Sick of Algae!

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PoolStored said:
In the deep south, there is no reason NOT to run a CYA of 60 or 70, if you can maintain proper FC for your CYA, and understand the implication if you get algae.
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Was going to respond with the same (Deep South Georgia). Once I realized the correlation and after years on this site, I realized it's best to keep CYA in bulk stored in the garage. When the summer sun starts eating more chlorine than my SWG can comfortably generate, I get the CYA up closer to 90. My pool seems to eat CYA quicker than most say it can, but it's always an easy fix once I determine my chlorine is dissipating quicker when the temps start rising. Once OP starts putting the chemical correlation pieces together and learns his/her pool, they'll learn the information on this site is invaluable in making pool ownership easy.
 
I have a little inline chlorine puck device right off my filter. But that's what got me in trouble in the first place. I was feeding 3 chlorine pucks in there almost daily. Once I started learning about FC/CYA relationship and the advice from Poolstored, I took out the remnants of pucks I had in there and have not introduced any CYA in the pool since draining it and refilling it with water. With near 100 degree heat and sunshine for 14 hours/day, it is eating up my FC like crazy. I think I would literally need to add LC a few times a day when it drops below 6. That is not sensible or realistic. I'm trying to learn how much FC my pool is dropping through the day so I can keep up with the demand while not allowing the FC to drop low enough for algae to grow. It's a daunting task! I'm going to try increasing CYA to 60 and see how that affects my FC drop. I can't keep dropping $14 for LC a day in the pool. That's $400 a month! And I don't want to put in chlorine pucks and risk going back to where I started. I haven't received my water bill yet, but I'm anticipating several hundred dollars. I would rather be precise and know exactly what I'm putting in my pool so I can make accurate adjustments as necessary. I'm learning....:)
 
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Mean Jean said:
I just think it's crazy to add cya at this point. Op could easily maintain an 8 chlorine level by floating pucks with cya in them. Might possibly need two floaters but I've done it. I've had experience with exactly this and solved it with more Puck floaters and more time on the filter.
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I'm curious, how would you know your CYA when doing this procedure? What happens if your CYA starts to rise over the 100 mark? I understand you can test, but I would be scared I would raise my CYA too much and test several times a day out of concern.
 
PoolStored said:
If you are absolutely sure you don't have algae, and you can keep your FC in range every day, raise your CYA to 70. Do it in increments of 10. Try 60 and see how much improvement you get. There is a "hump," seemingly between 60 and 70 that is noticeable WRT chlorine demand reduction.

I knew what I was doing, and never let the pool get away from me, and I ran 70-80 CYA to lower chlorine demand.

The only downside of running at 70 is that slam gets harder at 70, and replacing around 10% to get back to 60 if you need to slam is the only downside of running 70.
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^^^This was the message two pages ago.
jdfreeman said:
I would rather be precise and know exactly what I'm putting in my pool so I can make accurate adjustments as necessary. I'm learning....:)
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EXACTLY!!!! Welcome to TFP!!!
 
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We had storms yesterday evening so I wasn't able to put LC in the pool. This morning my FC was 2.5, I added 192 oz. of LC and noticed debris in the pool from the winds (outliers of hurricane). I put the robot in to vacuum and skimmed a few bugs and leaves from the top with a net. I went and got more LC on my lunch break and bought granulized stabilizer. I checked my FC and it was 6 and 1:19 pm. I added more LC but noticed a water bug swimming around. I haven't seen those since the SLAM. Would the water bugs be there because of the debris from the winds or because of algae? Water is clear, no visible sign of algae.

I'm going to put some stabilizer in this evening per your recommendation with the sock method. I'll see if I can increase CYA to 60.
 
Your FC got below min. Any time that happens, do an OCLT to catch algae early.

Don't add the stabilizer until you pass OCLT. Easier to slam at lower CYA.
 
Just vacuum or net out any stuff that blew in with the storm.

The only reason to slam again is if you don't pass OCLT, or your CC are 1 or more. Some stuff blowing in doesn't really matter...unless you have visible algae, then it is always a slam.
 
The OCLT showed a FC loss of 5 ppm. I guess it's SLAM again. The money I'm spending on LC is almost out of control. I can't keep doing this. It looks like I need to go spend approx $120 on LC again and kill whatever is in my pool consuming FC. This is very frustrating. I have spent around $500 on LC in the last couple of weeks. There has got to be an easier and cheaper way to own a clear pool.
 
jdfreeman said:
The OCLT showed a FC loss of 5 ppm. I guess it's SLAM again. The money I'm spending on LC is almost out of control. I can't keep doing this. It looks like I need to go spend approx $120 on LC again and kill whatever is in my pool consuming FC. This is very frustrating. I have spent around $500 on LC in the last couple of weeks. There has got to be an easier and cheaper way to own a clear pool.
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Have you considered a salt water generator?
 
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jdfreeman said:
I have not considered a SWG. Would that reduce my LC demand?
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It would not reduce the demand. It would eliminate lugging jugs of chlorine.

You add salt to the pool. The SWCG converts the salt to chlorine. The chlorine does its thing and returns salt to the pool. Rinse and repeat.

You only lose salt to splashout and backwash, not to chlorine generation, so the additions of salt are minimal.

Here is an article, which include a little economic analysis:

SWG How It Works - Further Reading

www.troublefreepool.com www.troublefreepool.com
 
jtpipkin said:
higher upfront costs, but once you learn how it integrates with your pool and environment, it's like an autopilot for a pool. I personally wouldn't own a pool without one. Understanding the TFP methodology makes owning a pool easy, a SWG makes it easier
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Opinion on above ground pools? With splashing and rust possibly? I've heard many stories from both sides and my family members thing I'm crazy to consider it
 
For your rust concern, the 3000-3500 ppm concentration in the actual water hasn't done any damage on my inground pool that I can tell, and it shouldn't. It's areas where you get splash out and dry up where the salt can accumulate and cause problems. On my inground the porous flagstone the builder put around the border is pretty torn up in the areas that get misted constantly around the water feature and skimmers - I'm confident that if it was something like brick that wouldn't happen. So, that's the deal on damage - yeah it will damage some stuff just like chlorine, water, and sunlight do.

On the maintenance side though, the heck you just went through? Day to day, I add half a gallon of acid to my pool a week. That's it. Chlorine is just a function of runtime of the pump (which enables the SWCG to produce), so that gets adjusted as the season ramps up and down. The pool can live like that for months - the salt water cell doesn't throw off CYA, everything's just stable.

I run it the lazy way until it's clear I need to SLAM, CC's up or I see a random black algae spot. Get everything including TA, CYA, Ph (to the low side), get borates back up, set the pump to run constantly at low flow, and then dump in 2.5gal of 12.5% from pinch-a-penny for $18 in there and just monitor the battle of SWCG vs Sun vs Algae vs CC until I feel like it's time to run a OCLT - shut the pump off, wait, test and see what's up. If it's all clean then I wash my DE filter out, recharge, keep chlorine a bit high for a few days via runtime and all is well.

So yeah, salt water is a huge shortcut for me and if I found myself with a new pool I wouldn't hesitate to add a cell. The economics with chlorine prices justify it on the face of it, and as far as the damage it causes that's going to be your own calculation. My other shortcut is borates, huge advocate of those but that's another story.
 
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