High CYA...How do I drain and refill?

[Guest]

I would recommend getting your CYA down to 80 ppm for the installation of your SWG. This way you will only need to maintain a 3-5 ppm FC with the SWG and will not have to run the cell on a higher output to maintain higher chlorine levels. This will have several advantages such as increasing cell life and helping keep pH from rising as quickly.

BTW, welcome to TFP!

 

[bluenoise]

I would recommend getting your CYA down to 80 ppm for the installation of your SWG. This way you will only need to maintain a 3-5 ppm FC with the SWG and will not have to run the cell on a higher output to maintain higher chlorine levels. This will have several advantages such as increasing cell life and helping keep pH from rising as quickly.

I definitely want to do that. I've been draining off/refilling for about three hours a time based on that's all I've been able to do while home to monitor it. I don't quite trust leaving it to go while I'm at work, so it'll have to wait until I'm home for a weekend. Next weekend, I'll be here and installing the SWG, so I should be able to do it before I add the salt and fire it up.

I think I've got it nailed now. I just tested again, at least as well as I can with my kit, and I got the following numbers:

FC: >15 (I got a deep red result >5 with a 3:1 dilution)
Ph: 7.2
TA: I couldn't measure this, probably due to the high FC. The sample turned blue and then changed to yellow after about 19 drops of what should've turned it red.

There is no visible algae and the water looks crystal clear. I'm tempted to jump in! The water temperature this morning is 82, but the air is 52. Clouds of steam are rising from the pool and they smell strongly of chlorine.

I'm going to pour in three 1.42 gallon jugs of Clorox before I head off for a few days. Hopefully, that'll carry it while I'm gone.

BTW, welcome to TFP!

Thank you very much! I'm glad to have found this forum. You all are very nice and helpful. With the help of this forum, I know I'll always have a beautiful, sparkling pool.

 

[bluenoise]

I would recommend getting your CYA down to 80 ppm for the installation of your SWG. This way you will only need to maintain a 3-5 ppm FC with the SWG and will not have to run the cell on a higher output to maintain higher chlorine levels. This will have several advantages such as increasing cell life and helping keep pH from rising as quickly.

I definitely want to do that. I've been draining off/refilling for about three hours a time based on that's all I've been able to do while home to monitor it. I don't quite trust leaving it to go while I'm at work, so it'll have to wait until I'm home for a weekend. Next weekend, I'll be here and installing the SWG, so I should be able to do it before I add the salt and fire it up.

I think I've got it nailed now. I just tested again, at least as well as I can with my kit, and I got the following numbers:

FC: >15 (I got a deep red result >5 with a 3:1 dilution)
Ph: 7.2
TA: I couldn't measure this, probably due to the high FC. The sample turned blue and then changed to yellow after about 19 drops of what should've turned it red.

There is no visible algae and the water looks crystal clear. I'm tempted to jump in! The water temperature this morning is 82, but the air is 52. Clouds of steam are rising from the pool and they smell strongly of chlorine.

I'm going to pour in three 1.42 gallon jugs of Clorox before I head off for a few days. Hopefully, that'll carry it while I'm gone.

BTW, welcome to TFP!

Thank you very much! I'm glad to have found this forum. You all are very nice and helpful. With the help of this forum, I know I'll always have a beautiful, sparkling pool.

I had been troubled for months over why I couldn't keep algae at bay in spite of a 3+ ppm FC and 0 CC. This is the first season I've had that problem. The pool store was stumped. The forum knew right away: High stabilizer. It's the cumulative effect of using dichlor and trichlor exclusively for the past four years and the fact that we had so little rain this past winter that I never needed to drain off the excess water as I had in the past. I've learned more in the past week about pool chemistry than I ever knew before, even after reading a couple of books on the subject.

 

[bluenoise]

I would recommend getting your CYA down to 80 ppm for the installation of your SWG. This way you will only need to maintain a 3-5 ppm FC with the SWG and will not have to run the cell on a higher output to maintain higher chlorine levels. This will have several advantages such as increasing cell life and helping keep pH from rising as quickly.

I definitely want to do that. I've been draining off/refilling for about three hours a time based on that's all I've been able to do while home to monitor it. I don't quite trust leaving it to go while I'm at work, so it'll have to wait until I'm home for a weekend. Next weekend, I'll be here and installing the SWG, so I should be able to do it before I add the salt and fire it up.

I think I've got it nailed now. I just tested again, at least as well as I can with my kit, and I got the following numbers:

FC: >15 (I got a deep red result >5 with a 3:1 dilution)
Ph: 7.2
TA: I couldn't measure this, probably due to the high FC. The sample turned blue and then changed to yellow after about 19 drops of what should've turned it red.

There is no visible algae and the water looks crystal clear. I'm tempted to jump in! The water temperature this morning is 82, but the air is 52. Clouds of steam are rising from the pool and they smell strongly of chlorine.

I'm going to pour in three 1.42 gallon jugs of Clorox before I head off for a few days. Hopefully, that'll carry it while I'm gone.

BTW, welcome to TFP!

Thank you very much! I'm glad to have found this forum. You all are very nice and helpful. With the help of this forum, I know I'll always have a beautiful, sparkling pool.

I had been troubled for months over why I couldn't keep algae at bay in spite of a 3+ ppm FC and 0 CC. This is the first season I've had that problem. The pool store was stumped. The forum knew right away: High stabilizer. It's the cumulative effect of using dichlor and trichlor exclusively for the past four years and the fact that we had so little rain this past winter that I never needed to drain off the excess water as I had in the past. I've learned more in the past week about pool chemistry than I ever knew before, even after reading a couple of books on the subject.

 

[JasonLion]

Blue to yellow on the TA test means the same things as green to red when the chlorine is high. So you TA is 190.

 

[duraleigh]

bluenoise,

Just an aside on your Alk test. Waterbear can confirm this but I'm pretty sure the sample turning from blue to yellow does not negate your test results and that it is a result of your very high FC.

 

[bluenoise]

Hello, everyone...I'm very sorry about the duplicate posts. The server problems made me think my post wasn't going through.

I got home last night too late to check the pool, so I gave it a look this morning. It's still looking really good. I tested the FC and it was still off-the-top of my simple check and my new kit won't arrive until later this week to do the real tests. In any case, it seems to be holding chlorine pretty well, so I poured in another 1.42 gallons of bleach this morning just for good measure.

My SWG is arriving today, so I'm going to replace some water this week in anticipation of installing the generator this weekend.

BTW: My pH is holding steady at 7.2, but my TA is now 170. Does bleach raise TA? In spite of keeping the pH somewhat low, the TA isn't going down. Also, I have my return jets pointed upward to ripple the surface of the water, but the pH isn't climbing at all. Perhaps I should count my blessings that pH and TA seem to hold rock steady in my pool. If I have a problem raising pH, I will try more drastic aeration using my air compressor and some soaker hose. The kids like swimming though the wall of bubbles anyway.

 

[bluenoise]

I received my test kit this evening and used it to test my CYA. Knowing it was pretty high, I cut the water 1:1 with tap water. I got a reading of about 200 ppm. That's pretty darn disappointing as I've been running the fill and the drain simultaneously for over eight hours so far this week. I measured the rate at which I'm exchanging water and determined it's about 600 gallons per hour. It's now been running another five hours and my CYA is still testing around 180 ppm. That means that, after flowing over 8000 gallons this week, I'm still at 180 ppm. What a colossal waste of water. I can't describe how pist I am that the pool store never made mention of stabilizer build-up when peddling their chlorbrite. I thought the product was expensive, but I never counted on needing to also buy hundreds of dollars of water to replace the over-stablized stuff that ended up in my pool. It doesn't help that we're in a drought here, too.

I'm going to let it run another six hours tonight and see where I am in the morning. My pool better be #$%^ing beautiful at the end of all this $$$.

I wish someone would invent a CYA neutralizer instead of making folks throw away their water.

 

[bluenoise]

I am so disappointed and discouraged.

I let the water run and drain since my last post roughly five hours ago, so that should mean I exchanged about 3000 gallons of my pool water with fresh water. I tested the CYA and got about 200 ppm. So, I've flowed over 11,000 gallons of new water into my 20,000 gallon pool and not seen the CYA drop yet. There goes hundreds of dollars down the drain. Literally.

Am I just not getting the CYA test? Here's how I'm doing it (I've used up a quarter of my CYA tests already):

1. Take 5 ml of pool water.
2. Add 5 ml of tap water.
3. Add 10 ml of reagent.
4. Shake it gently to mix.
5. Wait 30 seconds.
6. Shake it gently again.
7. Add it slowly to the CA tube until the black dot is no longer visible.
8. Read that it is close to the 100 ppm line.
9. Multiply the result by two, since I cut the sample in half.
10. Cry.

What's going on?

 

[bluenoise]

Can anyone help me? I'm feeling rather desperate about this as I was planning on installing the SWG this weekend. Am I doing the test correctly? If so, what else might be going on?

I haven't tested my tap water for CYA as I had assumed it would have none. Could that be the problem?