CYA very high and algae

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T

Tagard

0
Apr 3, 2015
9
Katy, TX
I'm a newer pool owner, this will be season 3. First year didn't do anything but put chlorine tablets in and kept the pool frog mineral pack in service. Year 2 started having continual algae problems. Did research this year, found this website and learned about CYA in the tablets and shock packets.

I've now been trying to bring the water in line without having to drain nearly all of the water at once but have ran out of time and have algae attacking. My CYA is now down to about 150 (it was off the scale at 200). I'm pulling the pool way down right now.

My question is should I not even try to SLAM the pool until I get the CYA levels to a reasonable level or should I go for it once I fill it back up this afternoon regardless of the levels?

I should mention I don't have the full kit yet which measures CYA, I've had Leslies test it and have been using strips. I have the chemical test kits for the other measurements.

Thanks, wish I'd found this site 2 years ago!
 
When my CYA was over 200 I was always afraid of algae gettin a foothold because of the enormous amounts of chlorine I would need to stop it.

The other issue you have that just has not reared its ugly head yet is that those frog "mineral" packs the nice pool store was happy to sell you were dumping metals into your water. If the pH gets out of whack or one of several other things happen you will,end up with metal stains in your pool. Oh, the pool store will be happy to sell you something for that also.....

The solution to both problems is water replacement.

With fresh water and a good test kit (not one from a pool store) you can fix your pool.
 
Without a test kit, you really don't know how high your CYA is. If you've been reading here for any length of time, you'll know that pool store test results can be wildly wrong. However, a steady diet of pucks and mineral packs make it highly likely that CYA is too high and you do have metals in the water, and draining is the simplest way to eliminate the problem.

You can't do anything else until you get a test kit. Don't even try. Many people have tried to get a head start on things while they waited for their kit to arrive, and it's just a waste of time and money. Treating pool water without a tes kit is working blind. It's like painting in a dark room. Yes, you'll get paint on the canvas, but it won't look good and you'll have wasted a lot of paint that just needs to be covered over once the lights get turned on.
 
Thanks Tagard, same prob here! I'm new, have trusted the stores, and therefore have been dumping pucks in to keep my FC at only 1 or 2 with a store tested CYA of 140. Now I'm battling algae and clogged filters for a year! TF100 on order and ready to SLAM this weekend. I had a filter problem and decided to drain water, since I was on hold for a part anyway and I'm guessing the CYA will be higher than desired... Can't wait to test, see the numbers and get started. Good luck with your pool!

Jeff
 
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