Does a solar cover help reduce algae growth??

[matt4x4]

Based on experience I have to say you should "air" your pool for 2 hours a day minimum while running the pump. If you miss a day, give it an extra 2 hours. If you leave the solar cover on indefinitely, you WILL get chlorine lock within a week, then algae will set in.
2-4 hours of "breathing" allows the chlorine that is eating algae (the chlorine that makes the pool smell) to gas off and leave only the free chlorine in your pool. Some think it keeps their chlorine in the pool longer, in a way it does, but it also keeps the wrong chlorine in your pool which is a bigger problem.
FUI - just because your pool is clean and clear, does not mean you have chlorine in there "waiting" for contminates, it is a continuous cycle without rest, ther chlorine is ALWAYS fighting something whether you can see it or not, I find if you can see it you're on your way to a problem, so keep it where you can't see it.

[chem geek]

Based on experience I have to say you should "air" your pool for 2 hours a day minimum while running the pump. If you miss a day, give it an extra 2 hours. If you leave the solar cover on indefinitely, you WILL get chlorine lock within a week, then algae will set in.

By chlorine lock, do you mean that the chlorine stops working? When this happens, do you measure CC > 0?

This has not been my experience with my opaque cover, but then it isn't a solar cover so perhaps keeping most of the light out inhibits algae growth. I agree that it is absolutely required to have air circulation when shocking and in theory if the chlorine is doing work continually then its byproducts should get "aired out". However, in practice, this hasn't been a problem for me. I'm guessing that in my particular case, there just isn't stuff in the pool for chlorine to "work on" except when we are using it in which case it is opened up for several hours (2-4). The pool gets used about 2-3 times during the week and 1-2 times on the weekend so it does get opened up about every other day or sometimes 3 days. I need to add chlorine about that often anyway.

Since adding liquid chlorine or bleach to the pool seems to perform a bit of a "mini-super-chlorination" effect (at least locally), and since SWG systems seem to have less trouble with their more continual dosing, it would seem that manually adding chlorine every day and keeping the cover open for an hour or two after doing so would be more effective. I've probably just been lucky I haven't had algae problems. Thanks for your post.

Richard