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The biggest problem is the time, effort, and expense of keeping your chlorine so high. Just as high CYA will prevent chlorine from killing the stuff you don't want growing in your pool, it will largely mitigate those other effects too. No. I'd elaborate, but it's as simple as that. Long...

Chlorine tablets come in three varieties: (1) trichlor, (2) dichlor, and (3) cal-hypo. Before long, (1) and (2) overdose CYA, and (3) overdoses calcium. There is no tablet that's good for routine sanitizing, though you can get away with them when you go on vacation if your water has room for...

Yes, turn off the inline feeder. You have trichlor pucks, and they will overdose your CYA in short order. As stated above, you'll be dosing it daily once you've got your (probable) algae issue worked out. A SLAM requires multiple doses per day. The five minutes a day it takes to add liquid...

Heh. I see what I did there.

If one follows the stock Taylor instructions, this is not too hard for me to imagine. @schnoz, TFP protocol calls for rounding CYA up to the nearest ten. So 15 would be 20. For the record, I round CYA up for calculations, but I make the best estimate that I can to the nearest one for my...

Be aware that, if your pucks are dichlor or trichlor (they probably are), they're also adding CYA to your water and lowering your pH. Too much CYA is worse than too little. Also be aware that CYA can take quite a while to fully dissolve, so don't add more if you don't see it get where you want...

A good kit stings to buy. To numb the pain a little bit, know that you'll be saving money in the long run by not constantly buying other chemicals to fight your algae issues. By the way, trichlor tablets also lower pH, so you'll likely be able to cut the pH Up from your routine when you quit...

A word about chlorine tablets: They are best used only for short-term periods, despite what most of the industry would have you believe. Each trichlor (the most common form) tablet is about 52% cyanuric acid (also known as stabilizer) by weight. Cyanuric acid, in the right ratio to chlorine, is...

Add drops till it's completely clear. If there's any doubt, add one more drop to verify that there is no further color change. Don't count the last drop if it didn't change the color any.

Till someone more knowledgeable chimes in, my best guess is that, due to the granular nature of borax, particles will catch in the filter and hangout there till dissolved. Keeping water moving through the filter around the clock for a little while would speed the process along. If true, it also...

A lot of county/municipal fill water will contain phosphates. The good news is that, if you choose to, you can completely ignore phosphates. A common analogy is that phosphates are like food for algae. If you're keeping your FC and CYA levels at TFP recommended levels, you're going to be...

I took a sample to Pinch-A-Penny once not so very long ago to see how they'd do and was encouraged to see that they'd be performing drop tests. The employee *flew* through the testing, almost as though it would lend to his credibility for me to see how quickly he could run through the tests. Of...

This is not a fluke. If you took it to three more pool stores, you'd get three more inconsistent sets of results. That's why having your own kit and running your own tests is essential to proper maintenance. It's intuitive for people new to the pool game to think that, since pool-store...

They don't take the cyanuric acid level into account, which is a gross oversight. Cyanuric acid and the active form of chlorine establish an equilibrium. Too much cyanuric acid overwhelms too little chlorine. Hence, higher cyanuric acid levels require more chlorine in the pool to have enough...

Zero doubt, you can do it, and as @Rancho Cost-a-Lotta implied, you'll do a better job. Pool-care businesses have to operate with profit margins in mind. It's not just them, it's the nature of business in general. This means they do what they can as quickly as possible to keep your water...

And drive many new members to TFP. Ask me how I know.

Florida sun can cook off 10-15 ppm of CYA a month in the summer if your pool gets a lot of sunlight.

I get mine at Home Depot. As @PoolStored mentioned, it's available at most "hardware" stores... or big-box approximations thereof. Go for the 31.45% stuff.

Pool-store testing is notoriously unreliable. I wouldn't expect cyanuric acid in your well water unless your well is getting contaminated by your pool or a nearby livestock operation.

They'll also deliver it in many areas.

The only practical way to get rid of a substantial excess of CYA, @just4747, is to drain partially and dilute what's left with fresh water. You really want to avoid that. Increments are the way to go until you know exactly how your pool responds to additions of CYA.

The color won't be as saturated and will match the reference tones on the block better. The most important thing is the value of the color, not the intensity of the color.

Note that, if your pool gets enough sun, it will slowly lose CYA. I can't speak to Pennsylvania's latitude, but from my very sky-exposed pool in the Tampa Bay Area, the sun cooks off a good 15 ppm of CYA each month in the summer.

I don't figure it's ideal, but is there anything wrong with just bypassing the thing? That is, just running tubing directly from one hole in the pipe to the other? I did it temporarily today while I was replacing the check valve and everything seemed to function fine.

Thanks, that's very helpful. That much, at least, I was clear on. I don't doubt this, but I don't have enough knowledge with this stuff yet to figure out a mechanism of action for harm to the equipment. What's the extra risk to the equipment?

The outlet side (red arrow) is the one that concerns me.

I don't hate that idea. I may eventually do it. But it seems more difficult than fixing what's there. I trust my skills with Teflon tape and screwdrivers more than my skills with measuring and solvent welding new pipe.

I have a Pentair Rainbow Model 300 trichlor feeder. (It only gets used when I'm out of town.) I haven't had it dialed on in months, but there is a drip leak on the outlet side tubing at the pipe collar going into the return line. I ordered a well-reviewed (always taken with a grain of salt) kit...

Can this be fixed? That's a joke. I don't know how that thing was starting the pump at all. Manufactured in 2013. It fell apart in my hands when I was trying to get the terminals separated. Put the new one on and it's running well. Thank you, @ajw22.