CYA went down to zero over the winter. Why? What is the best CYA product to bring it back up?

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It degrades a few PPM a month which is unnoticeable during the season, but very noticeable when you walk away from the pool for 5 to 8 months. Especially for liquid chlorine folks who end the season with 30 or 40. Also, if you leave it open, or have a mesh cover, a couple of feel of off season precipitation will really make a dent.

How's the water look ? If it's swampy, ammonia is a concern as another way for CYA to get wiped out.
 
The liquid CYA can be really tough to get well mixed because it so thick and can settle to the bottom. You have to shake the crud out of it and even then it's no guarantee you got it all off the bottom of the jug especially if you don't need the whole gallon. I used it last year and needed the whole thing so I was able to use water a few times and get it all out. Liquid CYA is also pretty expensive - it was $25 or $30 for the gallon.
 
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I have only used liquid CYA so far. Works great as far as I can tell, although it is definitely more expensive. It is also much much faster. I pour in a little bit at a time, brush it around a couple minutes until it dissolves and then move to a new spot in the pool and do the same. IMO, the only downside to liquid CYA is the higher cost. Full disclosure, my pool is large enough that using an entire gallon of CYA only bumps me about 10 ppm so I don't have to worry about settling in the jug.
 
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I just had to add some - I used a granular from Amazon. I put 2lbs at a time in the sock on my Pooldevil skimmer, and it dissolves in about an hour. I usually tie up the sock so it hangs directly in the flow of water.
 
TomAtlanta said:
I thought CYA was supposed to stay pretty constant, but mine went down to zero over the winter. How could this be?

I am looking at products on Amazon. CYA dissolves so slowly. Is it OK to use the liquid form?
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Ive ordered granular stabilizer on Amazon and just put it in a skimmer sock and leave it in the skimmer with the pump running. Has worked well for me.
 
Several people mentioned putting it in the skimmer. I thought I had read somewhere on here that it was not good to put chemicals directly into the skimmer, but maybe that was just for chlorine.

Is is OK to just dump it into the pool and let it gradually dissolve on the bottom or does that cause discoloration problems.
 
For powdered CYA, you should definitely put in a sock of some type, whether it's an old actual sock, skimmer sock, even a ladies knee-high stocking will do! People do both - either hang it front of the return or put it in the skimmer basket but I think the skimmer basket takes longer.
 
TomAtlanta said:
I thought I had read somewhere on here that it was not good to put chemicals directly into the skimmer, but maybe that was just for chlorine.
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In general, its best to avoid putting stuff in the skimmer as whatever it is is going to be super concentrated and heading straight to your pump, filter, heater, SWG etc. Essentially it's only getting to be diluted in the volume of water between the skimmer and the pump...which isn't going to be very much.

Better you put it on the return side, so it's dispersed into the bulk-volume of the pool, and has a chance to reach normal concentrations before hitting all your expensive equipment ;)
 
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