it stays covered continually. There has been nothing added to it, since refilling it and I have not yet tested the water.

[swimdaddy]

You'll need to test and add chemical accordingly. Your pH and chlorine levels are the most important right now. You can add chlorine using plain bleach, without doing the math one bottle of 8.25% bleach, which is not quite a gallon, will add almost 7ppm of chlorine to your pool. Since your pool has no chlorine in it, you probably already have an algae problem starting, so you'll need to get your chlorine up to shock level, which can be found under the sticky "best guess pool chlorine chart" and depends on stabilizer levels. You can poor bleach straight out of the bottle around the perimeter of your pool, and use a skimmer to stir it in a little. You can also poor in liquid stabilizer the same way. If your pH is high, you typically drop that with muriatic acid, but I am not sure you want to add that without some type of circulation, at least undiluted. If it is low, we typically raise it with borax, but again circulation is probably needed here too.

However, if your pool temperature has not dropped below 60 degrees, I would still be circulating the water with the pump. My pool temp is 65, and I will not fully winterize until I start getting freezing temps and my pool temp reaches 60 or less. Until then, my pool uses much less chlorine so I check about once a week and test pH and chlorine, and adjust accordingly. The pump runs twice a day for about 2 hours each. Is there a way you can circulate your pool water? Maybe a submersible pump without the discharge hose?

[krdowns]

Thanks for the help! I'll treat with bleach, test, and throw a submersible pump in to help circulate. In hindsight, we probably shouldn't have closed it yet. Every spring our pool is crystal clear when we open it. I'd hate to open a nasty green mess, if I can keep from it!

[swimdaddy]

Just make sure the submersible pump is grounded and your are plugging into a circuit with a GFCI.

[FormerBromineUser]

Let us know your numbers when you test. You may want to keep an eye on it for a bit to make sure that nothing got started in there.

[krdowns]

Chl 1
pH 7.4
TA 240

I was out of town for a few days, so now I'm gonna have to treat with bleach to get the algae bloom under control. Thankfully our temps are cooling down now.