Betraying my TFP with trichlor while on vacation

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lightmaster

lightmaster

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TFP Guide
Jun 22, 2017
859
Baxley, GA
Pool Size
35000
Surface
Vinyl
Chlorine
Salt Water Generator
SWG Type
CircuPool RJ-45
Saturday, I'm leaving for a 4 day vacation to watch the total solar eclipse, and since I'm using liquid chlorine every day and definitely don't trust my neighbors (or in-laws) to remember to add chlorine, I'm gonna bring my pool up to shock level and add some trichlor tabs in a floater to make sure the FC doesn't drop too low over my long weekend. CYA is at 40, but having full sun from sun up to sun down, I've been debating bringing my CYA up to 50 anyway to minimize my daily chlorine sacrifices to the evil sun god, so figured this will work out perfectly. Even then, still feels like I'm betraying my carefully balanced TFP by poisoning her. I haven't had any experience using trichlor, so I'm not even sure how many to add to a 6700 gallon AG pool, nor how long it will take them to dissolve. Also, having a small suction side leak I'm still trying to locate, I'm gonna be leaving my pump off over the weekend, hoping the higher chlorine levels will keep algae away in spite of little circulation.

I do like the irony that the evil sun god will [mostly] disappear for a few hours Monday.
 
Light, light, light...............it is all good. What TFP teaches is not that pucks are bad. We teach what happens when you do this or that. As long as you know what this or that does to your pretty TFP water then it is all good! YOU know what is what so it is good! :hug:

Kim:kim:
 
I feel your pain, I bought my first floater and a small bucket of tabs last week!

We are going to be gone for 6 days in a couple of weeks with nobody to manage the pool, so I spent some time on pool math to figure out what I could do to hopefully return to a clear pool. I've intentionally kept my CYA at 40 and had to use a little more bleach than usual knowing that the amount of tabs I'm going to need could raise it to around 50- if they all dissolve, I suspect they won't. I'm going to raise to shock level right before we leave and hope for the best!
 
pabeader said:
Both of you might want to consider getting a solar cover of some sort. Even if it doesn't cover the entire pool, it should have a positive effect on FC loss to the sun.
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Thanks. I actually do have a solar cover, but I've never left it on for 6 days in the summer before, so that just made me think of a question, is water temperature a concern? My water temp could possibly get close to 100.
 
I just got back from 8 days away hassle-free. Expect some pH movement unless your TA is high with the trichlor use. Using pool math I figured out how much FC each tab would add to my pool volume and threw the appropriate number on the floater. My pool uses 2ppm FC daily uncovered. I did cover while gone, as well as brought the FC to Slam level before adding the floater. My pump GFCI even tripped while we were gone due to a power outage, so we had zero circulation for who-know-how-long.

The fact that the pool started off clean, meant that no algae could get started. FC upon return was still at slam level, and I had gained about 10ppm cya, which I had anticipated.

Because my solar panels were off during the vacay, our pool stayed cooler than usual. Returned to 72 degrees (brrrrr)
 
kimkats said:
Light, light, light...............it is all good. What TFP teaches is not that pucks are bad. We teach what happens when you do this or that. As long as you know what this or that does to your pretty TFP water then it is all good! YOU know what is what so it is good! :hug:

Kim:kim:
Click to expand...

Yep! I have a puck in a floater as I type this. I'll check my CYA when it's gone (it's the second one this summer) and then decide if I should toss in another puck or not. I needed to bump my CYA anyway, so I got convenience of the pucks and saved my stash of CYA.
 

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bobandsherry said:
Before you raise your CYA, be sure to anticipate that the pucks are going to do that for you. I don't want you to overshoot your target.
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That's what I meant, raise my CYA with the pucks instead of using granular stabilizer like I normally do.

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domct203 said:
In a 6700 gallon pool, an 8oz Trichlor tab will add about 8ppm of FC and 5ppm of CYA.
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What's never been clear to me is whether that means 1 will keep FC at 8ppm the whole time its in there, or whether it releases 8ppm total spread across a couple days, so I'd want 2 or 3 to keep FC at 8ppm at any given time.
 
It releases slowly over time. When fully dissolved it will have added X FC and Y CYA. So you probably need multiple at one time to add up the FC you need at any one moment.

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It's kind of a guessing game related to how fast they dissolve in your pool with your floater. If it takes 4 days for 1 to dissolve and each is worth 8 then you could say that it was putting out 2 ppm per day.
 
OK I just did this a few weeks ago and kept records. My pool is 30600 gals and I used 3 Trichlor pucks in a floater for a long weekend out of town. I started with the pucks on a Wednesday night adding no bleach and my FC was 5ppm. My morning FC was 4.5ppm for each of the 2 days before I left on a Friday morning. When I returned Sunday evening my FC was 3.5 and by morning FC was 4.5 and my evening FC was again at 3.5. It stayed this way for a solid 7 days with no bleach additions. I noticed a slight drop in FC after 7 days so added 40oz of 10% ( this is 1ppm FC for my pool) and this carried on for 3 more days. After 10 days I was back to adding 80oz of 10% and the pucks were mere slivers of their original selves. My CYA was raised about 8-10 ppm and now sits between 30 and 40 ppm.

My goal now is not to raise my CYA any higher so for my next long weekend I will be using the Calcium Chloride tabs as I can handle the CH.
 
Calcium Chloride (actually Cal Hypo) tabs
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Have you used those yet? The ones that are 'slow dissolving' I have read reports leave a gooey mess. The binder they use does not break down well.

Might be OK for a short time -- but buyer beware.
 
My Walmart only has trichlor, and not much of that left. Even their LC stock is going down, probably be using 8.25% bleach in another few weeks.
 
Just got back from vacation. Firstly, total solar eclipse was awesome! Secondly, the 4 3" trichlor tabs I had left floating apparently kept my pool just a hair above shock level, so rather than come back to the beginning of an algae bloom like I was fearing, I came back to the world's first 4 day trouble free SLAM, lol. Now just gotta top off my pool so i can turn my pump back on, which means gonna have to filter the water tomorrow with Polyfill to remove darn iron.

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Also, gotta test CYA tomorrow to see how high it got, hoping for it to test right at in the 40-50 range. Tabs still had maybe ¾ left, so shouldn't have raised too much.
 
So, final results are:

FC remained at then shock level of 17.5 and fell to 16.5 when I just tested again
CC is 0
pH fell the expected amount of 7.7 down to 7.3 (tested after neutralizing chlorine with a drop of R-0007)
TA remained the same at 50
CYA climbed from 40 to 50 as expected
CH, didn't test cuz don't care about it with vinyl pool

I did top off the water with my well water, but have seen any signs of the dull clear green tint of iron. Might get lucky though, since we'll should be full with no use in 4 days and only topped up 2 inches, so probably didn't disturb the clay and iron down there much.
 
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