Chlorine reading zero

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Re: Balancing my numbers

Any brand Cyanuric acid, you can pick it up at WalMart or most Lowes or Home Depot stores in the seasonal pool section. Use Pool math to target 40 for now as you are below the level that CYA be registered. After a week you will be able to see the totality of what you have. Put the CYA in a sock and hang it in front of a return until it dissolves.

While that is hanging you can add muratic acid to bring the pH down into the mid 7's for now. Ignore the TA for a while. it's not a number you need to chase right now.
 
Pool has been fabulous and enjoyable. I raised my cya up to 60 about a month ago and it was smooth sailing and maintaining FC....until I l left for two days. I came back to a super cloudy pool again. I tested and 0 chlorine and 0 cya. How is that even possible? I am under the impression that you can only remove cya by draining the pool and splashing. I doubted my reagent and took a sample to Leslie's and they measured 0 as well. I am currently SLAMing , but where is my cya? Do I add more? I found three dead lizards in the pool so I'm sure they are eating up my chlorine but could that decrease the acid too?
 
Disappearing CYA

I posted on my old thread but thought maybe it should be a new subject? Anyways.... My CYA is disappearing... I opened my pool in May and Leslie's sold me stuff based on their recommendations and I added their stabilizer. I had an issue with it being cloudy in June , not being able to keep my chlorine levels high enough . I got everything balanced, except it showed I had very low stabilizer. I added CYA that I purchased from LoWes and brought my level up to 60. Everything was going great and my chlorine was stable at 4 even with us swimming daily. We left for the river last thrusday and I noticed I had zero chorine before we left, I chalked it up to my husband and his friends swimming in it, added enough bleach to bring it up to a 5 and left. Came home Monday to a cloudy pool with zero chlorine again. I checked my CYA and it was completely see through. Nothing. I took a sample to Leslie's to double check and came back the same there. What's going on? I'm SLAMing at a 10 and pool is clear today with 0 CC. I'm going to try the overnight test tonight before resetting my SWG, but what did I do about my CYA? Add more?
 
Re: Disappearing CYA

If the FC level gets to near zero then bacteria can grow and convert CYA into nitrogen gas or nitrates (if you are lucky) or into ammonia (if you are unlucky). It only takes 2-3 days for bacteria to convert a significant amount of CYA if other nutrients (phosphates, nitrates) are plentiful. I describe my experience with this in this thread.

If you are able to hold your chlorine level, then you were lucky. You now need to add more CYA so that the chlorine will last in sunlight and also to moderate chlorine's strength.
 
Re: Disappearing CYA

There is a bacteria that under the right conditions (which includes your chlorine going to zero) can consume CYA. The problem is that if it does not go through the entire process it can leave ammonia in your water.

If you are SLAMing at 10 that means you were one of the lucky ones and it didn't stop at the ammonia stage and processed completely to nitrogen and it has gassed off your pool.

Once your SLAM is complete get the CYA in the water.
 
Please keep your "story" under one thread. It is confusing to all of us that respond to a lot of posts.

You have no choice but to add more. I have no clue where it went but you need to get at least 40 ppm in there pronto and 60-70 would be better.
 
Re: Disappearing CYA

Just finished your thread chem geek. Wow, interesting . I had my pool cover on for the three days of about 100 degree weather with probably no chlorine.... I'm glad I didn't come home to a swamp. I just tested and my FC was 4 after raising it to 10 about 7 hrs ago and my kiddos swam in it. CC did show a tinge of pink (10mL) . I'm going to raise it again overnight and see what it reads. I'm just worried about my liner :/
 

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Re: Disappearing CYA

I guess this conversation is transplanted from the end of this thread:
Chlorine reading zero - Page 2

Any chance all the posts in the other thread that deal with the disappearing CYA, starting with the original poster's report of finding her pool suddenly going from 60 to 0 CYA, could be appended to the start of this thread? It would make it easier to follow.
 
Re: Disappearing CYA

singingpond said:
I guess this conversation is transplanted from the end of this thread:
Chlorine reading zero - Page 2

Any chance all the posts in the other thread that deal with the disappearing CYA, starting with the original poster's report of finding her pool suddenly going from 60 to 0 CYA, could be appended to the start of this thread? It would make it easier to follow.
Click to expand...


I have merged these posts together as they do apply to one another. Thanks for pointing this out to us.
 
If CYA is assimilated as a nitrogen source, one would expect it to be used once all other forms of nitrogen (ammonia, nitrates, urea) are used up. Breaking the triazine ring requires synthesizing bacterial hydrolyases, which requires energy.
In agriculture, triazine herbicides are used because they are biocidal. Whatever is going on in pools with disappearing CYA is absolutely fascinating! Perhaps there is such a large phosphate excess, relieving phosphate limitation, coupled with competition for nitrogen sources. It would be interesting to know if CYA disappearance is always in the presence of high phosphates.
 
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