Thoughts on bio-active cya reducer

[JasonLion]

There is no harm on working on the ammonia and CC issues right now with relatively low FC levels. That will go slowly, but will make some progress and should be easy enough to do without risking staining, just keep the PH towards the low end of the range (7.2 to 7.4).

 

[borjis]

How do you reduce the ammonia?

 

[jblizzle]

Normally, you add chlorine up to shock level and test the FC and CC every 30 minutes or so.

But I think what Jason was suggesting was just raising the FC up to 3-5ppm (or whatever is comfortable for this BioActive stuff) every time it drops lower.

 

[Jose Torres]

Hello heugeneo,
I've been monitoring your posts and I'm glad to see that there has been significant progress. Just a couple things to point out;

Bio-Active CYA Reducer is a biological product. It provides best results at water temperatures above 65F. As a biological product the warmer the water the faster it will work. A result achieved in 3 days at 65F will be achieved in approx. 1 day at 90F.

As you water has been below 60F 2 things happen: (1) the reduction of CYA is much slower; (2) the product will remain active for longer period of time. As a result we would recommend you wait at least 10 days between additional treatments and monitor progress. You should see continued reductions through the 7-10 day period. At these lower water temps you can still achieve substantial CYA reductions however the time frame is longer and the full effect is not as great as when used at the recommended temps.

Regarding chlorine – the product is formulated to work when TC is in the 1-5ppm range. Below 1ppm there is inadequate sanitizer which is something we cannot recommend. In addition the product is formulated to use at least 1ppm TC as a ‘brake’ on the action and will ensure you still retain a safe residual CYA level in your pool. At 1ppm TC the CYA will not drop below about 40ppm. At TC >5 the efficacy of the product begins to diminish as it relies on microbes to deliver the required enzyme chemistry to degrade CYA.

Please note that the use of shock treatments and products such as Polyquat are not compatible with the product due to it relying on active microbes to deliver the necessary enzyme chemistry. If you apply these please wait at least 7 days before applying the next Bio-Active dose. We would recommend you monitor the pool and apply these only if needed and otherwise maintain the FC in 2-5 range. The AA treatment would not be a conflict if you did want to do that however please remember to adjust pH if needed to 7.2-7.8 before application. – Thanks for trying the product and providing your review.

 

[heugeneo]

Thanks for the replies everyone.

Jose once again thanks for the great information. Based on what you've said about temperature I will adjust the FC to the proper range and wait for the next bag. That will be at day 11 of the second dose.

Will the polyquat render the bioactive treatment useless? I added a maintenance dose of polyquat 60 on I believe day 4 of the second round.

 

[Jose Torres]

Will the polyquat render the bioactive treatment useless? I added a maintenance dose of polyquat 60 on I believe day 4 of the second round.

It is quite likely that Polyquat 60 will inhibit the organisms that the CAR product uses to break down the CYA. You add it to control algae and it is the same toxicity that will certainly have some effect on the organisms. We would suggest allowing at least 7 days after any such treatment before applying the CAR product (longer will be safer) and of course to not apply it for 10 days following treatment. Once you get your CYA levels down to the target range (so below 70ppm) the chlorine oxidative potential will increase such that it is likely your algae issues will be much more manageable. The overall reduction in organics and nitrogen in the pool will certainly be beneficial in your case from what you have described.

 

[heugeneo]

Sorry for a lack of posts, I've been waiting for the next bag of bioactive to arrive. One company was supposed to have two day shipping so I ordered another bag, but they both arrived today at the same time. For the past week I've only been adding chlorine and muriatic acid to keep levels in check. Before adding the bioactive today I'm at:

FC 3
CC 1.5
PH 7.4
TA 175
CH 500
CYA 180 1:1 dilution

I added both 8 ounce bags of bioactive at the same time today. The website indicates using too much product will not be a problem. All parameters are correct except my water temperature is still at 58. Hopefully I can report back with more cya reduction.

 

[heugeneo]

Well, no good news yet....

Getting CYA of 200

Although my FC only went down to 2.5 and my CC is at .5, everything else is same.

 

[Sandarsky]

Directions on bag

 

[heugeneo]

Day 2 after adding bags 3 & 4:

I did the cya test 6 times and got between 180-160, so we'll call it 170 for today. Still within the margin of error, but possibly going down....

 

[aBrightPoolRic]

Re: Underwhelmed by Bio-Active CYA reducer

Howdy all -

Registered here just because of this - and a related - thread on this stuff. Thought I'd just chip in here with another "underwhelmed" vote.

I work with a commercial pool support outfit here in the Phx area - hotels/apts/resorts. Obviously (?) CYA is an even bigger concern in the commercial side of things, the county doesn't come into your back yard and shut you down if levels get too high. And the politics between maint staff, managers, and residents in these places can make even suggesting draining a nightmare. So we've tried other products in the past, never any real success.

When B-A became available at our local wholesaler we made arrangements with a couple of our clients to use their pool as test beds. Both around 30-35k, one with CYA around 100-120, one MUCH higher. Both places we used dilution to get "seeable" numbers. Followed the label regard chlor levels and such (bear in mind that commercial pools run 24/7 per code). Tracked each pool daily for the 10 days, kept a running log on both.

Bottom line - after a "kinda-sorta" drop (10-20ppm-ish) in the first couple days - nada. No appreciable drop in CYA levels.

Shame - particularly in the commercial side, we NEED something that works - and works aggressively, at reasonable cost. For the moment, tho, it appears to be status quo.

 

[heugeneo]

Did you use the 16 oz. bags in each pool or how much product?

 

[TomBorg]

Random thoughts. (I didn't read through every post in this thread; forgive me if these have been suggested already.)

1. Could the bacteria be sensitive enough to be destroyed by the high pressure and sharp edges in a sand filter? Perhaps we should keep track of what type of filter is being used, and see if there is any correlation to the effectiveness of the product. (The pressure in my pool's sand filter is 17-20psi, but in the cartridge filter for my hot tub, it rarely goes above 10psi.) For folks doing a second treatment, maybe switching the filter to "recirculate" for a few days would be an interesting experiment.

2. The bacteria are probably inhibited or killed by high levels of borates. So we should also find out whether people have used borates (Proteam Supreme, Biogard Optimizer Plus, Borax, etc.) in their pools, and see if that correlates with the effectiveness of the product.

 

[heugeneo]

Day 3:

Yesterday I added 20 oz of chlorine to get 2.5 FC. Nothing else has been added since the last two bags of bioactive.

FC 2
CC 1
PH 7.4
CYA 160

Once again, not sure if CYA is marching down slowly due to cold water retarding the process, or just just errors in my testing. I feel if the next two days provide 10 ppm drops then I would feel comfortable saying the product is working. But only time will tell...

Also, today I cleaned all the test equipment prior to using. I know the test strips are pretty worthless, but I checked the pool water and the 1:1 dilution with the strips. They were 150 and between 50-100, respectively, so they are at least somewhat congruent with the drop testing.

 

[heugeneo]

Calling Chem Geek and other people that understand big fancy words:

So I've been trying to figure out what could be hindering the bioactive, assuming that it has worked quickly on other pools. The only other product I've religiously added to the pool throughout this process is Metalfree, which has always work great for its intended purpose. When I was reading about it online the instructions state in bold letters "Do not use with biguanides". When I looked up what that meant there were a million words and formulas I did not understand but I did see the word "bioactive" several times in the description of biguanides. Is it possible that the bioactive cya reducer has some make up of biguanides and that is causing a problem due to the metal free? I normally do a double or triple maintenance dose of metal free per week. Maybe I'm grasping at straws here, but but I found it a bit of a coincidence.

 

[Leebo]

Biguanide is used to refer to products such as Baquacil or Softswim. Very unlikely that is the issue.

 

[duraleigh]

assuming that it has worked quickly on other pools.

That appears to be an assumption that, based on reports in this thread, is not correct.......sad to say.

 

[JasonLion]

heugeneo, biguanides are certainly not an issue. Biguanides are one of the three approved sanitizers, and will not be present unless you are using one of the systems that uses them instead of chlorine. Biguanides and chlorine destroy each other fairly rapidly, so if you have a chlorine pool there certainly aren't any biguanides. Also, I am fairly sure that BioActive specifically says that their product is fine with all of the approved sanitizers, which includes biguanides.

 

[jblizzle]

That appears to be an assumption that, based on reports in this thread, is not correct.......sad to say.

From what I have seen, heugeneo is the ONLY member who has posted that appears to have actually shown any significant drop over any amount of time.

 

[Donny]

Just my thoughts here. Seems like a lot of extra work and aggravation, $$$, e-mails, deliveries, is it working, is not working etc..... I would of just drained the pool and be done with it.