Newbie, Added Cynuric Acid too early

[grivera]

Hi all, I am new to the pool thing and already I'm messing up.

I also posted this on Garden Web and was told it was better suited for this site. My pool was plastered with Quartz aggregate last Thursday and opened yesterday. I videotaped the instruction but somehow missed the part of waiting to add the Chlorine Booster until after the first backwash. The pool guy said run the pump 24 hours a day and added 2 chlorine tablets to each skimmer. He said to add a quart of muratic acid asap and 4lb.s of Anthony Sylvan Chlorine Booster (100 % cynuric acid) to the skimmer after the first backwash and the DE was replaced. I added the muratic acid and immediately followed with the Chlorine booster. I then watched the video and learned that I was supposed to wait until after the first back wash for the Booster. Have I hurt my Quartz aggregate plaster? If so, what can I do?

BTW, he sold me 4 gallons of muratic acid for $43. and this Chlorine Booster for $23., how bad did he rip me off? I know, shame on me for not checking prices first but he said I needed these items asap.

 

[JohnT]

Probably the reason they tell you to wait until the first backwash is to avoid flushing the CYA away. It is very slow to dissolve, so it tends to end up trapped in the filter a while, and when you backwash you lose some. No big deal other than you may have to add more after you test your CYA and see what the level is.

Muriatic acid varies a bit in price, but I've never give more than $6 a gallon for it.

 

[itabb]

Home Depot sells Muratic acid for $5 a gallon and CYA for $18 for 5lbs. Not sure of the quality of the CYA yet. I know Leslie's CYA is junk.

 

[grivera]

Thanks for the replies and advice. I see I got hosed pretty bad on the muriatic acid at the tune of double the price.

 

[Rob]

Chalk it up to learning.

Spend an hour or two reading these boards, losing $20 to muriatic acid(which is somewhat legit) isn't really that bad. You can get taken for much much worse.

 

[itabb]

I'm in for $100 in CYA from Leslies, before understanding that CYA may not be pure and can be totally unreliable. And, I'm not even at the level I should be at. I'm going to try Home Depot's CYA, but if I don't see results, I'll have to use Trichlor as my CYA source, sad as that is. So your $20 is a drop in the bucket. But wait, there's more. My evil pool store guy convinced me to use 3 times the amount of ascorbic acid I needed, causing an algae outbreak and the need for polyquat 60. There's $25 in poly and $30 in the extra ascorbic acid I did not need. That little error also cost me $42 in bleach to correct and shut my pool down for 2 weeks. So my pool store guy took me for over $200. I'm getting him back though. I switched my spa to chlorine. He's hopping mad, cause I have no need for him anymore. I'm sure it was all in good faith . . . I'm ultimately responsible. This is what happens when two uninformed and untrained people try to fix things, and one knows just enough to be dangerous.

 

[MikeInTN]

Be careful if you buy your muriatic acid from Home Depot. Some on here have reported that they are selling acid that is 15% concentration instead of 31%, but yet are charging the same price (isn't that grand of them!). Lowes sells the 31% for something like $6 a gallon, and their CYA in 4 lb jars for $14.

 

[andysutt]

I got my CYA at Lowes for less than $15 (maybe even less than 10) and it seemed to work well...

So Id go w/ that over the Home Depot as the bad reports.

Also.... if will want to get rid of the pucks ASAP... as they are also a source of CYA and it can raise up and get to high.

 

[poolio]

cya is cya is cya doesnt matter where you buy it. Also the pool store is not completely wrong in telling you not to use chlorine in your spa. Bromine has a much better kill rate at the higher temperatures than chlorine does and is normally what is recommended. Edited by JohnT: Please keep it friendly

 

[Guest]

cya is cya is cya doesnt matter where you buy it. Also the pool store is not completely wrong in telling you not to use chlorine in your spa. Bromine has a much better kill rate at the higher temperatures than chlorine does and is normally what is recommended. Edited by JohnT: Please keep it friendly

Actually, chlorine is a more effective sanitizer than bromine for a given ppm if you look at CT times (kill times). Bromine is often recommened for spas because it is a bit easier to maintian proper sanitizer levels with less maintenance when done properly (and I have found that most people do NOT understand bromine chemistry and do NOT do it properly.) While it is true that it is harder to maintain a recommeded FC level at the elevated temperatures of a spa it is not that difficult to to so and chlorine IS an effective choice for spa sanitization since it actually has fewer disasvantages than bromine, such as allergic reactions and the 'chemical' or 'caustic' smell of the bromine itself. Either sanitizer is an excellent choice for spa maintanence. If the spa is exposed to any appreciable sunlight then chlorine is going to be a better choice since bromine cannot be stabilized against UV light but it is a better choice for an indoor spa since the air quaility will be slightly better.

Granted CYA is CYA but if you knew the background on this particular poster you would also suspect that the CYA he has been buying from Leslies is either NOT CYA or is mixed with something else since he has been adding a LOT of it and getting no apprecialbe increase in his readings which is why he holds this particular brand of CYA suspect.

 

[itabb]

I have not yet seen any bad reports on CYA from Home Depot, so I'll take my chances at least one time. I forgot Lowe's sells this stuff too. If HD doesn't do it for me, I might try that. After that, It's online or trichlor. I really don't want to do trichlor though. I've gotten pretty good at managing my FC with the SWG and bleach. Actually, I'm better at it with the bleach than the SWG, as I have fewer problems with my spa, if you can believe.