Too much Chlorine in the water.

[samhahn]

CYA - 120
TA - 120
pH - 7.2
FC - 10
TC - 10
CH - 220

I was wandering why my eyes would turn red after a long swim session. The thing is
I only have automatic chlorinator and little duck floater. I figure the scorchin sun here
in central CA would burn off chlorine but it doesn't look that way. If I were to turn off
chlorinator take out the floater for a few days, would that help lower the concentration
of FC/TC without causing any out break of algae? I was also thinking about adding
borate into the pool. Should I take care of Cl prob first before adding borate or shouldn't
matter?

On and this is slightly off topic but anyone have any insect larvae under the pool?
I have no problem removing insects floating onthe top but those larvae are all found
at the bottom and my suction type cleaner only "kicks" it and make it float temporarily
and doesn't suction them and kinda annoying removing them. And I clean them
pretty oftern there are a few new ones every day.

 

[Hotrod30]

To start with, your CYA is way to high. How did you get that reading? What are you using to chlorinate your pool?

Here is the chlorine to CYA chart.

category/pool-school/chlorine_cya_chart_shock


As for the larvae, your vacuum should get them. Also, using the pool will get the stuff moving around so your filter should pick up some. Vacuum and a leaf net.

 

[chem geek]

Your eyes most likely turn red due to the lower pH of 7.2 and not due to the high FC of 10 (assuming it's really 10 and not more than that) because your CYA level is high at 120. I suspect you are using Trichlor pucks/tablets -- these will increase CYA over time fairly rapidly. For every 10 ppm FC added by Trichlor, they will also increase CYA by 6 ppm. CYA reduces chlorine's effectiveness. In manually dosed pools, you usually want around 30-50 ppm CYA though in very sunny climates one might go higher but not above 80 ppm.

As was noted in the previous post, you need to lower your CYA level so first switch to an unstabilized source of chlorine such as 6% unscented bleach or 10%/12.5% chlorinating liquid. If you don't already have one, you should get a good test kit, either the Taylor K-2006 you can get at a good online price here or the TF100 kit from tftestkits.com here with the latter kit having 36% more volume of reagents so is comparably priced "per test". If you already have a drop-based test for everything except chlorine, then you can just get the Taylor K-1515-A FAS-DPD chlorine test here or the even better value from tftestkits.com here.

Richard

 

[samhahn]

According to pool calc, I need to replace more than half the pool water with fresh water in order to get to CYA of 50 ppm. Is there any other way besides replacing water to lower CYA? So at this point in time, just concentrate on lowering CYA and work on adding borate later?

 

[chem geek]

You don't have to do the single large drain/refill to get the CYA down all at once. You can do it a little at a time, over time. You just need to keep the FC level up to prevent algae growth and you need to stop using the stabilized chlorine so you don't keep increasing the CYA level. You can do the Borates anytime you want -- it's really independent of the CYA level and if anything will act as a supplemental algaecide. You should, however, have a FAS-DPD chlorine test kit so you can accurately determine your high FC levels; in the meantime you can use the test dilution method to approximate the FC using a DPD test (assuming that is what you currently have).

 

[frustratedpoolmom]

Since you will be replacing 50% of your water over a series of drains, IMHO I would wait to do the borates, since much could be lost thru the water replacement. I second the advice on a good test kit!

Since you are in a sunny locale, I would shoot to lower your CYA to 60-70 and then it will be much more manageable. I lowered my CYA from 110, to 70 last summer, and then when I opened in May I lowered it again to 40. Now, because of rainwater and splashout, it's down to 25 and it looks like I'll actually be adding some, LOL. So if you get it down to 60-70, you may see it drift lower over time from rainwater and splashout. So no need to get it down to 50 all at once....if that makes sense?

Using liquid chlorine, and not using the pucks/chlorinator you should see your water start to stabilize. The pucks are acidic and lower your PH. So your PH will get better, and you won't get the red eyes you're getting now....

Good luck!