What type of chlorine should I use?Dont want to increase CYA

[dgliberty101]

Hello,

New to the board here. Typical uninformed pool owner. Until now of course.

For the first I took someones advice and went to costco to buy tabs and shock about 4 months back. Used to buy tabs and shock from my local pool store. In the last month I have been starting the battle with algea. Never really had too much of an issue before. Went to the pool store and they tested and found my CYA level is 100. For years it never was above 70. Went home and found that the costco shock is Sodium Dichlor 58%, and the tabs are trichlor 95%. All the shock I have been adding (1-2 packs per week) due to high heat and and high usage has been adding to the problem. Also was burning through those tabs at a faster rate then ever.

My goal is take care of this before my CYA levels get over 100 and out of control.

My plan, (tell me if I am way off) is stop all chlorine tabs, and shock from costco and slowly drain the pool a little at a time once a week until I get my CYA back to acceptable.

what kind of chlorine can I use besides liquid cholrine / bleach? I have been using liquid bleach for a couple years and it works great to help boost the level that my tabs maintained, but if I don't use any tabs at all or shock I will probably have to add 5-10 gallons a week just to get me to the end of the season.

Besides bleach, is there an acceptable type of shock, or powder or something I could use to help get me by for 3-4 months when the season ends?

 

[duraleigh]

Re: What type of chlorine should I use?Dont want to increase

Your goal and plan make sense. I would suggest you drain/refill by 25% or so each time. 2-3 of those should get you down to a manageable 50 ppm CYA.

It is possible to use Cal Hypo powdered chlorine as an alternative to bleach but not if your CH reading is much higher than about 350.

Liquid chlorine is the simplest, finest way to chlorinate your pool.....none of the significant side effects that ALL powders have.

In a 16k pool you should use less bleach than you are thinking....about 1/2 gallon daily.

All accurate pool chemistry advice we give begins and ends with test results......can you post them?

 

[Bluechip]

Re: What type of chlorine should I use?Dont want to increase

I think all of the tabs add CYA. What's wrong with liquid bleach? It's all most of us use for chlorine. I bet your CYA is really over 100 already. How have you tested your water. We recommend the TF100 or Taylor K-2006. I use about 1 jug of Clorox per day at my peak usage, so you should probably need less than that to maintain proper chlorine levels.

Someone more knowledgable will be along shortly to better answer your question.

 

[dgliberty101]

Re: What type of chlorine should I use?Dont want to increase

Here are my levels. Sorry about that.
3.0 Chlorine (just dumped bleach the night before)
PH 7.6
Alk 80
conditioner - 100
TDS 1400
phosphate 500

I was given this by my pool store who tested the water. They did not test my calcium.

I have a 5 way test I bought at the store.

Dont care about phosphates because I dont want to buy the 50 dollar bottle of "magic potion" that will solve the problem of my algea I am getting.

I would agree that my CYA level is probably higher but I didn't do the test so I don't know. The only reason I would suspect it is not too much higher is because the store I go to always try's to sell me something so I would imagine they would have keyed in on that and tried to push something on me.

 

[BoDarville]

Re: What type of chlorine should I use?Dont want to increase

...but if I don't use any tabs at all or shock I will probably have to add 5-10 gallons a week just to get me to the end of the season.

I have a 23,000 gallon pool that is in the full hot Texas sunlight for much of the day with a CYA between 30 and 40 and I am using 3-4 gallons a week of 8.25% bleach at the peak of summer. If you are using between 5 and 10 gallons weekly in a 16,000 gallon pool, I suspect there may be something going on in your pool such as a nascent algae or other microbial bloom that hasn't made itself visible yet.

 

[dgliberty101]

Re: What type of chlorine should I use?Dont want to increase

Sorry Everyone. I was only guessing at 5-10 gallons per week. I am used to adding 1-3 bottle of 1 gallon bleach per week, but that was to assist the tabs.

 

[BoDarville]

Re: What type of chlorine should I use?Dont want to increase

3.0 Chlorine (just dumped bleach the night before)
PH 7.6
Alk 80
conditioner - 100
TDS 1400
phosphate 500

Don't worry about phosphates and TDS - both are irrelevant to managing pool water chemistry.
Not sure what "conditioner" is.

pH and TA (Alk) are fine.

FC is dependent on the CYA level, so we cannot tell if 3 ppm is sufficient.

I would agree that my CYA level is probably higher but I didn't do the test so I don't know. The only reason I would suspect it is not too much higher is because the store I go to always try's to sell me something so I would imagine they would have keyed in on that and tried to push something on me.

You have keyed into one of the reasons why we do not recommend pool store testing. In addition to pushing stuff, their results are often inaccurate.

Sooner or later, you will need one of the Recommended Test Kits. The first thing to gain a solid understanding of is the chlorine / CYA relationship. The recommended test kits all contain the CYA test whereas most kits available at the pool store and other retailers do not.

After ordering one of the recommended test kits, I would suggest reading the following articles: ABC's of Pool Water Chemistry, Recommended Pool Chemicals, Chlorine CYA Chart

 

[pwrstrk]

Re: What type of chlorine should I use?Dont want to increase

That conditioner might be the CYA level. Sometimes stabilizer is referred to as conditioner.


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[Donldson]

Re: What type of chlorine should I use?Dont want to increase

Conditioner/Stabilizer/CYA are pretty much interchangeable, at least to the pool stores.

I am going to mimic the previous posters that your CYA is probably higher than 100. Most tests are only accurate to 100 and pool store tests aren't accurate anyway.

My pool is about the same size as yours and I use between 1/3 - 1/2 a gallon of bleach a day, so unless you have a problem that needs SLAMing you will be using less than 5 gallons a week. You probably didn't realize just how little chlorine your tablets were adding a day, it's not much but it was sure upping your CYA over time. The dichlor certainly didn't help, but that's behind you now.

Assuming your CYA is only 100 (again, I think it's higher but that's the number you have) your chlorine level is way too low. At 100 you need to maintain a minimum of 7 ppm, with a target around 12. So it will be difficult to properly maintain your pool until you start replacing some water (and if the CYA is higher it only gets crazier), but you can start by getting your FC above 12. If your next thought is that you can't measure chlorine that high, I already got you covered. There is a link in my signature down there that says test kits, I recommend the TF-100. I trust TF-100 results from someone who has no idea what they are doing far more than I trust pool store results.

You are on your way, just a few adjustments, some minor some major, and you will be looking at a very easy to care for trouble free pool!