CYA Reducing Mix Period/CYA Ideal Level?

[smallpooldad]

Can very hot water be added to the CYA to mix it? In order to reduce the wait period from the normal three days to a week; or is this stupid, dangerous or both?

The other question is for a pool that stays mostly in the 76 F to 78 F, except for a few weeks in the summer at 80 F, what would be the ideal CYA if Clorox is used as the bleach with a little supplemental trichlor from a feeder, to induce acid? Or should I just stick with adding muriatic and forget the trichlor altogether. The pool is not heavily used, just me and occasionaly my kids when they are back from college.

I include below a link to the PDF at the PPOA as food for thought.

http://www.ppoa.org/pdfs/PrP_Cyanurics%20-%20Benefactor%20or%20Bomb.pdf

I love this site.

[DavidD]

It is definitely not a stupid question and in fact you may have a good point. I don't think it would be dangerous as long as you use caution when handling the "brew" and avoid spilling or inhaling. Treat it like you treat muratic and you should be fine. I'm not sure if it will speed up the dilution process. Let us know your results! You are however skipping one key element in pool care, POP or Pool Owner Patience....;)
Now, the article you have attached has been around this site with much discussion for years. It seams to pop back up at least 2 or 3 times each season. It has already arisen once again this season, see http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthread.php?t=756
While it appears to reinforce what we all believe about CYA (too much is not good) you must be careful in taking the whole thing as fact. A few tidbits:
The author is the PPOA. It is his organization and apparently is for profit.
The author is "high on" ORP testing.
The author is expressing his views on the subject and there are many others with widely varying opinions regarding proper CYA levels. Don't be too quick to take his as the gospel. Do a search and determine for yourself. While doing this for myself, I have come to accept "Ben's Best Guess" as the formula for my pool. Three years of sparkling crystal clear water, Zero algae thus far. :cool:

[mwsmith2]

Sure you can add CYA to hot water to get it to dissolve. I tried drawing up the hottest I could get from the tap, and dumped the cya in. Stirred for maybe 1/2 hour, and guess what happened? Virtually NOTHING! Yup. Not really anthing worth mentioning. I was pretty amazed that it didnt' dissolve. I supposed I could have reached a saturated solution, but I don't think I did. You're still going to have to wait a week for it to properly show up. Personally, I don't mind the wait because I know how hard it is to remove if I overshoot. Just stock up on some POP. :D

Michael

[smallpooldad]

Please accept my apologies for the late response.

Thank you both for your replies. I am keeping the pool at about 28 CYA and using liquid bleach. It appears to hold reasonably well although I might add pucks to the feeder to balance the high PH of liquid chlorine and then very slowly let it rise to 50 before draining back.

I hate adding water because in Hawaii it seems to contain a lot of ferric oxide (iron rust) due to our volcanic soil and rock which is mostly ferric oxide. This creates stains. That means either I have to go with the ascorbic acid regime or add sulfuric acid. I am testing both methods, sulfuric acid seems to be better as it precipitates out versus putting it into solution and then into the filter to be backwashed out. The problem with ascorbic acid is that as it stays in solution and one is constantly adding metal out. That starts to get expensive. See my question on sulfuric acid.

Aloha