OK, I went right to BBB and Im not sure what the cal hypo is....is that the trichlor pucks or whatever........I was afraid of raising my CYA
I will be Grasshopper.......teach me
I will be Grasshopper.......teach me
The pool is green and Im mobilizing my army
- Thread starter rdkll
- Start date
Cal-hypo is a granular form of chlorine that has a long shelf life, so it's nice to keep a few bags on hand for situations such as you experienced, when it's late and you need a FC bump and you run out of bleach and the stores are closed....cal-hypo won't raise CYA but it will raise calcium levels.
Trichlor is another form of chlorine, but it is not as handy as cal-hypo because it is acidic it lowers ph and it also is stabilized so it raises CYA. It comes in pucks/tablets and occasionally you can find it in granular form.
Trichlor is another form of chlorine, but it is not as handy as cal-hypo because it is acidic it lowers ph and it also is stabilized so it raises CYA. It comes in pucks/tablets and occasionally you can find it in granular form.
rdkll said:
I have some cal-hypo that was purchased at Leslie's under the name Power Powder Plus (65% cal-hypo) or Power Powder Pro (73% cal-hypo). I got a big bucket of granular stuff (the Plus) but it also comes bagged by the pound in 6 pack or 12 or 24 packs at higher prices per lb of course.
It will be with Pool Shock items. Current online price at Leslie's is $82 for 25 lbs of the Plus, $130 for 50 lbs of the Pro and $24 for 6 lbs by the 1 lb bag. I can't say how that compares to other products gotten elsewhere, I got that right as we bought the house and didn't have the time or maybe the sense to shop around at the time. Looks like the Pro was the better deal per lb but a higher investment overall.
I suppose that all the pool places will have some version of this stuff, just beware of any extra stuff you don't need. This particular product is just cal-hypo. So, it raises calcium but not CYA. That makes it something you can use sometimes, not all time. You can use bleach all the time since it does not add CYA or calcium.
And for that matter, you can use pucks, dichlor, or trichlor sometimes, not all the time, it just depends on whether you can handle the extra CYA they give you. Keep up on testing and you may eventually notice that your CYA has declined to the point that you can take advantage of the luxury of using pucks once in a while (or for vacation). Or for some reason you've drained the pool some and then both CYA and calcuim may be low, so you can get partway into range with one product then switch to another for awhile to fine tune the levels.
Just know what your calcium level is now from your testing and use the Pool Calculator to see how much cal-hypo you need, based on the % strength it is. Then go to the bottom of the page to see what amount of calcium that amount of cal-hypo adds to be sure you can deal with that addition.
So, my pool is now at about 240 ppm calcium, just out of range on the low side where 250-350 is in range, so I have no problem going back to using cal-hypo for my chlorine source. Each normal usage where I typically add about 2.5 ppm chlorine to the pool a day, which is about 1.25 cups cal-hypo (63%) adds 2 ppm to calcium. So theoretically I could go about 50 days using cal-hypo for chlorine in my pool before I was at the upper end of the range and start to worry about scaling in the pool and hot tub and had to drain water to reduce that calcium. Right now I have plenty of bleach on hand and so I use that first. Should I run out, I've got maybe 20 lbs of cal-hypo to carry me through something like a hurricane where bleach may be hard to find.
Well, the latest. I had run out of bleach and could only bump it back to 12ppm, over the course of the day it was 6ppm, Andrea had picked up some bleach, got it back to 20ppm and over night it dropped to 18ppm.
It looks like I might be turning the corner.
Today will be the first full cycle for Cecil......my robot
It looks like I might be turning the corner.
Today will be the first full cycle for Cecil......my robot
Thanks for sharing this useful information. It's great.
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Thank you for the kind words.
The pool is very clear(I can se the liner pattern in the deep end 8.5')
The robot is doing great, i ran twice yesterday and will run again today.
I think I know the answer but I have to ask.....do I keep at shock level until the overnight drop is zero?
Im going to the pool store because I ran out of the CYA test materials (will re-use the mixture next time)
Is there anything to get that final "POP" of chrystalclearness?
The pool is very clear(I can se the liner pattern in the deep end 8.5')
The robot is doing great, i ran twice yesterday and will run again today.
I think I know the answer but I have to ask.....do I keep at shock level until the overnight drop is zero?
Im going to the pool store because I ran out of the CYA test materials (will re-use the mixture next time)
Is there anything to get that final "POP" of chrystalclearness?
You are finished with the process when.....
1. Your pool water is sparkling
2. Your CC's are .5ppm or less
3. You can hold your FC overnight without losing more than 1ppm.
1. Your pool water is sparkling
2. Your CC's are .5ppm or less
3. You can hold your FC overnight without losing more than 1ppm.
rdkll said:Thank you for the kind words.
The pool is very clear(I can se the liner pattern in the deep end 8.5')
The robot is doing great, i ran twice yesterday and will run again today.
I think I know the answer but I have to ask.....do I keep at shock level until the overnight drop is zero?
Im going to the pool store because I ran out of the CYA test materials (will re-use the mixture next time)
Is there anything to get that final "POP" of chrystalclearness?
You will probably only test CYA monthly or so, except while you are adjusting it. Best deal will probably be online here particularly if you add any other replacement chemicals. I started testing in April and have reordered CYA and FC reagents, since I was adjusting CYA and due to high CYA I am off the scale with the pH tests in the little blue box so I use the FAS DPD test daily or nearly daily.
I've forgotten what test kit you use but on my TF100 I made a bigger recording chart that adds the Target FC I used, the volume and strength and chemical I used for chlorine (since sometimes I use cal-hypo, sometimes bleach) and the pH target I used as well as the amount of MA I added, plus a comment area for things like swim party or big rain. using that I have recently discovered that my chlorine consumption is way less when I keep the pH lower than 7.8, but I need to see if the higher cost of MA makes that really worth it given how much MA that takes.
That final sparkle is mostly filtration I think, once you get all algae killed then you must remove it. Keep the skimmers and robot cleaned out, and tend to the filter when you ought to.
I think a pool is a lot like a pet, or perhaps like keeping fish; you are really keeping water and you have to check and feed it nearly daily but you only have real work to do every week or month. At one time I had 7 fish tanks with discus and other freshwater fish and live plants. When we moved I gave them all away since the pool and bigger yard was going to take so much effort.