I have a 28 ft above ground pool that I purchased in 2018 from Watson's and have successfully used the aqua smart system with no trouble since then. Enter 2024 and I could not get my chlorine levels to balance properly so I took a water sample to Watson's and was told I have chlorine lock. I tried for 2 weeks to resolve it by adding blast and then just granular chlorine but nothing seemed to work so I drained 12 in of water out of my pool, approximately 25% of my total water which I had topped off in may. I typically drain 8 to 10 in at the end of the season when I winterize. Now I cannot get the Dang water balanced. Don't know if the problem might be partially because the neighbor was burning yard waste about 10 ft away from my pool on the other side of the fence. At any rate when I called Watson's to find out what I do now with my fresh water they told me to lower the ph as much as possible and then add chlorine. I no longer trust their advice, I need help. I'm a management major and I'm not good with chemistry or engineering. I just want to enjoy my pool and right now I can't even use it. Please help
Chlorine lock using aqua smart system
- Thread starter tei321
- Start date
Chlorine lock is a bit of a myth in that they have you add chlorine with CYA in it, but the extra CYA means you need more chlorine to santize the water and if you put more chlorine+CYA, the cycle continues out of control. Heres an article explaining it.
The Free Chlorine and Cyanuric Acid Relationship
Managing your cyanuric acid and Free Chlorine levels is key to stabilizing your pool. Learn how these two items affect each other.
www.troublefreepool.com
First step is get your own test kit from here:
Swimming Pool Test Kits Compared
What pool test kit should I buy? Why shouldn't I use test strips? Our recommended test kits will pay for themselves in no time!
www.troublefreepool.com
Post up the test results and we can advise from there. Its not hard.
Just to comment about vendors -
tftestkits.net is run by a member of this forum. Prices are the same, or less, and the kits have been customized to the tests recommended here. It uses all Taylor chems. They are always fresh. The TF-Pro is the best choice, even if it is a bit more expensive than alternatives. Shipping is fast, but not Amazon fast. Shipping is extra.
The Taylor kit K-2006C ("C" is important) is the model number of the kit made by the Taylor company. It does not include the "Smart Stir", which makes testing so much easier.
You can order the K-2006C direct from Taylor, but has been known to take weeks to ship.
You can order the K-2006C from vendors on Amazon. Some Prime. Amazon sources often ship kits with old/very old reagents (they expire a year after being made).
Shop carefully on Amazon, some sellers represent theirs as a K-2006C, but it is not.
The people here have standardized on the above kits. Strips and pool stores are notorious for wildly inaccurate tests - no one will advise based on only that testing. Some other high end kits may be useable, but it is comparing apples to oranges. Hence the standardization on the Taylor products.
tftestkits.net is run by a member of this forum. Prices are the same, or less, and the kits have been customized to the tests recommended here. It uses all Taylor chems. They are always fresh. The TF-Pro is the best choice, even if it is a bit more expensive than alternatives. Shipping is fast, but not Amazon fast. Shipping is extra.
The Taylor kit K-2006C ("C" is important) is the model number of the kit made by the Taylor company. It does not include the "Smart Stir", which makes testing so much easier.
You can order the K-2006C direct from Taylor, but has been known to take weeks to ship.
You can order the K-2006C from vendors on Amazon. Some Prime. Amazon sources often ship kits with old/very old reagents (they expire a year after being made).
Shop carefully on Amazon, some sellers represent theirs as a K-2006C, but it is not.
The people here have standardized on the above kits. Strips and pool stores are notorious for wildly inaccurate tests - no one will advise based on only that testing. Some other high end kits may be useable, but it is comparing apples to oranges. Hence the standardization on the Taylor products.
I did a lot of reading yesterday on the Forum and I ordered a TF Pro kit from the TF net website yesterday. The Watson's store where I bought my pool uses test strips to test the water just like the ones that they sold me. Once I get the kit I will do with the testing and post the results. In the meantime I think I'm going to go down and pull out the aqua smart system because I think that part of it is what's releasing the cya and I don't need any more of that in my water right now. And I really looked at it the neighbors burning of yard waste is actually about 50 yards from my pool but Ash was dropping in the water while we were swimming. It's illegal to burn yard waste in my city but I didn't want to be a Karen and call the cops on my neighbors. Thank you for the reply!
Oh and they base their diagnosis of chlorine locks solely on the tester results for chlorine. The cya reading on the test strip actually showed below normal every time
That seems...... unlikely...... Either the chlorine is there or it is not. If it is there but the CYA is too high for it to be effective, it will not sanitize. Once can have a very high chlorine reading and still have issues if the CYA is abnormally high. There is a real verifiable relationship between CYA and chlorine, looking at one number does not tell the true story.
In your scenario, the only reason to lower the water and replace was because the CYA was too high.
My test kit came yesterday so I'm trying to figure out how to use it so I can do the analysis and post results. Really wish I had not emptied 12 in of water out of my pool earlier this week based on pool store advice.....
Chlorine lock is a bit of a myth in that they have you add chlorine with CYA in it, but the extra CYA means you need more chlorine to santize the water and if you put more chlorine+CYA, the cycle continues out of control. Heres an article explaining it.
The Free Chlorine and Cyanuric Acid Relationship
Managing your cyanuric acid and Free Chlorine levels is key to stabilizing your pool. Learn how these two items affect each other.
First step is get your own test kit from here:
Swimming Pool Test Kits Compared
What pool test kit should I buy? Why shouldn't I use test strips? Our recommended test kits will pay for themselves in no time!
Post up the test results and we can advise from there. Its not hard.
Attachments
While I was waiting for the test kit to come I left my Aqua smart system in place to keep from getting algae in the pool. I'm now wondering if I should take out the chlorine tablet dispenser and the Water Conditioner that is inside the system. I'm suspecting that is what is making my cya levels too high. At this point I'm not sure what to do because my combined chloramines reading is 2.5. I plugged all this into the pool math app but I'm still trying to figure out how to use that also. Took me over an hour to complete the Chemical Testing cuz I had to redo several of them multiple times because the chemical drops came out more quickly than I expected
I have removed all parts of the aqua smart chemical system and I added 4 lb of borax for the pH which is 2/3 of the recommended amount. I also added 77 oz of 10% strength chlorine which was recommended by pool math
The only thing you needed was chlorine. pH will rise on its own, and a pH of 7.2 is just fine. Any pH that starts with a “7” is fine.
Only thing I’d check is the calcium level now. Once you get the testing practice, it’ll take 10 minutes tops.
Whats holding you up in poolmath? Essentially just click the big + button and log test results. Clicking the “home” button shows all the current results. And if you click the little gear icon at the top and scroll way down to the bottom, theres a button that shares the results on this forum.
Your CYA is on the high side, but not out of recommended range. Just aim to keep your FC level in the 7-9 range adding the liquid as needed when it drops below 7. That may mean a little bit each day, depending on sun, pool use, etc. With your CYA level, and the need for higher FC, the range is too high for the color comparison method.
Do the powder/drop test with the added step for CC instead.
Let us know the results for both steps.
You note there is no visible algae, so that is good. The CC test will help flag whether additional testing (an Overnight Chlorine Loss Test) is needed to nip algae in the bud, or not.
Lowering your CYA by replacing more water will move your FC target down - but the pool will still need the same amount of Cl added due to daily losses, so not a number that needs to be concerned about at the current level.
Do the powder/drop test with the added step for CC instead.
Let us know the results for both steps.
You note there is no visible algae, so that is good. The CC test will help flag whether additional testing (an Overnight Chlorine Loss Test) is needed to nip algae in the bud, or not.
Lowering your CYA by replacing more water will move your FC target down - but the pool will still need the same amount of Cl added due to daily losses, so not a number that needs to be concerned about at the current level.
- Jun 24, 2021
- 15,883
- Pool Size
- 29000
- Surface
- Vinyl
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- CircuPool RJ-60 Plus
Same pool and same daily conditions, one with CYA of 30 and one with CYA of 60, the pool with CYA of 30 will have higher FC demand and will use more chlorine.
Thanks for correcting - I learned something today!
Since I have an above ground pool with a vinyl liner I didn't think I needed to test for calcium.
True, not routinely. You should test once, just to get an idea of where you are at. Unless extremely high, usually no need to think about it after that test.
If you have a heater or SWCG you’ll want to test that once in a while.