Bio Active Cyanuric Acid reducer review - my results so far

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wrecord

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Jun 29, 2013
5
Sacramento/CA
I have been researching on TFP for many years first for a spa, then for the past 3 years since i moved to a house with a pool, and wanted to thank the community you have been very helpful to me so far.
For the past 3 years the pool has been almost no maintenance, been running on the hockey puck chlorine tablets from Costco. when i moved in ~3 years ago i tested and confirmed the cya was too high i think ~110-140 (Was too long ago). about a month ago i was out of town for over a week with the solar cover on, and came back to a swamp as it had run out of chlorine. i shocked and added chlorine, but it didn't kill the algae, so i tested and confirmed my Cyanuric acid was in the ~170-180+ish range diluting 1:2 pool water to purified water.

all tests i ended up doing at the kitchen sink with good lightning and looking into white sink. (it was very hard to get consistent test results for CYA.)

Tests below are from Leslie's, and i have tested myself and they seem to be reasonable.
PH =7.4
TDS =~700-900
Pho =500
Temp =82°F
TA =80-100
CH =230-280
Copper=0
Iron =0

Leslie tested my Cyanuric acid 3x, first time they said 100, second time i said i got much higher results to which they stated their equipment can't test above 100, and last results was wrong.
the following 2 tests they did dilution of 1:2. their results were then 120 then 140. i don't trust these numbers.

per my many tests and learning how to get a consistent dilution technique, i would say my range was 160 to 200+ but 180 is the most consistent average reading i had, so i am using that as my starting point.
for the most part the above parameters stayed reasonably close. the temperature fluctuates a little but not a whole lot so i would say it was in the 80°F+ range for the whole time.

also because i read that the FC will kill the Cyanuric acid reducer, i elected to do the entire process with no chlorine fully knowing i am turning my pool into a swamp.

below are my results so far, i used 1 8oz. packet. my FC was less than 1 when is started because i didn't wait for the chlorine neutralizer to finish, but there was enough to drop it to zero.

date CYA 1:1
7/9/2015 =N/A
7/13/2015 =~110
7/15/2015 =100

date Cya 2:1
7/9/2015 =170-180
7/13/2015 =120
7/15/2015 =80


by day 4 the pool was starting to turn green, by day 6 i have a swamp now.

my intention is to get the Cya as low as possible and switch to liquid chlorine with a Stenner pump i have. also after the process is complete it is my intention to shock it to remove the swamp then use the phosphates reducers to reduce the left over phosphates from the swamp i now have, then get my new pool equipment installed.

as for results so far, under best conditions on day 6 have a reduction of 80+ CYA, or under worst conditions a reduction of 40 if you trust Leslie's pools test that i started at 140 which i don't.

i will try to get a sample to them this weekend and post their results.

at least i can get a CYA reading without dilution with my test kit, and i am unclear if i can see a change from day 4-6, i think my technique for dilution 1:2 is very prone to errors.

a few questions i have.
1. do you think i can clean the filter? the swamp is plugging it up, but i fear the bio active is actually in the filter since i added it into the skimmer basket, and by cleaning it i would remove it from the pool?
2. do you think i should use phosfree now? to try to reduce the phosphates or wait until the end?

Thanks.
-William
 
Welcome to TFP! :wave:

Well I hope you don't have a pool full of ammonia and partially degraded CYA as described in this thread. Hopefully in your case the bacteria worked to degrade the CYA all the way to nitrates or nitrogen gas. If you start adding chlorine and the FC goes away well within 10 minutes and you get CC instead, then you likely have ammonia.

As for your first question, I don't know how much of the Bio-Active product is in the filter vs. in the bulk pool water.

I'm not sure why you are looking at reducing phosphates since as you know from reading TFP if you maintain the proper minimum FC/CYA level then the phosphate level is irrelevant. If you already bought the PhosFree and can't return it and want to use it, I'd do that after clearing out your pool more and backwashing your filter since the PhosFree will get caught in the filter and may raise its pressure and you'll want to leave it in the filter for up to a week. But again, you don't need to use the product unless you intended not to follow the chlorine/CYA chart and to use a lower FC/CYA level.
 
Some phosphate is removed when you remove dead algae, but generally if you've got a lot of phosphates in your pool they will largely remain. You can't think of algae as a way of soaking up and removing the phosphates. Though they will use them, then usually don't use enough to eliminate them. And again, it's really irrelevant since algae can be killed faster than it can reproduce if you maintain the proper FC/CYA level regardless of phosphate level. I had over 3000 ppb phosphates, other members have had up to 5000 ppb and one has had 30,000 ppb and yet all maintained their pools algae free simply by managing the FC/CYA level to at least the minimums indicated in Pool School.
 
Oh, I get that phosphates don't matter. I thought if the phosphates dropped after the algae was removed, and he really felt it was important, he'd be more inclined to take the stuff back to the store by waiting until after he was done and see if there was an acceptable improvement.
 
thank you for the responses,
with regards to phosfree, i already have the bottle, so i will try it after i am done with everything and will use it prior to the new equipment install which is on 24th, so dont care too much if i plug up that filter its going int he trash soon anyway.

date CYA 1:1
7/9/2015 =N/A
7/13/2015 =~110
7/15/2015 =100
7/16/2015 = 90 (80-100) (day 7)

date Cya 2:1
7/9/2015 =170-180
7/13/2015 =120
7/15/2015 =80
7/16/2015 = 70 (day 7)

i am now very concerned about ammonia...i have ordered the kit so i can test when done.
now at day 7 i thought it was a pretty bad swamp yesterday, it is worse today. seriously considering trying to maintain 1-2 FC.
 
Testing for ammonia only makes sense if you have no FC reading. This is because the ammonia test will test for the sum of ammonia and monochloramine since it does not distinguish between them -- in fact, the test actually converts ammonia to monochloramine (by adding Dichlor chlorine) and then measures the monochloramine.

If you had ammonia and added enough chlorine so that you read an FC level, then you may have CC that is monochloramine so would just note that instead (i.e. no need to test separately for ammonia because technically with measurable FC there won't be any ammonia itself since chlorine combines with ammonia to form monochloramine in under a minute).
 
date CYA 1:1
7/9/2015 =N/A (day 1)
7/13/2015 =~110
7/15/2015 =100
7/16/2015 = 90 (80-100) (day 7)
7/18/2015 = 100 (90-100) (day 9)

date Cya 2:1
7/9/2015 =170-180 (day 1)
7/13/2015 =120
7/15/2015 =80
7/16/2015 = 70 (day 7)
7/18/2015 = 80 (day 9) (i doubt it went up i would suggest my testing on the 16th was off)

pretty sure it h as stopped working.
i haven't seen a perceivable change in 3 days now, i know they say to wait until day 10, but i believe it worked faster on my pool since i was around 80°F + for the whole time.

in other news i had a building inspector out looking at my windows and wanted to cite me for my pool not being able to see the bottom. something to consider if you have building inspectors coming by... i was able to convince him not to cite me saying i was trying to conserve water by doing a Cyanuric acid reduction.

i am going to slam my pool today since i think having Sunday to clean the filter multiple times is wise.
i am also taking a sample down to Leslie's pool to have them look at it.
i wish i had at least gotten down to 60
 
i received my ammonia test kit.
i tested for ammonia and it measured .25 ppm.

i attempted to slam it yesterday and the chlorine did go away fairly fast (within 2 hours) it was down to ~4ppm (i added enough i think to go to 35ppm), can't seem to get enough chlorine to stay to kill the algae, going to go pick up more. just got home from work and its measuring 0.

with regards to pool stores testing, i went to 1 store (local place)
and they said my cya was at 70 ppm.
Leslie's said it was 80 ppm.
both stores couldn't believe i had that good of a reduction.
they also said my phosphates went from 600 to 100 (not that anyone seems to care about phosphates now)

my pool's PH has risen to 8.0 been trying to bring it down, and i wasn't testing it during the process, so my advice to anyone doing the cyanuric acid reducer is to monitor the PH.

i will go read the forums some more about how to get rid of this swamp i have.

Thanks for all your responses.
 

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Since you have ammonia add chlorine to shock level and test every 10 minutes until it starts to hold. It takes a lot of chlorine to burn off the ammonia, and it consumes chlorine very quickly so if you dose then wait an hour or two you are wasting about 50-110 minutes that you could be using to add more bleach.
 
I'm glad this did work somewhat for you, but unfortunately it is so unreliable and the side effects of it not working correctly so severe that we cannot recommend this product. It's bad enough that for many people it simply didn't work so was a waste of money, but even worse is that for some others it only worked to partially degrade the CYA creating a huge chlorine demand that was very costly to eliminate (hundreds of dollars so far more than the basic treatment itself and more than water replacement would cost).
 
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