- Sep 13, 2009
- 10
Why aren't there pucks with no CYA?
- Thread starter ThePaul
- Start date
Welcome to TFP!!
There are pucks without cya - they have calcium instead
The reason for the cya or calcium is to give the chlorine something to bond to to be solid (chlorine starts as a gas, and with water can become bleach - but to make it solid, you need a bonding agent - cya is GREAT for this as the tablet formed dissolves slowly - the calcium tabs dissolve much more quickly)
The real trouble with the tabs is what they use to bind the chlorine - too much of anything in a pool will throw off the balance
Bleach (liquid chlorine) has the fewest and least harmful side effects, so that's what we recommend using to chlorinate a pool
There are pucks without cya - they have calcium instead
The reason for the cya or calcium is to give the chlorine something to bond to to be solid (chlorine starts as a gas, and with water can become bleach - but to make it solid, you need a bonding agent - cya is GREAT for this as the tablet formed dissolves slowly - the calcium tabs dissolve much more quickly)
The real trouble with the tabs is what they use to bind the chlorine - too much of anything in a pool will throw off the balance
Bleach (liquid chlorine) has the fewest and least harmful side effects, so that's what we recommend using to chlorinate a pool
- Sep 13, 2009
- 10
So why can't some chemist come up with some inert ingredient to bond it with, so we can use pucks??
I am sure there are many that have tried. There is a very expensive powder called lithium hypochlorite (about 5 times as expensive as bleach, chlorinating liquid and Cal-Hypo), but it is fast dissolving and apparently even under compression it does not bind well into pucks that would dissolve more slowly. Even Cal-Hypo in pucks tends to fall apart and has to have binders that don't dissolve readily in water so generally create a bit of a mess.
There is a product similar to bromine tablets called 1,3-Dichloro-5,5-dimethylhydantoin (DCDMH), but this is normally a powder and would leave DMH behind.
If it were easy to create a chlorine product that slowly dissolved and didn't add anything that would cause side effects, it would have been done by now. Chemistry just doesn't always give one everything one wants.
There is a product similar to bromine tablets called 1,3-Dichloro-5,5-dimethylhydantoin (DCDMH), but this is normally a powder and would leave DMH behind.
If it were easy to create a chlorine product that slowly dissolved and didn't add anything that would cause side effects, it would have been done by now. Chemistry just doesn't always give one everything one wants.
HTH or one of their many spin off arms make an unstabilised cal hypo puck pack which is fitted into a plastic sleeve and allows it to disolve over a 5 day ish time scale in the skimmer basket, known as the duration tab.
Maybe useful, I will be getting some of my customers to try them next season.
Maybe useful, I will be getting some of my customers to try them next season.
teapot,
Where did you read that 5-day longevity? They have been described here before on the forum as pretty useless....generally turning to mush very, very quickly.
5 days would seem to make them usable.......most reports have seemed to be very unfavorable.
Where did you read that 5-day longevity? They have been described here before on the forum as pretty useless....generally turning to mush very, very quickly.
5 days would seem to make them usable.......most reports have seemed to be very unfavorable.
Hi duraleigh,
Sadly from the company rep, so not exactly reliable. faced with the cya problems I thought it worth a try.
Sadly from the company rep, so not exactly reliable. faced with the cya problems I thought it worth a try.
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