My Chlorinator may be clogged and my local pool supply advised to clean with Muriatic acid. Has anyone had to do this, and if so, I would imagine I should dilute the acid??

Welcome to tfp, ohajoh22

What type of chlorinator do you have?

And what do you think it's clogged with? I'd be very reluctant to pour MA of any strength in a container that could possibly hold concentrated chlorine. Bad things can happen.

I have a Hayward model # CL220, and have been experiencing algae build up, and when I had the water tested @ local pool supply, I was told there was "no" chlorine in my water. I had filled up my chlorinator just last week and thought that this would be impossible, so he said the chlorinator may be clogged and I should clean with Muriatic acid. I thought he may be onto to something, as the chlorinator and filter are located in my shed, and when I open the top of the chlorinator, the fumes are overbearing, and I don't recall that happening last summer. Are you saying the the combination of Muriatic acid and chlorine is not a good thing???

While your chlorinator could be clogged, it is much more likely that your CYA is insanely high which is making your chlorine ineffective. If the tablets are dissolving, your chlorinator is working. I'd bet your problem is chemical rather than plumbing.

Has your chlorinator been going through the pucks? If the chlorinator is clogged the pucks you are adding to it would pretty much just sit there. If you are going through pucks, and have no chlorine in your pool, I would be interested to know what your CYA levels are.

JohnT beat me too it!

I am going through the pucks, and when I loosened up the fittings at either end, I got water coming out, so I don't think it's clogged either. Would the CYA make the water soft?? He mentioned something about that as well???

Your CYA is high so you are having to adding a very high amount of chlorine to compensate for that. Forget everything the pool store has told you, odds are it's all wrong anyway. The first thing you need to do if you have not done so already is order one of the recommended FAS-DPD test kits that are recommended here. After that, read pool school and learn about water chemistry and how CYA affects your chlorine. I went through the same thing early last year before coming here to TFP and have never looked back. My pool store had me dump over 150lbs of shock in my pool before I saw the light.

If you can, before your test kit arrives, have the pool store test your water for CYA and post those results here along with all of the other test results. I am guessing your CYA is going to be well over 100ppm when you generally want to see something around 40-50. The bad side is that the only way to lower CYA is through a water change. The good news is you have found TFP, the people here are the best and will help you get your pool in the best shape it has ever been.

My CYA was @ 30 and no recommended action, but calcium hardness @ 70 recommended 56lbs of whatever would raise that????

If that's a pool store test for CYA it may not even be close to 30. It could be 300. Pool stores are really bad at the CYA test. Unless you have a serious leak and you're losing tons of water your CYA is most suredly higher than 30.

Also, if you have a vinyl pool don't worry about the CH.

Give us more info about your pool.

Its a 20'x40' L-shaped pool w/ a liner. The pool store said I have O free chlorine & 0 total chlorine?? How can that be possible if my pucks are dissolving??? PH 7.4, total alkalinity 100.

There is probably something in the pool consuming it. All pools lose some FC to sunlight. A higher demand might be due to either algae forming or from human byproducts (pee, sweat, spit, suntan lotion, etc.) being oxidized.

Can you put your pool info in your signature? It will help us answer questions.

Have you read Pool School yet? Most of us don't set foot in pool stores for chemical advice anymore. Taking advice from the pool store and taking advice from us will very likely be counterproductive.

I have a 20' x 40' L-shape inground pool with a vinyl liner, DE filter, 40,000 gallons. I'm being told I have 0 chlorine??? I can't figure out why. I've read pool school, but there is nothing there that I see that tells me what to do when you have someone telling you you have 0 chlorine available and can't get rid of algae.

You need to add chlorine, then go back in an hour and test it and add more chlorine. Repeat until it holds. Defeating Algae


Chlorine CYA Chart will be useful.

That is what I'm trying to do, I have Hayward chlorinator, but for some reason no chlorine in the pool, which brings me back to my original question of could my chlorinator be clogged?? It was suggested that I clean with Muriatic acid??????

A chlorinator can't add chlorine fast enough to keep up. You need to add it yourself, in a form that is rapidly mixed through the pool, so you can keep up with the demand of whatever is consuming the chlorine.

So does that mean I will have to keep shocking the pool? I put in 4 lbs last night, I did this also a couple of weeks ago. Even though my CYA was tested @ 30, should I add stabilizer anyway??? I just don't understand why I'm doing the same things I did last year, and this year I have algae coming back every couple of days????

Shocking isn't a one time thing. You raise the chlorine to shock level, and hold it there until the problem is gone. Check out this Pool School article on Shocking Your Pool

I understand that shocking is not a one time deal, I usually shock after a weekend of heavy use, or after a significant amount of rain, but I'm still stuck on why TAC showed 0 on the test. I will p/u a FAS-DPD test kit, and test and brush pool again, and bring FC to shock level.

Your pool is using chlorine faster than you are adding it. When there is algae in the water, you can lose 10 or 15ppm in an hour easily. It's like trying to fill a bucket with a hole in the bottom the size of your fist with a teaspoon. You will never catch up until you get a bigger spoon.