CYA Recommendation for SWGs

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R

rkgdmd

0
Nov 25, 2007
65
Rockland County, NY
Relocated from this post by Moderator

Just an opinion from a non expert here, but I find the SWCG manufacturers' recomendations for CYA to be too high. 70 or 80 ppm is fine until all heck breaks loose. Just look at how much bleach you need to add to a 25-30K gallon pool to address the problem after it develops. Forget the cost...how about the running back and forth to Walmart or Costco and hauling all those bottles around. How about the time wasted baby sitting that swamp. I never let my CYA get above 50. Actually, I prefer it around 40-45. I can run my SWCG at 30% and maintain 4-5 ppm chlorine all summer long. Now, I live in southern NYS, and YMMV in warmer climates.

It seems to make more sense for the CYA levels to be determined not by some seemingly arbitrary number, but by how long you must run your SWCG...at say 30 to 40 %( I'll let the experts debate the appropriate amount of time to run the cell). Admittedly, arriving at the correct CYA for your pool may take some time and is probably not something the average pool owner wants to be bothered with...but in the long run will probably save significant time and money clearing a green pool with a CYA of 80.

Hope your swimming soon!

Rob
 
Rob, I hope you understand why I split off your comments - I didn't want the ensuing discussion regarding the recommendations to confuse the OP. With regard to her CYA of 70-80 - she was advised to raise it up AFTER resolving the algae outbreak, but did not follow these instructions, just and FYI.
 
It's a trade-off. With higher CYA you can run your SWG at a lower percentage, and the cell will last longer. With a (edit) higher (end-edit) CYA, if you get algae it's more hassle to clear it. My impression is that algae outbreaks are rarer with SWGs, compared to those of us who manually (sometimes forget to) dose our pools. For people starting out, once they clear any initial problems, running with higher CYA and lower % seems like the more economical approach overall. As people gain experience they can tune their numbers to please themselves, as you have.
--paulr

(Yes, I said lower when I meant higher, duh.)
 
PaulR said it, though I think he switched something around. People with SWGs are much less likely to get algae, so the hassle of fighting algae with high CYA levels is not as big a deal as it might otherwise be. Also, the total amount of chlorine required to fight algae isn't always all that much higher with high CYA vs low CYA. Unless you catch an algae outbreak very early when it is easy to stop, the total amount of chlorine required is more similar than you might think. At high CYA, you do have to add a huge amount of chlorine to get started, but then you lose less to sunlight than you would at a lower CYA level.
 
This last part is very true. I'm currently helping a friend clear their IG green swamp... Their CYA was 120 (using dilution method)... I had them do the drain/refill dance and their CYA is now 70. It took 6 jugs of 12.5% to reach shock level.... their overnight loss last night was 3, and during the day today they only lost 5. I would think under lower CYA levels their FC loss would have been much greater due to sunlight.
 
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