Fired my pool guy. What's good cya level for Phoenix?

mopoco

0
Jul 12, 2009
12
Chandler, AZ
Bought a house with a pool, and had no knowledge of pool care, so I opted to have a pool guy come and do just the chemicals. He never got it right last summer and I was back and forth to Leslie's, dumping all sorts of crud in there, which sorta worked! I did chems myself during the 'off season' with tablets and an OTO/PH tester. Then I came across your site and bought the test kit. Found my stabilizer through the roof, and drained and filled it in the spring. The pool guy came and immediately dumped so much CYA that the level went to over 150ppm. Needless to say, I've been fighting both algae blooms (black and green) and the pool guy :evil: , who insists his high CYA levels are necessary to keep the chlorine in from getting eaten by the sun (I say it's so he only has to come every other week). But, he doesn't keep FC high enough to compensate for high CYA, so I'm constantly on the verge of an algae bloom, and that eats my chlorine up WAY faster than the sun!!! He pumps the FC up with gaseous chlorine, then fills the floater with tabs and comes back long after the FC has dropped to an unacceptable level.

So I partially drained my pool again, and CYA is at ~55ppm. Did I drain too much? What is a good CYA level for hot, sunny Phoenix, AZ?

I've been trying to keep FC at shock levels now using bleach (Costco is the cheapest bet around here at 4.26 gal for $7.99) until I get the less than 1ppm drop in FC overnight. Today should be the last day...

Thanks!
 
CYA at 55 is a good place to start. Get used to how that is before trying something higher.

For extremely sunny areas, CYA around 60 or perhaps 70 can be worth it. But because of the down sides of high CYA levels, it is best to start somewhere lower than that and see how things go before deciding to try something higher.
 
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