Believe CYA is high. Hayward DE pumps goes to high pressure after hour

Jump to latest Follow Reply
S

SmokeLawn

0
May 23, 2015
11
Chicago, IL
Good morning !

Recently moved in to a new house (well, new to me) and it has a pool. Went online to figure out how to take care of it. Think I'm on the right track but think I'm screwed from the previous owner. I've purchased a Taylor 2006 and am trying to use the BBB method. First test the night before the guys came out:

Night of the Thursday 21st:
FC: 0
CC: 1
PH: 7.4
ALK: 130
CYA: 100+ !!!

But the water has been stagnant for probably 7 months. Was hoping CYA was high due to just being cloudy from "stuff"

The guys came out to open the pool yesterday and to get everything un-winterized. The serviceman said he's been coming here for years and the previous owner was very meticulous about upkeep. Great ! I had already purchased bleach, borax, muriatic acid, baking soda, etc. I waited until the pumps were working before testing as the pool looked to be in good shape (though very cloudy). Added Liquid Chlorine to pool based on pool calculator. First test about an hour after pumps started and bleach added (morning of Friday 22nd):

FC: 10
CC: .5
PH: 8
ALK: 120
CYA: 100+

Then in the afternoon, the pump would stop after about an hour. Pressure would get high and think it would shut itself down (25ish PSI). Burping it got me about another hour. It is a Hayward Perflex DE filter and not knowing the last time since it had been rebuilt, decided to clean it out and start from scratch. Cleaned with muriatic acid and put back in to service late Friday 22nd. Let pump run about 1.5 hours and PSI was around 17 PSI. Thought I was now good so took another test (late Friday 22nd):

FC: 1
CC: 1
PH: 7.8

Add liquid chlorine to bring back up to shock (since off the chart, went with CYA of 150) water still cloudy since couldn't get extended run time on the filter. Still hoping that the pool being cloudy was making the CYA high.

Woke up about 4 hours later just before day break.

FC: 22.5
CC: 1
PH: 8.0+

But at some point again, the filter stopped and looks like it was closer to when I went to bed than when I woke up. Didn't bother with CYA since you don't get that many tests in the Taylor 2006.

So, appear to be in a holding pattern as I can't get the contaminants out. The PSI appears to get around 27 and it semi-shuts down the system. A burp gets me back well under 20 PSI.

There is an auto-chlorinator which I'm not using (but assume is the reason why I have a high CYA from the previous owner).

Should I assume that:
I have a high CYA (and have to drain/refill at the same time (vinyl)
Even though FC is high, it is not effective against algae (because of CYA)
Filter "stopping" is because it is clearing out high amounts of algae

Thanks for any input. Greatly appreciated!
 
Welcome Smokelawn, i'm sure others will be along later, but i can chime in to agree with your assumptions, and to suggest that to try to estimate CYA over 100, do a dilution of 1/2 pool water, with 1/2 tap water (which has 0 CYA by default). Then multiply the result of testing the diluted water by 2.

p.s. and use PoolMath http://www.troublefreepool.com/calc.html to calculate how much muriatic acid you need to get your pH into the mid-7's. since you arent sure of your pool volume, add 1/2 the amount and see where that gets you, then add more if needed so that you don't overshoot the mark
 
Should I assume that:
I have a high CYA (and have to drain/refill at the same time (vinyl)
Even though FC is high, it is not effective against algae (because of CYA)
Filter "stopping" is because it is clearing out high amounts of algae
Click to expand...
I agree all those premises are correct.

Drain/refill first to get your pool to 40-50 ppm CYA.

Next, SLAM the pool. Your target FC will be arounf 25 or so and then Hold that until your pool is crystal clear.

Backwash that DE filter. I am not a DE filter expert, but I don't think the bump is adequate to clean your filter......backwash and recharge each time.
 
As chance would happen I just acid washed my Hayward Perflex EC75 yesterday as well, the good thing about DE filters is that they do a good job filtering out dead algae, of course that means bumping them every hour or so, and backwashing every few hours when the DE gets past the bump cleaning point. This is better than those with sand filters spending weeks clearing dead algae in my opinion though. As for what to do I would go ahead and tackle the high CYA, no sense fighting it all summer, now it the time to get it out of the way.
 
poolnoob.ca said:
Welcome Smokelawn, i'm sure others will be along later, but i can chime in to agree with your assumptions, and to suggest that to try to estimate CYA over 100, do a dilution of 1/2 pool water, with 1/2 tap water (which has 0 CYA by default). Then multiply the result of testing the diluted water by 2.

p.s. and use PoolMath http://www.troublefreepool.com/calc.html to calculate how much muriatic acid you need to get your pH into the mid-7's. since you arent sure of your pool volume, add 1/2 the amount and see where that gets you, then add more if needed so that you don't overshoot the mark
Click to expand...

Everyone, thank you for the responses. As I feared, it sounds like I will need to drain a portion of the pool. @Poolnoob.ca, great suggestion with 50/50% solution to figure out an accurate level. CYA ended up being around 140.

Went to the dreaded Leslie's to look up if they had CYA regent to replace for Taylor's 2006 kit. I came across this product. It has high reviews. Can anyone comment on it before I start the dumping process??
http://www.lesliespool.com/bio-acti...d-reducer/bio-active.htm?suggest=cya%20regent

Once again, greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time.
 
There are several ongoing threads about Bioactive, it s a new product, and so far results from people testing it have been less than stellar, look in the deep end section of the forum for these threads. In general if it does anything at all results tend to be maybe a 20 ppm reduction in 100+ ppm CYA levels which is within the margin of error of the test.

p.s. here is one of the threads on the topic http://www.troublefreepool.com/threads/90838-Bio-Active-CYA-Reducer-trial there are others doing testing too like http://www.troublefreepool.com/threads/90994-Underwhelmed-by-Bio-Active-CYA-reducer or http://www.troublefreepool.com/threads/93134-BORJIS-Bio-Active-cya-reducer-trial
 
UPDATE: never purchased any BioActive. Continued to run filter. I drained about a foot while refilling. Let it refill to normal height. Drained again about a foot while refilling. Refilled to normal height. Took these results this morning:
FC: .5
CC: 0
Ph: 7.0 (since low chlorine)
For CYA, I did half pool water and half tap water. Added regent. Clear all the way to the top. No loss of dot at all. So, since using half tap, 0x2 = 0 CYA.

Does this make sense? I know, trust the results. But do these results make sense?

Thanks again for any input!
 

Enjoying this content?

Support TFP with a donation.

Give Support
Ran CYA test from other end of the pool at full strength. CYA was at 40. Not sure of the accuracy of the "dot test" ... I mean I can very slightly see the dot at about 50 and it officially disappears at 40. I'll have to do another test to compare the results but it seems as the drain/refill was very very effective. Hopefully time to move on to SLAM ?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Thread Status
Hello , This thread has been inactive for over 60 days. New postings here are unlikely to be seen or responded to by other members. For better visibility, consider Starting A New Thread.
Top Bottom
Back
Jump to latest Follow Reply