CYA and Chlorine Levels

[Shablam]

Hi

This is my first full summer on the BBB; I converted about mid season last year. I am having issues keeping my CYA and chlorine levels stable. I test everyday outside of CYA as i try to do this test every other week.

After the winter my CYA was at 0 so i brought it up to 40 -50 and was able to use minimal chlorine. This was ok for the first month. Once it started to reach 100 out side I could not keep chlorine in the pool and after the evaporation and fills my CYA is constantly in flux.

Since i can't test the CYA everyday the only way i can tell that it is happening is one day I will pour a whole jug of bleach in after test ing chlorine at 0 and the next day the levels are still at 0. I will then test CYA and wow it is back at 0. I do not have enough regents to test CYA everyday and now I am starting to get algae blooms.

Is there something I can do to keep the values balanced or something i am not doing here? The first month it was as easy as adding 2 cups of bleach each day. Now it seems i am lugging home jugs and jugs of bleach. I was thinking maybe buy some pucks, shock, shock test then add pucks to the skimmer and use the bleach to keep the chlorine level in line. I just don't know but I am tired of buying gallons and gallons of bleach.

I want to be honest here before when i had the inline puck feeder I did not have these issues.

CYA 0 <-- uggg won't stay up
Chlorine 0 < ---- Temps are 108 and no cya is zapping it out
Alk 80
PH 8.2
CH 230

 

[zea3]

As far as I know, the heat should not be zapping your CYA. Has anyone been using any fertilizers around the yard or pool area? Sometimes fertilizer introduces bacteria that consume CYA and leave ammonia as a by product. It takes a lot of bleach to clear the ammonia if this is what has happened. A full service pet store or aquarium store will have an ammonia test you can purchase if you think this may be the problem.

Double check the CYA number with a pool store test. We don't usually recommend this, but sometimes it is good to have another set of eyes look at that test. If they also show 0 CYA then you should test for ammonia, shock if ammonia is present, and then add more CYA. Go ahead and adjust the pH to around 7.2 before doing anything else.