4 day 3 night vacation - will SLAM but can I skip the pucks?

[Ticojpunk]

Next week I’ll be going away for 4 days 3 nights. I plan to bring the pool up to SLAM level with liquid chlorine the night before I leave. Then I’ll put the solar cover on in the morning before we leave. I get very little sun on the pool. Never 100% coverage. 1.5 hours at most passing sun, always a bit of shade on either side. And like I said pool is also solar covered.

With my CYA at 60/70 (still getting the hang of this test) I’d hate to add more CYA with pucks. Can I NOT put pucks in my chlorinator? Or is it strongly advised to do so?

PH still sitting at 7.2 and TA about 130.

 

[Newdude]

Your CYA is already pretty high for liquid chlorine. Well. It's not high, but your SLAM target if you get algae is (28FC).

Slam, your shade and the cover should get you through 4 days. What's the recent daily loss averaging ?

 

[Ticojpunk]

Your CYA is already pretty high for liquid chlorine. Well. It's not high, but your SLAM target if you get algae is (28FC).

Slam, your shade and the cover should get you through 4 days. What's the recent daily loss averaging ?

I'm seeing 1-2ppm per day loss. I'm new at this and could probably be keeping better track, but I've been keeping it at 9ppm and I seem to have to add 2ppm worth every 2-3 days to get it back up to 9ppm.

 

[Newdude]

So FC burns off faster at higher levels because it does so as a %

*purely for example.

20% of 10 is 2 lost per day
20% of 20 is 4 lost per day.

But 24 should last the 4 days with the loss you've been seeing in regular target range recently. You'll lose a little bit more the first 2 days but should still have plenty for the last 2 days.

 

[Ticojpunk]

So FC burns off faster at higher levels because it does so as a %

*purely for example.

20% of 10 is 2 lost per day
20% of 20 is 4 lost per day.

But 24 should last the 4 days with the loss you've been seeing in regular target range recently. You'll lose a little bit more the first 2 days but should still have plenty for the last 2 days.

Great! Thanks. It made sense to me that I'd likely not really need the pucks, and now I understand that % factor that I wasn't aware of. I'm hoping to maybe get some more water drained to maybe take that CYA a peg down a bit. Really would love to get it to 50. Maybe with the heat wave we're about to get this week in NY I can afford to lose some of that heat by doing some refilling.

 

[Newdude]

It made sense to me that I'd likely not really need the pucks, and now I understand that %

Again. Purely for discussion purposes, maybe at SLAM level you lose 6 the first day, 4 ppm the 2nd day and are back to normal loss on day 3.

If it wasn't for this tidbit of info, the weekly pool service spike with shock would last all week. Maybe in the early/late season it does but mid season its gone before 7 days.

 

[Ticojpunk]

Back from vacation and I’m crystal clear still with roughly 17ppm FC after SLAMming with 20ppm. Only lost like 1ppm per day. It was hot but cloudy with some storms. Pool has solar over on. So psyched. Last year I went away for a week and came home to a cloudy mess that became a greenish cloudy mess that took a week+ to clean up. I was in the dark last season for sure. Thanks TFP. This group really is a blessing.