New Florida Home - Part time resident - High CYA plan

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Ed Buell

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LifeTime Supporter
Apr 12, 2014
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Venice Florida
We have recently purchased a home in Venice Florida that has a nice pool. The previous owner for 18 years maintained the pool himself. Since I am only there part time I have not choice but to use a pool service to maintain the pool when we're up north.

We were there for about 2 1/2 months and the pool has been great. The pool service works the pool every week and all has been well.
I had a couple free tests run by the local Leslies pool store and bought a simple kit and some strips to try to learn what the whole pool thing is about.

The CYA is around 100 or maybe a bit higher. I guess based on chemicals left behind that the owner used table in a auto chlorine system for years and thus
drove the CYA up over time. I have the service using only liquid chlorine now to prevent adding any more CYA to the mix.

I don't want to do a major drain, because we are going to be there for just a few days in May. But I'd like to start taking some action.

I'm considering a 15-20% drain (about 2000 of 12000 gallons) so that I can keep the chemistry under control since my daughter and the grand kids are coming
that week.

I'm hoping that that I can see an effect and then next winter I can run a couple more cycles and gradually reduce the CYA without getting into any
major chemistry cycling disasters.

I'm looking at a TFT100 test kit so I can see whats going on.

I did notice significant differances between a couple samples run at the pool store a couple days apart. since I'm an engineer I begin to doubt the whole
testing thing since they use similar test methods to those in the kits.

anyway.......Is this a viable plan?

Help for the newbie please.

Ed Buell
 
Welcome to the forum! :wave:

Ed Buell said:
I'm looking at a TFT100 test kit so I can see whats going on.
Click to expand...
Before doing any partial drain & refills, going ahead and ordering this kit should be your first move. If you're like most, you will likely get your kit within 2-3 days of ordering. The CYA test is a bit subjective and requires proper lighting to view the results. By "proper lighting", I mean in bright sunlight which is considerably brighter than inside a pool store. When I got my TF-100, I ran the full suite of tests. Then, for grins, I took the same water sample a mile down the road to the nearest pool store. Most of their results were in-line with mine except for the CYA test. My result was 40 ppm and theirs was 80 ppm. I knew mine was right since I was dosing chlorine based on a CYA of 40 and had crystal clear water. Time continued to prove that my results were correct. Many other members have reported similar experiences. If I had trusted the pool store reading, I would have needlessly dumped about a third of my water. While waiting for your kit, I would read this: http://www.troublefreepool.com/threads/24188-Extended-Test-Kit-Directions. The CYA test is described in more detail about half-way down this page.

Ed Buell said:
The CYA is around 100 or maybe a bit higher.
Click to expand...
Could be much higher since the highest reading on the view tube is 100 ppm, meaning a result higher than that will appear as "100" when using the standard way of performing the CYA test. There are ways to run this test that involve a 50/50 mix of pool water & tap water to determine if the level is higher than 100 as described in the Extended Test Kit Directions link. You will not know for sure until you run a test (using 100% pool water and a 50/50 mix of pool/tap water if the result of your test using 100% pool water is over 90 ppm) and view the results in bright sunlight as described in the Extended Test Kit Directions post I referenced above.
 
I understand your initial reluctance on the major drain but I am not sure I understand why. (it is not expensive as many think...probably about $6/1000g in FL)

A partial drain will give you partial results. Bringing that CYA down to around 50 ppm will give you smooth sailing from there on out.
 
The problem is, even if you lower the CYA, the pool company may intentionally raise it back up. Service companies do not follow our recommendations because they do not work when the pool is only visited once a week. That is why they run a higher CYA. The service company I had previously had my CYA up around 300 when I took over (with a huge water change).
 
I have no choice but to have the pool service since I'm not there most of the time. I will order the test kit and will be in Florida the first week in May to get good test results. We've have good clear water for the 5 months
we;ve owner the house so while I'm interested in getting the CYA down. I' don't think there is any panic need to do so.

I guess we'll see

thanks for all the good dope on the site. I've learned a lot although I started with no knowledge at all.

ed
 
Well we arrived back in Florida today. I got my T-100 kit so off we go.
I ran the tests today.
CL 12 cc 0 calcium 500 alk 100 cya >100 ran diluted test got 80 so Its around 160 or so.

SO I am pressing on to start reducing the CYA. I'm pumping down somewhere around 35% of the pool. I know the pool math would go much further, but I need to get it refilled and back close
to spec in a couple days so we can heat it up before the grandgirls arrive Friday.

I estimate that this pool is really around 7500 gal not the 12000 that the previous owner had been using for tests. I'm taking out around 2500. and will begin the refill in a couple hours.

I expect that the cl will still be OK, . I have no idea what the city water ph is and don't have time to test it. But will deal with the pH at the local pool store when it gets refilled and circulated.
 
So....Heres the results
I drained and refilled 3100 gallons or about 33% of the pool

CL was 12 now 3
CH was 500 now 475
TA was 100 now 60
CYA was high now around 80.

CYA went down more than I expected, but some of that may be due to measurement error at the high level belore
CH didn't go down as much as I expected. Next time will get some more.

So off to the groc and pool store to get cl, baking soda and borax per the pool math recommendations.

Any ideas beyond that please post.

Ed Buell again thanks for all the help as I try to figure out this pool thing.
 

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The pH was low and pool math wanted a small add.

Did those adds and go
pH 7.5
cl 6.5
TA 90

ran pool math again and just made a second small
add of cl and baking soda.

I did take a sample to my local pool store. They had pretty similar results, but made no note
about the 3 PPM cl being low for the higher CYA

Anyway I followed the poolmath recommendations.

So......It seems that this process went very well. I got the results I wanted and the
pool looks like its in great shape again.

The whole deal cost about $25 on my water bill next month for the 3000 gallons of water
and 35 bucks for the chemicals. and it took about 24 hours.

I was afraid of chemical hunt afterwards..........but it didn't occur.

The T-100 kits works great.

thanks for the encouragement and info.

I will run the drill again when I return to
Florida in the fall and try to get the CYA down around 50 with another 2500 gallon drain and fill




I pl
 
I failed to report the pH.
pH was 7.3

so pool math had adds for cl, borax and baking soda.

did first round.

pH 7.5
cl 6.5
TA 90

just made a second round of small adds based on pool math

Everything seems to be working fine.

This whole round of work to reduce the CYA was successful.
Cost $25 for water next month.
$35 for chemicals.

On the whole my fears of cycling chemistry following the drain / fill were
unfounded.

24 hours later it appears that all is well and I have made
a significant advance in the CYA situation.

I will run another round this fall when i return to Fl or around
2500 gallons and that should get CYA down less than 50.

Thanks for the encouragement and info.

I had no idea what I was doing when I arrived here in January.

I'm much more confident now.

Ed Buell...................smiling in Florida
 
Did you set the desired Target numbers? You should not just use the defaults.
Like I said, there was no reason to raise the TA that high ... that is just going to result in your pH rising faster.
 
Well we have returned to florida. I found that my pool guys was a little lax. But there also had been a terrific amount of rain.
pH was around 7, FC was 6.5 and the pool seems clear and clean, calcium was 200 and the CYA was about as I left it at 80.
So I plan to make another drain and refill to dispense with the high CYA.

Made adds to CL and pH.

Did the drain. Did about 40% of the pool.
 
AFtermath report
CYA now 20............what's with that.

Anyway
did adds for FC, pH, TA and .....who knew a reasonable stabilizer......
I started this whole thing to lower CYA and now I'm adding Oh Well

- - - Updated - - -

The CYA is now 40............

tweaked everything else yesterday.

added CaCl today to bring up the Ca hardness but all else looks well.

clear,,, clean........

thanks for the forum for the info and encouragement to work this on my own.

Ed
 
I am guessing that one or the other of the CYA test had some user error as the 80 to 20 drop does not make sense with a 40% drain.

Glad to here the pool seems to be in good shape :goodjob:
 
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