Baqua to Chlorine conversion with cya of 40.

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My observation is that it always creates cloudy water; the only question is how long the water stays cloudy.

Soda ash milky water

I opened my pool last Monday and after a few the water was a bit cloudy. PH was around 6.4 so last Friday I added around 176oz of soda ash diluted in water but all at once. Rookie mistake water got cloudy and PH and TA rapidly increased which Ive later managed to lower to normal levels using...
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I was nervous to cloudy up the crystal clear water so I only added a pound. Raised the TA by 10 points, no noticeable change on the pH due to it still being off the scale low. I bought some baking soda today. I think I will try a few pounds of that instead of anymore the stuff I found in the shed.
 
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As soon as your TA gets to 60ppm, stop and give the pool time to aerate (have the kids do some cannonballs). Then see how the pH reacts.
 
Using the "slow and steady wins the race" method of approach over the past few days, I have added a total of 1lb sodium carbonate that I found in the shed, and 4lbs of sodium bicarbonate from the grocery store.

The weather hasn't been nice enough to get in the pool for aeration, so I held a pool noodle on the return for quite a while which created a lot of splashing. I also did a lot of brushing and vacuuming to help with the aeration. The TA is currently at 60, and the PH has increased to 6.8, possibly 7.0. Should I add more baking soda or sodium carbonate or wait a few days? The water has remained exceptionally clear.

I've removed the solar cover for the day today - it is overcast and rainy.

I still seem to be having trouble holding chlorine throughout the daylight hours. My overnight chlorine loss tests have consistently been .5 or 0. CYA level is 40-50. There are no visual signs of any organic material in the pool and the filter media has been changed with 250lbs of new pool store sand.
 
Uckybay said:
The TA is currently at 60, and the PH has increased to 6.8, possibly 7.0. Should I add more baking soda or sodium carbonate or wait a few days?
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As Matt said above.
JoyfulNoise said:
As soon as your TA gets to 60ppm, stop and give the pool time to aerate (have the kids do some cannonballs). Then see how the pH reacts.
Click to expand...
 
Uckybay said:
Using the "slow and steady wins the race" method of approach over the past few days, I have added a total of 1lb sodium carbonate that I found in the shed, and 4lbs of sodium bicarbonate from the grocery store.

The weather hasn't been nice enough to get in the pool for aeration, so I held a pool noodle on the return for quite a while which created a lot of splashing. I also did a lot of brushing and vacuuming to help with the aeration. The TA is currently at 60, and the PH has increased to 6.8, possibly 7.0. Should I add more baking soda or sodium carbonate or wait a few days? The water has remained exceptionally clear.

I've removed the solar cover for the day today - it is overcast and rainy.

I still seem to be having trouble holding chlorine throughout the daylight hours. My overnight chlorine loss tests have consistently been .5 or 0. CYA level is 40-50. There are no visual signs of any organic material in the pool and the filter media has been changed with 250lbs of new pool store sand.
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Chlorine is consumed daily & must be replaced- it’s not going to “hold” - what are your average losses?
 
Mdragger88 said:
Chlorine is consumed daily & must be replaced- it’s not going to “hold” - what are your average losses?
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For instance, I'll get the chlorine to 5 at 8pm, at 5am, it's still 4.5 or 5. By 3pm, it's 0. If that is normal, I'm fine with that. I was under the assumption it would be used up a little slower, that is all.
 
You’re trying to keep fc too low & falling below minimum for your cya of 50
FC/CYA Levels
This is a recipe for algae.
IMG_6374.jpeg
Instead dose to high target & replenish before you get near minimum.
Average fc loss in an algae free pool is 2-5ppm per day depending upon the season & uv etc. generally towards the higher end in the dog days of summer & the lower end in the shoulder seasons.
 
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Thanks. Can chlorine lose its potency in the jug? The last several jugs I bought had a white lid and a date of 2022. Most of the jugs I used during the conversation had a blue lid with a date of 2023. I bought and used all of the blue lid 2023 chlorine they had on the shelf. All that is left is the 2022 stuff.
 

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I am still having an issue with the daytime chlorine loss. I did another OCLT last night and lost 0 chlorine between 830pm and 5am. I've quadruple checked my CYA and have added a total of 6 pounds of it. My CYA view tube is showing 40-50. When the sun came out today, all chlorine in the pool was gone in about 4 hours. My CYA level in the view tube looked a little less today than yesterday, but some of that is left to interpretation, the angle of the sun, and if I've had a beer or seven.

What gives? I don't understand why I can't keep any chlorine in the pool during the day. I dumped another gallon in at 2pm and it was gone by 4pm when I checked. It might have been gone quicker than that, but I waited 2 hours to check.

Could there be some risudual something left over from the baquacil cdx that is preventing the chlorine from binding with the CYA?
 
JoyfulNoise said:
You used lots CDX product in your pool, correct?
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There was a lot of CDX put in this pool last year, and the year before that. We had a lot of rain last summer and I had to keep buying the expensive Crud so it could be put in there to replace what was lost every time we had to lower the water level. I refused to buy it again this year, decided to switch it to chlorine, and was quickly appointed to the head position of my family's pool caretaker, since it was my idea. If I don't get this figured out, I'm going to be haunted with "I told you so"'s forever 🙄.
 
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Uckybay said:
There was a lot of CDX put in this pool last year, and the year before that. We had a lot of rain last summer and I had to keep buying the expensive Crud so it could be put in there to replace what was lost every time we had to lower the water level. I refused to buy it again this year, decided to switch it to chlorine, and was quickly appointed to the head position of my family's pool caretaker, since it was my idea. If I don't get this figured out, I'm going to be haunted with "I told you so"'s forever 🙄.
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The primary ingredient in CDX is an adjunct sanitizer that contains bromine. Your pool water is likely contaminated with a lot of spent bromide ion (Br-). When you add chlorine to the pool, the bromide gets oxidized to sanitizing bromine … great! … but unlike chlorine, bromine can not be stabilized by CYA against UV loss. So what you basically have is a pool with an unstabilized sanitizer in it. The UV light from the sun is essentially eating up all the sanitizer. You test kit is seeing the sanitizer (because both bromine and chlorine are detected by DPD), but the it’s half life from UV loss is about 40mins or so.

Sorry, but this is why Baquacil in general, and CDX in particular, is such a nightmare to deal with. Your only realistic option tMia to exchange drain the pool and get rid of as much of the contaminated water as possible. Either that, or your just going to have to ride it out with high chlorine consumption until you close the pool and you can drain it and refill it with winter precipitation.
 
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