Currently have a cya level of 200

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carpainterinaz

carpainterinaz

0
Apr 4, 2015
27
Tempe az
Live in Arizona, built a 8000 gal custom pool last year. Currently have a cya level of 200, 0 fc been shocking weekly with 1 lbs chlorbrite. And running my pentair inline chlorniator on 5 with zero fc results testing weekly.
Last fall I had cya level reach 200 and 0 fc. Put in 2lbs of fresh&clear ran the pump for 5 hrs then added 2 lbs chlorbrite ran it the rest of day. Pool held a fc level of 5 all winter with the cya at 200. Only running my chlorniator at half setting.

Looking back not sure the pentair inline chlorniator was the best choice with the quick rise in cya levels. But now I'm going to either do a 3/4 or more drain and fill or if the bio-active cya reducer product is legit I will purchase it as soon as it hits the market.
 
Re: thoughts on bio-active cya reducer

carpainterinaz said:
Currently have a cya level of 200, 0 fc been shocking weekly with 1 lbs chlorbrite. And running my pentair inline chlorniator on 5 with zero fc results testing weekly.
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ChlorBrite (dichlor) and tabs (trichlor) have cyanuric acid. I recommend getting a good test kit and getting off tabs and dichlor.
 
ChlorBrite (dichlor) in particular raises the CYA level exceedingly quickly, adding 9 ppm of CYA for every 10 ppm of chlorine. A tablet feeder alone is enough to raise the CYA too high, but doesn't do so nearly as quickly as using dichlor.

It is quite likely that your CYA level is actually much higher than you think it is. None of the available CYA tests have any useful level of precision in that range, so your result could easily be off by a factor of 2 or more.
 
I too made this mistake, once the CYA is too high it seems like nothing works and in my case I kept getting algae growing and clogging the filter. I did several partial drain and refill till I got it down, hard to believe a 5-10 FC and algae grows.
 
Pool Noob said:
I too made this mistake, once the CYA is too high it seems like nothing works and in my case I kept getting algae growing and clogging the filter. I did several partial drain and refill till I got it down, hard to believe a 5-10 FC and algae grows.
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It's pretty well equal to Zero FC when the Cya is this high. All of the FC is tied up by the Stabilizer, so nothing can be killed.

Over-stabilized is for sure, one of the most frequent problems we see every year on the forum.
 
Pool Noob said:
I too made this mistake, once the CYA is too high it seems like nothing works and in my case I kept getting algae growing and clogging the filter. I did several partial drain and refill till I got it down, hard to believe a 5-10 FC and algae grows.
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When the cya is crazy high you would have to keep the fc well above 5-10. According to the fc/cya chart, if cya is at 100, fc needs to be kept at 12 with a minimum of 7. Cya of 200 would be double that. I forget the percentage I've read in other threads, but it's somewhere over 98% of your fc is bound to the cya, and isn't going to be available to fight algae. The best analogy I've read on here is the army one. Say you have 100 algae troops on one side with 100's of troops behind them on one side. High cya makes it like you have a chlorine army that is only 10 wide, but a mile long. No matter how long the line is, only the 10 on the front row are gonna fight. As the ratio of fc to cya is increased, either by lowering cya or adding more fc, the line gets wider. Now you have 500 fc fighting 100 algae with a half mile line of reserves. Lots more troops on the front lines to fight off the algae. So technically my tap water with 1ppm fc and no cya has a better algae fighting army than my pool water with 8ppm fc and 50 ppm cya since none of it is tied to cya, and being held in the reserves.


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Well Iv had zero algae all year which is at least a good thing. My current numbers as of yesterday were as follows.
Fc 0
Tc 0
Ch 300
Cya 200
Ta 110
Ph 7.4
Pho 0

I think the only thing keeping the algae at bay is the fact that I'm using pool perfect+phosfree. At this point I feel my only options are wait a few weeks and see if the cya reducer that is supposed to come to market becomes available, or just do a drain and refill and start over. From reading in this forum like the earlier person posted getting off tabs and dichlor shock is the ticket to not having this happen again.
 

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I think the only thing keeping the algae at bay is the fact that I'm using pool perfect+phosfree. At this point I feel my only options are wait a few weeks and see if the cya reducer that is supposed to come to market becomes available
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I have no idea what is in that product but I doubt it is contributing mightily to your lack of algae. With an FC of zero, you are likely living on borrowed time.

Secondly,, I would not consider waiting on an untried, hopeful product as a viable option......draining and refilling to get your CYA manageable will probably cost you around $30.00 and it is not a hopeful wish but a hard fact that your CYA will be reduced.

I know this may come off as a little harsh and I don't intend that but this forum is based on factual, hard science and additives like you are describing are seldom required or desired.
I would just drain it and refill. Seems to be the simplest solution with an 8,000 gallon pool no??
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Absolutely correct.
 
Doing a full drain and refill, is a simple solution. And as far as the cost 30$ is about what it cost to fill it up initially. But even though we don't have any real water restrictions in Arizona, if I can avoid wasting 8000 gals of water essentially then that's what I'd like to try first. Not to get off topic but Iv wasted plenty of water in 20 years, being in the auto body business. So I try to be conservative in my personal life.

I realize my high cya and 0 fc is putting me on borrowed time before it turns green or I get algae. That's why I'm on here trying to learn about what it takes to maintain a pool like you guys do. Once I get my pool dialed in I don't plan to use phosfree or any other additives. After reading about how they are really just a waste of money.

I don't think your being harsh, spend some time on one of the larger BMW forums. Those people are harsh. Learning the facts and the hard science about water chemistry is my goal.
 
It is admirable to not want to waste water. But with CYA above 200, by who knows how much, draining 3/4 of the pool is unavoidable anyway. The cya is not going away otherwise. Might as well get it over with and start fresh on your way to TFPC.

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Oh Lordy. So jealous about water price. We are on high iron well water so we have re-fill trucked in. About $1,000 for my pool. I pray for rain for top-offs!

Btw, Our trucked-in water still has significant iron so we have done Ben's cal-hypo iron removal method. Works a treat for us.
 
I was going to complain that my price to fill my pool is $188 instead of $30, but $1000 makes that seem silly. I was able to avoid draining starting with a CYA of roughly 150, but it was a hassle. We got enough rain over the winter that my CYA is finally low enough that I need to raise it. I've got so many tablets, I'll probably never need to buy any.
 
First let me say being on your forum for about a week,Iv learned more then all the bull **** Iv been feed at Leslie's and by friends and co workers with pools. Excuse my French.
So once I get my cya level down to 50-60 I'm going to start doing my pool chemicals your guys way. With the exception of maybe using my automatic feeder in the winter or when I'm traveling.
I'm done with using tabs and powdered shock along with phosfree.
Here's the specifics. My pool is small 7900 gals, pebble interior, and no swg. I put in my gals, and my current fc 1 and goal 5 and 10% liquid. It said add 28oz. Do I add that daily or is that to get it up to that level initially? What I'm really trying to figure out is once I get my cya level to 50-60 how much liquid do I add daily or every other day?
 
First, a FC of 5ppm is not high enough ... that is the minimum you would ever want to let the FC level get. See FC/CYA Chart. So, you want to dose up to around 6-8ppm to ensure it does not drop below 5ppm by the next day.

It is "normal" to have to add 2-4ppm of FC every day due to losses to the sun and organic load.
So, in your pool with 10% bleach, that would be somewhere between 20-40oz needing to be added every day.

BTW, when I entered 7900 gallons and a current FC of 1 and a target of 5 with 10% it says to add 39oz, so not sure how you got 28? :scratch:
 
What your saying makes sense.
I did a fc calculation from 2-5 that said 29. And 1-5 said 39 using 10% I miss typed the 28 cause I scratched a bunch of numbers down using the calculator for 10% and 6% my bad there.
Did a 50% dilution cya test yesterday my actual cya level is 300 based on the 150 result at 50%. Got the cya reducer in the pool today, so will be testing every 2 days the cya level for a full week. Once that's fixed I'm all in on your guys method.
That calculator is a cool tool in figuring out dosing by the way.
 

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