Frequency of CYA addition

[Dmanderson21]

hi everyone - I am in to my first summer of pool ownership and wondering what is normal with respect to frequency of stabilizer addition?

I built the pool in October of last year and the PB loaded me up to 60ppm. Since then I was letting the number come down over the winter. In mid-May I noticed chlorine was burning off quicker with the increased temperature and tested my CYA to be about 30. I added stabilizer to get it up to 50 and within a month I'm back down to about 30.

We've had an uptick in pool usage, temperature here is hitting mid 90s, full sun on the pool most of the day and we've had several strong thunderstorms so I'm not surprised about the decline - just curious if I should expect to add stabilizer every month during summer here in Houston (give or take a week or so depending on weather variations)?

 

[jaduck]

Are you testing with the K2006?

 

[Dmanderson21]

Yes

 

[jaduck]

Are you replacing much water, splash out, backwashing, etc?

 

[Dmanderson21]

We've seen increased usage of the pool given the temps and have two small girls so splashing is definitely occurring. We've had rain too. I guess I'm not surprised by the drop given conditions. I'm just curious if, when rolling that all together over the hot Houston summers, I can expect to add monthly or so

 

[jaduck]

I would think that adding 20 ppm a month would be a bit much...but with extra splash out/backwashing and heavy thunderstorms may be causing the decrease, hopefully it is just temporary. Can you provide us with your latest test battery?

 

[Husky25]

From the sounds of it, yes you can. I'd test CYA every 2 weeks and adjust accordingly. Once you get a handle on it, maybe increase the time between tests.

 

[Dmanderson21]

My latest test are:

FC: 5
CC: 0
Ph: 7.6
TA: 70
CH: 330
CYA: 30


We had a kids bday party too and some heavy thunderstorms which are contributing factors for sure. I just think that's probably going to be standard here in Houston and since I haven't maintained during summer yet I was wondering if similarly situated pools add stabilizer a few times per summer

 

[Husky25]

CYA is lowered primarily by splash-out and manually lowering the water level (i.e. backwash or vacuum to waste). It does not evaporate with water or break down like chlorine does, so it certainly stands to reason that you would have to occasionally add stabilizer if you have high use, or have to lower the water level after a storm.

Right now your CYA level is at the low end of what is considered acceptable around here. If it were me and I haven't added any in more than a week, I'd bump it to 40-50. On the other hand if I had, I'd test again over the weekend. CYA apparently takes a few days to register on the test.

 

[Dmanderson21]

Thanks Husky - I'm going to wait to add until this tropical storm pushes through so as not to immediately dilute the pool again