How many tri-chlor pucks at a time?

[b2001]

This is my second year with BBB. I struggled with CYA last year, and consequently buying and putting a lot of bleach into my pool. I put in a 3 pound and two pound bottle of granular CYA with no apparent effect on the CYA level that I could measure - it seemed to be zero. Certainly, there was no noticeable effect on the water's ability to hold a chlorine level after a day of sunlight. I struggled a few times with algae where my chlorine levels got too low.

I'd like to get the CYA up this year and keep more consistent chlorine levels. I'd like to be able to add less chlorine than I did last year and be able to go out of town on vacation without somone having to add bleach every day.

I bought 3" tri-chlor pucks (99%) from Lowe's last weekend to supplement bleach. I've had two in a floater since Saturday. They don't seem to be dissolving much at all. How many can/should I have in at a time, initially until I get the CYA up?

I'm guessing whatever they contribute in the way of chlorine will only be at night, any during the day will be burned off by sunlight until the CYA gets up?

My pool is an ABG, 14,000 gallons. I've got a cartridge filter. My ph has been around 7.5, alk around 110. I had a big mess when I removed my cover and opened, but through 5 days of vacuuming and shocking, have had a clear and sparkling pool for about a week. The chlorine level will hold overnight, but of course, is all gone when I get home and measure in the evening.

Thanks for any answers ...

[CarlD]

How about giving us all the chemical numbers?
FC
CC
pH
T/A
CYA

FC, CC and CYA are the biggies since that's what you are having troubles with.

[b2001]

As I said I've got 2 3" tri-chlor pucks in a floater, and I added half of a 3/4 gallon 6% bleach bottle this morning at 7 am. I had fc = 1 and tc = 1 at the time ...

Readings at 6:45 pm

fc 0
tc 0
ph 7.5
al 100
ch 120
cya less than 30, probably 0 ...

I just added the other hlf of the bleach ...

[aylad]

You're going to go through an awful lot of bleach if you are depending on just the trichlor pucks to raise your CYA. They won't raise it that fast. Even when you add CYA in powder form (which is what you're going to need to do to get your initial CYA level) it takes about a week for it all to dissolve. Until then, the sun is eating up your chlorine.

Janet

[chem geek]

This post (http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showpost.php?p=43602&postcount=17) gives some alternatives for getting CYA into your pool faster. Trichlor will also work, but is far slower. I'm using Trichlor in my own pool right now to raise my CYA, but I'm starting with 10 ppm and raising it to 20-30 ppm AND I have an opaque pool cover so don't lose much chlorine to sunlight anyway.

Richard