How To Keep Algae Away While On A 1.5 Week Vacation in July

Jump to latest Follow Reply
Mendy48

Mendy48

Bronze Supporter
Apr 27, 2018
1,006
Midland, MI
So I'll be on vacation for 1.5 weeks in July (during the hot summer days). I don't have friends and family close by to help watch my Oasis, so it looks like I'm going to have to figure out what to do in order to keep algae at bay. My plan is to SLAM my pool.

However, now that I think of it, I lose about 4ppm of FC per day during the summer. Should I bring my FC to 45 or 50 before I leave? In addition to that, should I put some chorine tabs in the chlorinator too? This is what I did last time I went on vacation, but it was only for 3.5 days.

Any suggestions?
 
Bumping the FC up to 45 or 50 will not make it last longer in summer heat. FC is lost exponentially, so if anything it will speed up the FC loss. Here are my suggestions:
Option 1. If you have a cover for your pool you can raise the pool to slam level and put the cover on and hope for the best.
Option 2 If your CYA is not too high you can raise the FC to slam level and load up the chlorine feeder with pucks. You will have to run the pool for a few hours a day to disperse chlorine from the pucks.
Option 3 Invest in an SWG and program the timer to run the pool several hours a day to keep up chlorine levels.
 
With option 1, I think I’ll come back to an algae pool (though I have a pool cover). I have full sun in the back yard and the temp is going to be sky high when I’m on vacation.

I was thinking of doing option 2 then. However, my CYA is currently at 50 and this is one reason why I don’t want to put pucks in my chlorinated. I mean, how much CYA can be added in a 1.5 week span? Should I go with option 2?

Im saving up for SWG generator. I honestly don’t even know where to begin with that.
 
How high is your CH? Another option may be to use a floater and cal-hypo pucks. If you use cal-hypo you cannot put them in your chlorine feeder. Tricolor residue and cal-hypo do not mix and may catch fire so you would need a new floater for cal-hypo. Cal hypo may also leave a gummy residue in the floater, which is another reason you don’t want it sitting in your plumbing system.
 
? lots of options which is good. I’ve never used a floater or cal-hypo pucks before. Not sure what they are. Do you just put both floater and cal-hypo pucks in the pool? The cal-hypo needs it’s own floater? What’s a floater? I’ve never used it.

justinc said:
In your pool, each puck (8 oz size) will add 3.2 ppm free chlorine and CYA 1.9 ppm. So, if you are at 50 now... you can do probably 5 pucks before you are over 60.
Click to expand...

Yeah! That’s not bad at all. If I go this route, I can do this and put the chlorinator dial at 5. ?
 
Cal hypo pucks can be complicated and expensive. They are a fairly new product and may not be readily available. Your pump would need to be running for them to deliver chlorine to your pool.

1. Bring your CYA to 60 ppm or a little more.

2. Just before you leave, Bring your FC up to 24 ppm (SLAM value)

3. Put 3-5 pucks in a floater in your pool and leave.

4. If you come back to a clear pool, drain about 1/3 of your pool water and refill....bringing your CYA back down to around 45-50.

5. If you come back to a green pool (I'd say about a 30% chance), drain as above, refill and SLAM

All the above is pretty inexpensive and easy to do. You still may have a green pool when you return but I think this is your best shot.
 
duraleigh said:
Cal hypo pucks can be complicated and expensive. They are a fairly new product and may not be readily available. Your pump would need to be running for them to deliver chlorine to your pool.

1. Bring your CYA to 60 ppm or a little more.

I’ll do this

2. Just before you leave, Bring your FC up to 24 ppm (SLAM value)

I’ll do this

3. Put 3-5 pucks in a floater in your pool and leave.

What do you mean by pucks in floater. What’s a floater. Do you mean that I should put the pucks in my chlorinator?

4. If you come back to a clear pool, drain about 1/3 of your pool water and refill....bringing your CYA back down to around 45-50.

How do I measure how much I’ve drained from the pool. I.e, how do I know that I’ve reached 1/3 of drainage?

?
Click to expand...
 
Since you have a chlorinator, you can use your in line chlorinator and add pucks to that. Most people on this site don't use pucks much and don't have inline chlorinators. If they use pucks, they use a floating chlorinator. It's basically the same as what you have except instead of being plumbed in to the equipment pad and having a dial, it's just a cheap plastic floating container that you throw in the pool with pucks in it and as it floats around the pool water washes over it and it dispenses chlorine. The reason people suggested you get a floater was if you are going to use Cal-Hypo tablets instead of Trichlor tablets because if you have trichlor tablet residue in your current chlorinator and you add cal hypo tablets they can explode. Here is an example of a floating chlorinator: Amazon.com : AquaAce Floating Pool Chlorine Dispenser, Premium Floater Classic Design, Chemical Holder for Chlorine Tablets up to 3", Adjustable 15 Flow Vents for Increased Control : Gateway You put the tabs in the top and adjust the grids at the bottom to adjust the amount of water that can come in. You don't need to measure drainage. Just guesstimate by eyeballing it.
 

Enjoying this content?

Support TFP with a donation.

Give Support
Another option, although will cost a bit: I have a 23,000 gal pool, and we bought a SWG from amazon that is not in-line, but hangs on the side of the pool. It works to maintain my FC in range all by itself! Solaxx. $288 Total. I used the first one for 4 years, then replaced it. Very very happy with my decision. Also wanting to go in line, but the cost over dealing with a power cord to the side of the pool just seems to be excessive for the cost differential. Obviously you’d need to invest in salt, but that’s cheap at Walmart. Good luck!
 
The pucks in the in line chlorinater will only be effective if you run the pump. A floater (which you buy at any pool or big box store) will distribute the chlorine better without the pump.

Since you have a 17k pool, you would drain around 5-6k. If you can siphon, measure the flow from the siphon and approximate it or, even simpler, I would drain 1.5' from that 16x32 pool which should yield roughly 6k drain. You do not have to be exact. refill the pool and Test your CYA. If your CYA tests anywhere between 40-60, I would call it good for the summer.
 
justinc said:
Since you have a chlorinator, you can use your in line chlorinator and add pucks to that. Most people on this site don't use pucks much and don't have inline chlorinators. If they use pucks, they use a floating chlorinator. It's basically the same as what you have except instead of being plumbed in to the equipment pad and having a dial, it's just a cheap plastic floating container that you throw in the pool with pucks in it and as it floats around the pool water washes over it and it dispenses chlorine. The reason people suggested you get a floater was if you are going to use Cal-Hypo tablets instead of Trichlor tablets because if you have trichlor tablet residue in your current chlorinator and you add cal hypo tablets they can explode.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the explanation. I’ll be using Trichlor tablets as seen on the pic below. I will put about 5 into the chlorinator, but I was also thinking of also putting some trichlor tabs in a floater as well. Or should I just pick one method?
101905
stkidsdoc said:
Another option, although will cost a bit: I have a 23,000 gal pool, and we bought a SWG from amazon that is not in-line, but hangs on the side of the pool. It works to maintain my FC in range all by itself! Solaxx. $288 Total. I used the first one for 4 years, then replaced it. Very very happy with my decision. Also wanting to go in line, but the cost over dealing with a power cord to the side of the pool just seems to be excessive for the cost differential. Obviously you’d need to invest in salt, but that’s cheap at Walmart. Good luck!
Click to expand...
I’ll have to invest in this. It seems like a cheaper option for me for sure. Thanks for sharing.
 
Yes, 1" dissolve faster because of greater exposed surface area. Mendy, you can put as many pucks in either way as you want just know that they each will contribute X amount of CYA and plan accordingly. Each of those 1" pucks is not 8 ounces, though. The 3" pucks are gonna be your best bet in this situation since they dissolve more slowly. Those are typically 8 ounces so 5 3" pucks gets you about 10 CYA in your pool as I said earlier. You will need to recalculate if you use the 1" tabs.
 
justinc said:
Yes, 1" dissolve faster because of greater exposed surface area. Mendy, you can put as many pucks in either way as you want just know that they each will contribute X amount of CYA and plan accordingly. Each of those 1" pucks is not 8 ounces, though. The 3" pucks are gonna be your best bet in this situation since they dissolve more slowly. Those are typically 8 ounces so 5 3" pucks gets you about 10 CYA in your pool...
Click to expand...
I will get the 3” pucks then since the 1” dissolve pretty quickly.

zea3 said:
I would stick with the inline chlorinator and run the pump on a timer while you are away.
Click to expand...
Ok...I’ll use the chlorinator and put my pump on a timer. My chlorinator has a dial of 0-10. I’m thinking of putting the dial on 5. Does anyone suggest I put it higher since I’ll be gone for a week and a half?
 
Give it a test run before you go and see if it gives you enough chlorine at that setting. Test the FC, load up the chlorinator, and run the pool as long as you plan to run it while you are away and test the FC again. If it stays in range you should be good.
 

Enjoying this content?

Support TFP with a donation.

Give Support
You must log in or register to reply here.
Thread Status
Hello , This thread has been inactive for over 60 days. New postings here are unlikely to be seen or responded to by other members. For better visibility, consider Starting A New Thread.
Top Bottom
Back
Jump to latest Follow Reply