Since my salt cell stopped producing chlorine (i'll probably find it full of calcium tomorrow which will hopefully take care of this problem) I have been adding liquid bleach to the pool. Over the last couple years of trying to learn the trouble free method, hearing high chlorine numbers aren't bad for a person's health/being told it was ok to swim while going through a SLAM, and continuing to add CYA to my salt pool, then having issues with calcium building up so switching to chlorine until hubby would help get he cell off so we could clean it, I've been thinking more about how I've been thinking about the salt water versus non salt water chlorine/cya relationship.
Another factor that has made this confusing is the confusion as to who's CYA #s were accurate (mine or pool store), with more than one guy at the pool store saying i had a cya of 70 when i was getting 40 (now I am reading 50/60), being hesitant to add more CYA just in case their #s were more accurate, I have been partially using the non-SWG chart on the website, using 40 CYA as a reference. Now that I'm dealing with a very small black algae problem that seems to be just about gone, and trying to decide at what level of chlorine can we swim, it has sunk in that the chart for salt water is so much smaller and doesn't leave room for much variation within the FC. This means checking the panel more often as I have been having to change the %s of my salt cell really quickly, especially since I have so much calcium in the pool and I have not kept up with the acid more on a daily basis, I see a trend of needing to clean the salt cell x 2 weeks.
Let's say I was confident that my CYA numbers were right and they were 70 like the pool store says. The minimum FC and target FC is between one and 2 #s off. It is difficult to get that close since there are factors such as cloudy day and calcium building in my salt cell. It makes me think of how high the FC gets sometimes and how much I may be putting my family at risk.
It reminds me of the pb just telling me that we need to keep the chlorine between 1-3, which seemed easier back then (probably before calcium built up?).
I'm also considering how much bleach has seemed to go up in cost. Even at Walmart for a 2 gallon box it was like somewhere around $7. Even at $3/day x 30 days, that's $90. So, chlorine seems like a very expensive way to go. I've read here that it's similar to what a person would pay for pucks... and doing it the pool store way. I'm not sure if that's factoring in the other things they try to sell us like phosphate remover or if it's just comparing bleach to pucks...
I'm all over the place in this thread and it's late so I hope I"m making good sense but I've just been thinking about these things. Lastly, why is the FC target of salt water so much lower than liquid bleach anyway? That makes no sense to me and I fear the answer will be too "chemistry" for me, but I want to understand if i can.
thanku!
Another factor that has made this confusing is the confusion as to who's CYA #s were accurate (mine or pool store), with more than one guy at the pool store saying i had a cya of 70 when i was getting 40 (now I am reading 50/60), being hesitant to add more CYA just in case their #s were more accurate, I have been partially using the non-SWG chart on the website, using 40 CYA as a reference. Now that I'm dealing with a very small black algae problem that seems to be just about gone, and trying to decide at what level of chlorine can we swim, it has sunk in that the chart for salt water is so much smaller and doesn't leave room for much variation within the FC. This means checking the panel more often as I have been having to change the %s of my salt cell really quickly, especially since I have so much calcium in the pool and I have not kept up with the acid more on a daily basis, I see a trend of needing to clean the salt cell x 2 weeks.
Let's say I was confident that my CYA numbers were right and they were 70 like the pool store says. The minimum FC and target FC is between one and 2 #s off. It is difficult to get that close since there are factors such as cloudy day and calcium building in my salt cell. It makes me think of how high the FC gets sometimes and how much I may be putting my family at risk.
It reminds me of the pb just telling me that we need to keep the chlorine between 1-3, which seemed easier back then (probably before calcium built up?).
I'm also considering how much bleach has seemed to go up in cost. Even at Walmart for a 2 gallon box it was like somewhere around $7. Even at $3/day x 30 days, that's $90. So, chlorine seems like a very expensive way to go. I've read here that it's similar to what a person would pay for pucks... and doing it the pool store way. I'm not sure if that's factoring in the other things they try to sell us like phosphate remover or if it's just comparing bleach to pucks...
I'm all over the place in this thread and it's late so I hope I"m making good sense but I've just been thinking about these things. Lastly, why is the FC target of salt water so much lower than liquid bleach anyway? That makes no sense to me and I fear the answer will be too "chemistry" for me, but I want to understand if i can.
thanku!