CH dropping in a Cal Hypo pool

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Sabin4157

In The Industry
May 17, 2024
2
New York
Good evening, I'm looking for help because I'm stumped. I just started working at a new pool and I'm responsible for guards, pool and pump room upkeep. I have worked in the aquatic industry for awhile and have never seen these issues before. The pool is 150k gallons with accutab feeder and what I am told are cal hypo tablets (more on that later). The management has, from what I have been told (and for the past couple of years) decided to also use stabilizer even though it is a commercial pool because they claim that they cannot feed chlorine into the pool fast enough during hot weather otherwise. CH is falling (tested by Taylor kit) and my predecessor says that they needed to add calcium chloride on a regular basis to keep CH up. The pool also goes though, on average, about 9 gallons of Muriatic Acid a day. Alkalinity also drops fast enough that a bag of bicarb needs to be added about every two days to stay around 80.

Now, we have about 8 50lb buckets of chlorine that have been purchased and delivered. The invoice states that they are cal hypo, but the buckets have no labels, chemical identification, or markings. Any ideas on how to determine if I'm working with a quality chlorine, if labels on chemicals are required, or why the pool is eating though chemicals at the rate it is?
 
Shut your autofill supply line off and monitor the pool level.
Let us know your water loss every 24 hours.
 
Sabin4157 said:
I've thought about that. The cover has only been off for about a week, and the pool is not being used yet but I have not noticed the autofill running that consistently. I'll have to monitor.
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It’s really the only possibility. Calcium doesn’t leave the water with evaporation or chemical processes other than scaling which would be obvious.

What’s your rate of tablet consumption? Cal-hypo is notorious for clogging feeders.

I’d want to check the pH of the fill water to see if it’s the source of the pH rise
 
Have you tested CYA? Any chance that these tablets are actually Trichlor?

Honestly, selling unlabelled chlorine tabs is in my eyes a "go straight to jail" card. This is bloody irresponsible and could cause a huge catastrophe.
 
The supplier has to provide MSDS sheets with the chemical delivery in commercial applications. Call them and press them for the info. Unlabeled buckets sounds sketchy. How were the chems purchased? Did some staffer just go get them somewhere? Accu tab is designed for cal hypo. I concur it sounds like you have a massive leak. It’s the only explanation for the chem use/loss in the short time period. As for CYA is this an outdoor pool? If so run 30 ppm. It’s common to run CYA in a commercial outdoor pool, however the range must be kept below certain thresholds to satisfy both health codes and prevent and interference if you’re using probes to monitor and deliver chemicals. Check your local health codes for maximum allowable CYA and frequency of testing/logging required.

Edited to add…and John is correct…check the cal hypo feeder to ensure it’s Venturi’s and screens are clean. The sludge the tabs leave behind will clog feeders if not regularly maintained (i.e. weekly) which would cause chlorine delivery issues.
 
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