TIP: CYA of 70-80 ppm for Austin, TX

[gstein]

Hello all,

I recently emptied, powerwashed, and refilled my pool. As part of the restarting it, I looked far and wide for a simple recommendation of the proper CYA level for Austin, Texas. It was very hard to find, so I'm hoping this post will be helpful to others in my situation.

I asked the people that built our pool, and did the initial fill; they stated 70-80 ppm for CYA.

This seemingly high value is, of course, due the long hours of sun we get here. My pool was great at this level, until I turned it off for a long vacation :-/, so I can say it definitely worked well to hold/stabilize the amount of chlorine added daily by my tablet chlorinator.

HTH,
Greg

 

[jblizzle]

If you do not have a SWG, then we would suggest a CYA in the 50ppm range.

What FC level are you maintaining? Are you aware of the FC/CYA Chart?

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Hello all,

I recently emptied, powerwashed, and refilled my pool. As part of the restarting it, I looked far and wide for a simple recommendation of the proper CYA level for Austin, Texas. It was very hard to find, so I'm hoping this post will be helpful to others in my situation.

I asked the people that built our pool, and did the initial fill; they stated 70-80 ppm for CYA.

This seemingly high value is, of course, due the long hours of sun we get here. My pool was great at this level, until I turned it off for a long vacation :-/, so I can say it definitely worked well to hold/stabilize the amount of chlorine added daily by my tablet chlorinator.

HTH,
Greg

That's the low end for me! Here in Tucson where the sun blazes hot all day long on my pool, if I have anything less than 70ppm, my SWG will run constantly just to keep up. TFP recommended levels try to cover all the bases for the widest applicability possible. But everyone needs to tailor their ranges to their local conditions. Certainly anyone in a high heat / high sun area can use higher CYA levels if they offer the advantage of keeping the UV loss down. As long as the pool owner is diligent in their testing and in keeping their pool properly dosed, a high CYA pool (all the way up to 100ppm) can be easily managed.

Good job

 

[gstein]

If you do not have a SWG, then we would suggest a CYA in the 50ppm range.

What FC level are you maintaining? Are you aware of the FC/CYA Chart?

Yes, the chart is very handy! Right now I'm SLAMing the pool, so I'm keeping it up at 15 or so. My current CYA is 40, but the SLAM is almost done, so I'm gonna move it up to 60 (got the stuff in a sock right now!). I understand the general recommendation is 40 or so (via PoolMath), but that seemed awfully low for our amount of sun. Thus, I asked the pool installers what they do for this area.

 

[nlindelldc]

I will say that it is amazing how much better the FC level holds at a CYA of 80 vs. 50. Just be careful that you don't ever have to SLAM, because that's a hugely different FC number

 

[JoyfulNoise]

I will say that it is amazing how much better the FC level holds at a CYA of 80 vs. 50. Just be careful that you don't ever have to SLAM, because that's a hugely different FC number

For you, and me and other people in hot environments with lots of UV (lower latitudes) and no shade. I'm willing to bet that if you poll folks in other less extreme environments (Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Washington, etc), there's little or no benefit to raising the CYA that high and a whole lot of downsides if they do (the required shock levels you mention).

 

[Isaac-1]

Just be aware once CYA gets over about 70 SLAM becomes very difficult if you ever get algae growing.

 

[gstein]

Just be aware once CYA gets over about 70 SLAM becomes very difficult if you ever get algae growing.

Thanks! ... and yeah, that's why I left CYA at 40 while doing the SLAM, and am now shifting it up to 60.

 

[simplemind]

Thanks! ... and yeah, that's why I left CYA at 40 while doing the SLAM, and am now shifting it up to 60.

I'm curious, as I'm in the same area with roughly the same pool configuration, what targets do you have (FC, CC, CYA, PH)? I'm new to pools, so when i tested and re-tested the CYA was high >150. I dumped 1/2 the pool and I'm now at about 100. Maybe I need to dump again, but my FC is holding pretty steady and little to no algae present.