Is 0 CYA OK with liquid chlorinator

Jump to latest Follow Reply
A

AJB1234

0
Gold Supporter
Dec 5, 2015
232
Newport Beach, CA
Hi TFP,

Loving TFP, thank you all! My microbiologist wife is totally against having CYA in the pool. We have a liquid chlorinator and are OK with spending extra $$ for additional chlorine that may not be be needed with adequate CYA levels. Any concerns with this setup other than the spending unnecessary $$ on the extra chlorine?

Thanks,

AJB
 
Other than the extreme harshness of the chlorine and as long as you stay at or above 3ppm FC, that is your choice.

Having 30 ppm CYA in the water makes the active chlorine very small and thus the water is not harsh on skin, clothes, eyes, etc.

You will have to be adding chlorine at a significant rate as the half life of chlorine in a pool with no CYA in the sun is less than an hour.
 
If there is truly never been any CYA in the water you never want to exceed 3 ppm FC. In fact you want to try and maintain between 1 and 2 ppm FC.

Does this happen to be a indoor pool? If so, it'll be easier to maintain the FC at the low levels. If it's an outdoor pool you'll need to be very diligent about keeping the chlorinator running during the sunny hours as the UV from the sun will decimate the FC in minutes.
 
Is this an outdoor pool? If so then you are going to need to have your chlorinator running continuously during the day to keep from dropping below 1 ppm.

I too am curious what the reason for avoiding it is. Especially one that would relate to microbiology.
 
Believe the safety profile of CYA is pretty good (think I would prefer it being there vs the exposure of the raw chlorine especially if it drifted above 3 ppm), unless you also ingest a lot melamine...together they form sound insoluble crystals your kidneys can't break down....not likely scenario here
 
I will get more information after speaking to my wife but to answer some of your questions, the pool is outdoors and the auto chlorinator runs the entire time the sun is out. We do use ozone/uv which I know is not well thought of on TFP. Her goal is to keep FC at around 0.5. We are getting very small amounts of algae unless the FC is around 2.8 (still playing with our new pool chem #s). She thinks the algae is present because of high phosphates from the landscaping project we had next to the pool (lots of soil ended up in the water). I know high phosphates are manageable with higher fc but the goal is minimal chemicals. She did mention that cya is a carcinogen and that it is used to kill inmates. Stay tuned...
 

Enjoying this content?

Support TFP with a donation.

Give Support
Hmmm, definitely ask where her ideas came from. These sound more like statements from badly written internet sites than the peer reviewed studies I would expect a scientist to reference.

Regardless, sounds like you are going for something well outside of anything TFP would recommend. As is the case when anybody goes that route, you are pretty much on your own. Looking at your post history you have made some pretty outlandish claims about your water safety while trying to use your wife's credentials to try to bolster the validity of your statements. Sorry to say, we like data, not appeals to authority.

As with everything, you are welcome to manage your personal pool as you see fit. I wish you the best of luck with it. Just a word to the wise: a TFPC pool has active chlorine that is equivalent of less than 0.1 ppm FC with zero CYA. If you aren't able to keep algae at bay with less than 2.8 ppm FC then something is very wrong with your pool. You are swimming in far harsher water than any of us. Guess our cyanide water will get us in the end though, right? "Essentially non-toxic" indeed :lol:
 
Yeah... I want to follow TFP but the wife has other ideas. She is basing the issue with cya on the msds (material safety data sheet). BTW Donaldson- I'm a pool newbie and definitely not trying to make any claims on this site... kindly pm me with one of the claims and I will remove/change the verbiage... I'm a huge TFP fan and believer.

Yes... 2.8 FC is too high. Working on my own tfp without use of cya (if possible) to appease the wife.
 
She is your wife and you need to deal with her. I am sure she has other redeeming values.

If you invent another trouble free pool care method let us know. But I don’t think you will change the basic chemical science that TFPC is based on.

To most of us high FC levels and algae is not preferable to CYA. Life is filled with compromises and risks.
 
Also, our pool has been 83 degrees without using the heater and the algae is almost always located in areas with some stagnant water (we have 'floating' steps outside the pool with pool water around them. We also get some limited algae on the grout of black granite tiles that are submerged in less than an inch of water (for the negative edge overflow). Temp of the water directly above the black granite gets significantly hotter than the rest of the pool. Hope that makes sense.

- - - Updated - - -

I will risk algae over my marriage! LOL hoping to end up going 100% TFP method... maybe in due time...
 
That is typical of algae taking hold in areas where it has its perfect environment. Much of algae is micoscopic and seeing it in spots indicates algae is thriving in your water waiting to take hold when it can and bloom if it gets a chance.

A well balanced sanitary pool is not teetering on the edge of algae outbreaks.
 
If algae can grow in your pool, what else is growing that you can't see? All sorts of fun pathogens live in water. Think about the fact that on occasion, a bird will poop in your pool unless it's always covered. I would be more concerned about that than the algae.

Birds and their droppings can carry over 60 diseases
 
My best guess is that it is a misunderstanding. Maybe she thought it contained cyanide (which is very toxic)? This is the MSDS for CYA.

http://www.sciencelab.com/msds.php?msdsId=9923614

It is not a known carcinogen. And I don't recall ever hearing it used as a death penalty drug. Find the MSDS for table salt (Sodium Chloride) for comparison.
 
Last edited:

Enjoying this content?

Support TFP with a donation.

Give Support
You must log in or register to reply here.
Thread Status
Hello , This thread has been inactive for over 60 days. New postings here are unlikely to be seen or responded to by other members. For better visibility, consider Starting A New Thread.
Top Bottom
Back
Jump to latest Follow Reply