Cynauric

Jump to latest Follow Reply
Frankhugus

Frankhugus

0
Bronze Supporter
Feb 27, 2016
190
Danville, CA
It's been a month now since I put any chlorine in the pool and the Cyanuric Acid is still through the roof. It's been raining here in Northern California quite a bit this year so I've actually had to drain water at times. Still, the number is anywhere from 100-200 plus depending on who's measuring. I was at Leslie's yesterday for a two week check and of course, get inconsistent readings as usual. They're trying to sell me the "Bio-Active" for $50 but I'm not convinced that does anything other than add to the problem. Now the problem is, that the water looks fantastic, always had. It's the numbers that confuse things. I test every day and also bought the recommended Taylor Test kit that I've been using as well. I don't want to arbitrary drain any more water because of the drought so I'm asking, can I just ride this out and monitor until the chlorine level and Cyanuric levels drop as long as everything "looks" okay? Although I have a full bucket of tabs from Leslie's I don't plan on using them. I have liquid Chlorine, bleach on the ready and will be buying some baking soda pretty soon. Should I "shock" this water now? I have Leslie's "Powder Plus" which does not add Cyanuric, again, a full box. I'd appreciate the thoughts from the community as I'm trying, I'm really trying. Thanks.
 
Please post up a full set of test results from your test kit.

We never randomly "shock" out pools. You have no reason. And Powder Plus while is does not add CYA, it does add Calcium (CH) which can get too high and require water replacement as well.
 
Any form of "shock" or "dry" chlorine (puck or powder) adds something to the water with the FC. Some it is CYA, others it is calcium (CH).

Liquid bleach/chlorine is your best bet.

I will be looking for your full set to tests to see what is what with your water.

Kim
 
Cyanuric acid isn't going to drop on its own on any kind of reasonable timeline. Maybe over a year or two you might see some decline.
 
Do you irrigate your property at all? Any landscaping or lawn to water?

If so, then turn off your irrigation system and use your pool water to irrigate (once the FC comes down a bit). It's not the best water to use for irrigation purposes but you can use that in lieu of any irrigation water you might use and then take that allotment and use it for pool fill. You can buy a cheap garden hose flow meter to carefully track how much water you use from the pool and then add that much back. Over time, you will slowly reduce your CYA. If you get rains, allow your pool to overfly if that's possible. Better yet, drain some your pool BEFORE it rains and let the rains add back the makeup water, that will reduce the dilution effect.

Any commercial RO providers in your area? Costs about $300-$500 to RO a filter a pool and you typically need to add back about 15% of the pool volume due to filtration losses.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk,16k gal SWG pool (All Pentair), QuadDE100 Filter, Taylor K-2006
 
My first thought is to ask if you plan on following TFP methods or continue visiting the pool store? Our methods are different and attempting to follow both just leads to confusion.

Your FC is way too low. When my CYA was in the 250 range I kept my FC around 19.

When Bioactive first came to the market several members here tested it in fairly controlled tests, testing and reporting results daily, some over several weeks. None of the controlled tests reported any significant drop in CYA thus it is not a product we generally recommend.

It took me almost a year to get my CYA under control. I have a very high water table in my area so,a,hard drain and refill was out of the question. I rigged up a hose from one of my gutter downspouts to harvest rainwater as well as several smaller drains and refills.

Some reading in Pool School will give you the back story on my we recommend what we do and why it differs from the advice given in most pool,stores.
 

Enjoying this content?

Support TFP with a donation.

Give Support
Yup, most of us use plain generic bleach for our chlorine needs. Remember, chlorine is a consumable item and needs to be added regularly, like daily.

Automation is available with salt water chlorine generators and pumps to add liquid chlorine.
 
I did use the dilution method and the black dot was gone way below the 100 mark. I'll add some bleach to it now and keep on monitoring/testing. Thanks.

- - - Updated - - -

What measurement device (plastic cup?) do you use to add bleach? Pretty much daily? If you were gone for a couple of weeks what would you do. Float a tablet? Thanks.
 
O
Frankhugus said:
I did use the dilution method and the black dot was gone way below the 100 mark. I'll add some bleach to it now and keep on monitoring/testing. Thanks.

- - - Updated - - -

What measurement device (plastic cup?) do you use to add bleach? Pretty much daily? If you were gone for a couple of weeks what would you do. Float a tablet? Thanks.
Click to expand...
I have a Staenner Pump to,add bleach automatically, but before I just free poured from the bottle,without exact measurement. I was using about 1/2 bottle per day

Remember, tabs add more cyurnatic acid to the pool as each tab is almost half CYA. Automated methods work better for vacations if possible.
 
Sounds like your CYA is well above 200ppm if you did the dilution test and it still showed more than 100 on the vial. Mine was up around 300ppm when I took over from a pool company.

I would highly recommend starting to replace water to drop the CYA before your pool actually does develop a noticeable problem. Even not seeing algae, with very high CYA and low FC means your pool is not properly sanitized and will not kill pathogens in a timely fashion, which puts swimmers at risk of person to person disease transmission.
 
I have been draining sizable amounts as the rain has increased but it still remains high. Hard to believe how fast CYA went up. I just can't bring myself to arbitrarily drain given the drought and am watching it daily. Thanks.
 
Cyanuric-Ongoing

Yesterday I drained 2.0 hours at max speed on Intellipro pump. That's about 4". I refilled back to the 4" plus 2" more. Here are my readings as of right now.

FC=8ppm
CC=0
ph=7.5
Alk=90
Cyanuric-somewhere between 150-180

I still have not added any chlorine in over a month and have no floater either. I have bleach, baking soda etc. standing by but have no reason to use any of it yet. The water continues to look fantastic. Your thoughts and recommendations please. Thanks. (heating up here and no rain in sight)
 
Re: Cyanuric-Ongoing

As we know from the Chlorine/CYA Chart, your current FC of 8 is designed for someone with a CYA at/about 70 ppm for a non-SWG pool. Since the FC target for a CYA of 100 is 12, it would stand to reason that the "target FC for someone around 150 would probably be more around 16-18 - the minimum might be around 10-11. I would suspect that you're rolling the dice with that FC/CYA ratio, and the warmer it gets (with more direct UV), the harder it will be for that FC to keep algae away. Let's see what others have to say. :)
 

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