baffled CYA

[RickyB]

50000 gal in ground plaster pool.3'6" on each end to 5" in center.

July 2nd CYA 71ppm.drained pool half way.cleared up.July 8th CYA 80.drained 2/3rds pool.cleared up.today

July 13th CYA 80.[Language Edit: Butterfly].use 3 inch trichlor tablets plus granulated as needed.

Chlorine upper end of 3. PH 7.2. Alk 110

what am i doing wrong. apartments. smaller pool 22000 gal looks great. 10 feet apart. hot tub in between looks great.

Central Texas.Temps triple digits 3 weeks.

water tested at certified pool supply house and confirmed with test strips onsite.

Edited for line breaks. Butterfly

 

[reebok]

sounds like you're adding "shock" garbage that has cya in it. your pool is big so you add a lot and boom there goes your cya. the trichlor tabs don't help either.
I recommend you read everything in pool-school/ particularly water chemistry and getting started.

 

[JasonLion]

Test strips are totally unreliable for measuring CYA, and I wouldn't put much trust in the pool supply house test results either. Get a real test kit, so you can know what your CYA level actually is.

 

[duraleigh]

Hi, Ricky,

water tested at certified pool supply house and confirmed with test strips onsite.

That would be the first thing I would clear up. I'm not sure what a "certified pool house" is but pool store almost never test as accurately as you will with a good kit.....but ditch the strips they're worthless.

Yes, I have a dog in the fight because I sell a test kit but, honestly, either mine or the Taylor K-2006 will do more to clear up the confusion and teach you about your water than any other money you will ever spend....that's a promise.

PS - add a little spacing in your text....it's hard to read.

 

[RickyB]

this pool has 2 sand filters.I have taken care of this pool for 4 years and have never had this problem.I have my own test kit.checked CYA this morning and it is still going up.sitting at 90ppm.have not added anything since saturday and then only chlorine granules with no CYA added.help

 

[reebok]

what test kit do you have? how old is it? can you write out the entire process to check for cya?

 

[frustratedpoolmom]

this pool has 2 sand filters.I have taken care of this pool for 4 years and have never had this problem.I have my own test kit.checked CYA this morning and it is still going up.sitting at 90ppm.have not added anything since saturday and then only chlorine granules with no CYA added.help

What kind of chlorine granules are they? Can you list the active ingredient?

If you're testing with strips, they aren't reliable for CYA levels...not even close.

 

[duraleigh]

CYA can only go up in a pool if you are adding it or your tests are in error. It cannot go up on it's own.

 

[RickyB]

checked it 3 times with test kit.it HAS gone up.AquaGuard chlorinating granules.Maintenance supervisor here yesterday.30 years experience with pools.he is baffled.

 

[reebok]

what test kit do you have? how old is it? can you write out the entire process to check for cya?

also, ingredients of granules?

 

[Kathy3232]

I'm going to venture to guess you're adding CYA without realizeing it. If you're using trichlor or dichlor or cal hypo, I'm pretty sure those all add to CYA. The only one that doesn't is straight liquid chlorine.

**Correct me if I'm wrong those who know more.

 

[JasonLion]

Cal-hypo, usually sold as a powder, not granules, doesn't add any CYA. It would be interesting to know the product name and/or ingredients in these chlorine granules.

The trichlor is adding CYA obviously, but it wouldn't add CYA any where near quickly enough to cause the readings being reported. But if the pool is being shocked with dichlor, that could account for it. Still it would need to be a fairly large amount of dichlor.

 

[Marillion Fan]

checked it 3 times with test kit.it HAS gone up.AquaGuard chlorinating granules.Maintenance supervisor here yesterday.30 years experience with pools.he is baffled.

He said it was this. :-D

 

[Guest]

.AquaGuard chlorinating granules.Maintenance supervisor here yesterday.30 years experience with pools.he is baffled.

Aquaguard chlorinating granules (Chen Lab Products, Inc. also known as Kem-Tek) are dichlor which adds 9 ppm CYA for every 10 ppm FC. Read your ingredients! Edited for politeness. JasonLion

this pool has 2 sand filters.I have taken care of this pool for 4 years and have never had this problem.I have my own test kit.checked CYA this morning and it is still going up.sitting at 90ppm.have not added anything since saturday and then only chlorine granules with no CYA added.help

I think you might want to retract that last statement and learn a bit more about chlorine sources. Both dichlor and trichlor are chemicals made from chlorine and CYA and once the chlorine is used up the CYA remains. It's no mystery why the CYA is rising...you keep putting it in with the combined use of trichlor and dichlor!

 

[Guest]

Ditto on the need for a decent test kit.
For kicks, I tried some test strips alongside my Taylor..THE CYA is the most inaccurate of all the tests.
earlier this spring, my CYA was around 60. The test kits showed it to be closer to 30.

It's pure guesswork with those test strips. They are okay for measuring normal levels of free chlorine and that's about it.

 

[frustratedpoolmom]

My strips back in the day said 30-50 and in reality my CYA was well over 100.