This will be interesting to see this winter. I plan on going swg for next summer but I will be curious if cya drops way down in the winter. I knew nothing about cya last winter so I never thought about checking it. Up until late this last month I was good but started noticing I needed more chlorine to keep the pool clean and looking good.
My bio active experiment
- Thread starter barnnns1
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- Sep 23, 2015
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One reason for using this stuff before winter is temperature. If the stuff works it would need low - no FC and warmth. Going back to the patent they are supplying enzymes and potentially viable bacteria cells by growing, freezing and grinding selected strains of bacteria, Bacillus sp. I think so you could try typing some fresh yogurt in and see if that works. In marine aquaria adding nutrients to remove nutrients sounds odd but does work, Unfortunatly it can't be applied to the backyard pool as we chlorinate our pools and don't have a massive protein skimmer to export nutrients.
Bacterial growth and enzymatic reactions are reduced or cease in the presence of FC and a lack of sufficient temperature for the selected bacteria and enzymes. It's been a while since I did micro but there are no guarantees with the microbes, there is an outside chance that you could get viable cells that continue to consume CYA uncontrolled every time the temp goes up and FC down. The suppliers assume CYA assimilation is via enzymatic convertion where a given volume of enzymes transform a corresponding volume of CYA and it stops there. If I were to give this type of thing a go I would be looking for a product that uses synthetically produced enzymes that are known to convert CYA.
Bacterial growth and enzymatic reactions are reduced or cease in the presence of FC and a lack of sufficient temperature for the selected bacteria and enzymes. It's been a while since I did micro but there are no guarantees with the microbes, there is an outside chance that you could get viable cells that continue to consume CYA uncontrolled every time the temp goes up and FC down. The suppliers assume CYA assimilation is via enzymatic convertion where a given volume of enzymes transform a corresponding volume of CYA and it stops there. If I were to give this type of thing a go I would be looking for a product that uses synthetically produced enzymes that are known to convert CYA.
well its been a little less than 2 day and there is no noticeable drop in cya yet. I will give it a few more days but I don't see some movement I am gunna call it busted and just finish my swim season. I would think by day 5 there should be some difference if there was going to be any. I was hoping to see around a 40 ppm drop like borjis cause that would get me close to the numbers a swg needs without having to waste to much water.
In my heart I want this stuff to work, but like you it just doesn't seem to happen.
There has to be specific conditions that make this stuff work, someone just needs to identify what they are. Until then we just can't make recomendations in good conscience.
Keep us posted on what the next few days bring.
the one thing I can say is that I was worried about my pool going green due to having this low of fc and this high of cya but it doesn't look bad. its not as clear as it usually is but it really isn't bad. no growth on the walls just a slight change in clarity
I respectfully suggest that you purchase a trusted/recommended testkit. It will reap rewards in managing your pool chemistry in the long term...and will give credence to your experiment in the short term. Pool School - Test Kits Compared
- Sep 23, 2015
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I can't offer any specific conditions but maybe some general ideas.
This MSDS sheet http://www.solarsunrings.com/bioact...io-Active Cyanuric Acid Reducer 070915 V3.pdf suggests that it's an active microbial culture, 1-0.1% in dextrose. So basically a bag of sugar. As I recal the lowest temp incubator in the bio labs was 28oC but that was normally reserved for low temp culture experiments. When growing cultures there were lots of failures with ideal conditions which of cause includes the most ideal nutrient broth for specific bacteria and obviously we never used chlorine. So ideally a pool would need the be warm, no chlorine and have all the nutrients required. The ideal conditions for algae, however by manipulating the phosphate and nitrate ratio the environment can favour bacteria over algae but I doubt anyone would go to that trouble.
This patent http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-...37".PGNR.&OS=DN/20140342437&RS=DN/20140342437 suggests that they are isolating enzymes which would support their position that a given volume of the product will remove a given amount of CYA. If a live culture was used and worked, potentially it could continue to remove CYA every time the conditions permitted. Given the production method I find it had to see how they could guarantee a given volume of either active culture or enzymes.
I understand what you are saying, but in our experience here CYA consumption by "something" occurs over winter in a closed cold pool. Generally one that has moved all the way to a swamp. This year was fairly quiet, but last year during opening season it seemed like one in four pools being opened was green with no CYA and extremely high chlorine consumption, indicative of ammonia produced by incomplete consumption of the CYA.
I might one day but to be honest est with only about a month left in my swim season it's just not worth it to me. Had I know how the reactions would be i probly would have never even started this thread. I can tell you that when I was into saltwater aquariums I had all the high end test equipment and to be honest. It really wasn't worth the money. There was no change in how I had to run my tanks from when I had cheaper kit to the very expensive ones. I know the cheaper kits were less accurate but in most cases they were off by 1 ppm or so. This may not be the same in pool test kits but for 60 bucks I could just drain halfmy water and continue having a beautiful pool. I wasn't having any problems with it just that my cya levels were high.
barnnns1, with all due respect many of us felt the same way when we first came here, but once we started testing accurately and started to maintain a more balanced pool we saw how much better our pools could be, complaints about things like kids with red eyes that we thought were just part of the swimming pool experience mostly went away and people started asking questions like "how do you keep your pool so clear?".
I agree that this site has some really good info on it to help people out. I already get asked what I do to keep my pool looking and feeling good. No red eyes no complaints. This doesn't make me an expert it just means I'm paying attention to my pool which is what brought me here in the first place. I noticed I was using a bit using a bit more chlorine to keep my pool in check. thanks to this site i now know more about water chemistry in the pool.
borjis
LifeTime Supporter
Yes.
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Wait until the specified period is over before you stop the process. I think I did a full 8 days, but most of that 40ppm loss was in the first 5.
That's how I did mine.
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It's a delayed response The mustard algae appeared on my steps a full week after the run time. Even though I got the FC levels
back up right after. But I think there were some who did not have algae after trying it.
As a product it's pretty useless and why you were able to get it half off. If I had a choice to do it again, I'd just replace the water,
even though at that house the water costs were some of the highest in the nation. $ 420 to do 3 partial drains/refills to the pool light
on a 19,000 gallon pool.
Where I live now it was $ 17 for 13,000 gallons
nothing new to report today. I wasn't able to get more of the liquid cya stuff today but both strip test appear to be the same. hope to see better results tomorrow with liquid but I'm having my doubts. I think borjis is right that I should at least go the 8 days but I don't think I want to leave fc levels this low for much longer
borjis
LifeTime Supporter
Well, the thing is, the algae is probably already starting you just aren't seeing it yet. Might as well go the full way.
With that low of FC at that high cya level, it's not really able to fight off anything. You've gone this far why stop now.
It's highly probable you'll have one of the many situations where nothing happened.
But again with the test strips, that really throws a wrench in the level of accuracy.
I was testing cya with the TF100 kit.
With that low of FC at that high cya level, it's not really able to fight off anything. You've gone this far why stop now.
It's highly probable you'll have one of the many situations where nothing happened.
But again with the test strips, that really throws a wrench in the level of accuracy.
I was testing cya with the TF100 kit.
- Sep 23, 2015
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Has anyone ever considered the idea of biological control of CYA? Encouraging an algae bloom at the begining of the swim season to convert CYA and then a SLAM to bring the pool back to normal and effectively reducing the CYA concentration without a drain and fill. Has anyone ever reported a loss of CYA after a mid summer algal bloom?
The term "something" is a bit vague, it would have to be an algal or bacteria bloom, most likely a multi species culture of algae and/or bacteria where the bacteria would be the blue greens or Cyanobacteria that are multicellular and can fix their own nitrate. We commonly associate the carbon bio pathways of the photo synthetic organisms with the conversion and use of CO2 but they can utilise other simple carbon molecules and although it's been a while now for me I believe they can utilise these simpler carbon molecules more efficiently than CO2. In commercial application the carbon nutrient of choice is often glycerine and I expect that what is happening over winter, or as winter turns to spring those pools that experience a loss of CYA have cultured an algal, bacterial or multi culture bloom that has used the CYA as a carbon source.
I realize some areas have water restrictions, but the work involved to undo the swamp you would need to create for that theory to work would not offset the savings of just doing a water replacement to rid of the CYA. Since not every pool with a lot of algae gets the ammonia, it would be a toss up whether it would actually work, similar to the bio active.
- Sep 23, 2015
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^Yeh I think your right, thinking about it a bit more I don't think encouraging an algae bloom would do it, surely a full blown swamp would happily consume any ammonia. Looking at nitrate pathways in water treatment it sounds like bacterial mineralisation of anything organic in the water were the CYA is either mineralised or used as a carbon source. In the case of water treatment ammonia would then be converted to nitrate but with the covers on for winter and the temperature dropping oxygen and FC become depleted and the nitrogen pathway stops at mineralisation and the production of ammonia. I can't figure if this occurs early, late or slowly over the entire winter but figure it's happening before a pool turns into a full blown swamp.
We've seen both conversion to ammonia only and conversion through the full nitrification process to nitrates. I think when it stops at ammonia it is because there is still enough chlorine in the pool to retard the bacteria enough to prevent sufficient bacteria colonies to support full nitrification. Yes, the pool is usually still clear and not a swamp when this happens.
This has been known to happen in warm water as well as over the winter, however it is still a rare occurrence. I have opened a green, swampy pool several times but have only had the CYA to ammonia conversion twice. At this point we don't know specifically what triggers this conversion.
Ok so I've been busy and there was no real changes to report but Saturday I decided it was time to get the pool back into swimming condition. My FC was at 2 and my water was not the clearest. I added a non chlorine algicde and a gallon of store brand bleach. Yesterday the water was clear and FC was 8ish. I saw this jump in FC across all 3 test kits. I know they can be inaccurate but the jump was across the board and their numbers on FC have stayed consistent through this. So do I think bio active works. I don't think it works as advertised but I can't help but wonder if it did something. I wonder if my cya was even higher than I thought. Test strips really only show so high and the black dot is tough to determine exactly when it is gone. Iso it possible for CYA to mask bleach and as the cya gets eaten it releases the bleach to become FC. I just do the think 1 gallon of bleach would raise FC that much. Any thoughts?