I chose to leave my pool operational this winter and for the most part its been a great idea. I had one day when the temps got down to about 18 and we had a 18 hour power outage. The lines started getting slushy and with no ETA on power restoral I had no choice but to disconnect the lines and let the pool drain below the return to avoid equipment loss. The next day power came back and I put it all together, refilled and bumped the chlorine to normal.
A few weeks ago I had dropped the garden hose in the pool to top it off. When it was done I left it in the pool but turned off the faucet. About a week later we were expecting sub-freezing temps again so I disconnected the hose from the faucet and put on the faucet cover. The next day I noticed the pool was down about 12" from the day before. After some Sherlock Holmes investigating I found the hose had achieved a syphon and had slowly drained overnight. I refilled, checked and added chlorine and we are once again good to go.
Now, I said all that to explain why I now have 0 CYA. All my other numbers look good except my PH which is a little low (7.4) but that is to be expected. My question is, would it hurt to use a floater and some Trichlor tabs to slowly increase the CYA over time since it is still winter here while also adding chlorine or should I just buy the CYA. I had a 25lb bucket of CYA but I am out now and was about to order but I am looking for alternatives to having socks full of cya in my pool for more than a few days. I was thinking of using the floater and checking the CYA once a week until it was 30-50ppm then switching back to liquid bleach. Any feedback is appreciated.
A few weeks ago I had dropped the garden hose in the pool to top it off. When it was done I left it in the pool but turned off the faucet. About a week later we were expecting sub-freezing temps again so I disconnected the hose from the faucet and put on the faucet cover. The next day I noticed the pool was down about 12" from the day before. After some Sherlock Holmes investigating I found the hose had achieved a syphon and had slowly drained overnight. I refilled, checked and added chlorine and we are once again good to go.
Now, I said all that to explain why I now have 0 CYA. All my other numbers look good except my PH which is a little low (7.4) but that is to be expected. My question is, would it hurt to use a floater and some Trichlor tabs to slowly increase the CYA over time since it is still winter here while also adding chlorine or should I just buy the CYA. I had a 25lb bucket of CYA but I am out now and was about to order but I am looking for alternatives to having socks full of cya in my pool for more than a few days. I was thinking of using the floater and checking the CYA once a week until it was 30-50ppm then switching back to liquid bleach. Any feedback is appreciated.