Adding CYA and Water Hardness

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K

Kyle.Ganz

0
Jun 17, 2016
31
Rolla, MO
I was reading the recommended pool chemicals section and saw that it says for adding CYA or "stabilizer" to your pool you should put it in a sock in the skimmer or hang it in front of the jet coming from the pump/filter. Is the sock a product I buy or is it an actual foot sock? Sorry for the new pool owner question :(.

Also does anyone have any advice for reducing water hardness if I need to because I had to add water to my pool since I opened it because I lost some over the winter and my water source comes an area that has dolomite and limestone as the bedrock which yields really hard water.
 
CYA - Yes a foot sock. Any will do. Make sure it doesn't have holes. I prefer a white athletic sock.

Hardness - What is you calcium level? Is it hard in the sense that your calcium is too high? If so then the only way to lower it is to drain and refill with a water source that has low Calcium. If your CH level is OK and are just looking for a soft water feel, you can add salt.
 
LOL, yup, its an actual foot sock :) The granular CYA will slowly dissolve into the water without just sitting on your pool surface loose which might leave stains. If you put the sock in your skimmer just remember to run the pump 24/7 until it dissolves (protects the pump from the CYA caused acidic water in the skimmer blasting it all at once when you do turn the pump back on)
And you can always help speed up the granular CYA dissolving by squooshing the sock in your hands now and then. White-ish water will come out but it won't hurt ya.

How hard is your fill water? Can you give us a full set of test results to base an answer on?
FC
CC
TA
CH
pH
CYA

Thanks!
 
Thanks for the quick responses, I don't have my TF 100 kit so I can't give an accurate reading on everything at the moment but here is what my pool store gave me as results as of Monday 6/20/16

Free Chlorine 8.3
Total Chlorine 10
Total Alkalinity 92
Total Hardness 307
pH 7.2
CYA 41
 
Since CYA is difficult to remove if you put too much in, you'll want to wait to add CYA until you have a proper test kit and have confirmed the CYA numbers yourself. We don't trust pool store tests here - they're usually very wrong.
 
Well.... IF you can trust those results (and we rarely do trust pool store results) your CH isn't the worst we've seen by far! Don't add anything with calcium, figure that with splash out and backwashing that number will lower over time. Keep your pH on the low end of normal and you should be able to avoid scale in the mean time.

Based on those questionable results- your water has something in it causing too many CCs (FC + CC= TC) So you've got 1.7ppm CC which is too high.

When are you gonna get your own test kit?? How are you sanitizing your pool??? How's your water look?
 
My test kit arrives tomorrow. I have been using 3 inch chlorine tablets in the skimmer, 4 scoops from a bucket of "shock", and a couple ounces of algicide which are all from my pool store. I bought all of that stuff before I found this place so I figured I could still use it. My pool is blue but cloudy and the cloudy is slowing coming out of my water. I would say visibility has improved a lot since last weekend. I will post a new thread probably once I get my test kit and start doing things myself.

My wife suggested that after I get my own kit I test the water and also take a sample of water to the pool store to see how big of a difference there actually is.

- - - Updated - - -

The scoops and algicide amounts are a weekly treatment, recommended by the pool store, forgot to add that. Also I have backwashing almost daily and the water coming out is very cloudy, kind of like watered down milk.
 
Do NOT add anything but liquid chlorine until you get that test kit. Your CYA may be much higher considering all the granular/puck products you've been adding.

I'd put 1/2 gallon of bleach in nightly until you start to SLAM that baby clear.... 'k?
 

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Because they either are jacking up your CYA level or your calcium level. There is more in those badboys than just chlorine. That's why we advocate using individual products so there is no occult hanky panky chemistry going on in your water that you're not aware of.

The only way to lower CYA and Calcium is via water exchange. And too much of either can cause you a lot of grief.

Here- time for Pool School. Start here: ABCs of Pool Water Chemistry


(also, adding the pucks in the skimmer allows the water to become *very* acidic when the pump is off and water stagnant. Then when you turn the pump back on again you're blasting the equipment to include gaskets with a low pH bullet of water... its very hard on the hardware)
 
A lot of folks hang on to them for those periods when they actually DO need to raise the level of either their CYA or calcium. Your vinyl pool never needs any calcium, unless you have a heater?

If you keep your CYA level on the low-normal side you have room to use some of them during vacations away from the pool when you know your pool can handle the increase.
 
If you can return unopened packages great. If not hang onto the pucks for vacations and organic stain remover. If it's dichlor/triclor shock, save it for when you can test CYA. If it's hypocal, it might be ok to use some of it later, once you understand what you are adding.

Sorry you got pool stored.
 
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