Hot climates = option of high CYA?

[CarlD]

I don't know if humidity has a direct effect but it may well have an indirect effect as hot, humid climates are obviously more hospitable to all sorts of plant growth, from microbes to palm trees, than hot, arid climates. Add that to increased and more direct sunlight and it seems that conditions to deplete chlorine would be ideal.

If you look at the famous "Best Guess Table" you'll see that for various levels of CYA, there are recommended maintenance levels for your FC and recommended shock levels.

At higher CYA levels, once you establish that maintenance FC level, it should be easier to sustain. The explanation and chemistry of how much chlorine is "bound up" with the CYA and yet how it maintains its levels and protection is beyond me.

CYA is a two-edged sword, but if you follow the "Best Guess" table it's easy to maintain a sanitary pool at most CYA levels. Denizens of the South and South East, where summers are really hot and muggy with more intense sun than, say NJ (where we are 100+ hot and muggy right now!) may find, like aylad, that higher CYA levels work for them.

[smileitsachoice]

My question is like dhanger. I have a inground vinyl pool at 30000 gallons. I live in hot and humid Alabama with my pool getting full sun all day. My chem numbers the last 2 to 3 weeks have been very stable. cya at 65-75, ph 7.7, cc 0. My fc is as follows: when tested at night it is 6 to 6.5, I add 182 oz 6% bleach every night. My fc in the morning is always 8.5 to 9.0. Does this seems right. My water is very clear. i have not vac. or backwashed in 3 weeks. I thought this was just average fc usage. fc stays the same with pretty much a small or big bather load.

[CarlD]

That sounds right....
You test at night and your FC is 6ppm or so. You add 182oz of 6% to 30000 gallons, which adds 3.34ppm of FC. Some is consumed overnight and you wake up to around 9ppm...in the morning.

Makes sense to me.

[smileitsachoice]

Thanks for the reply. I had to drain about 10000 gal out because I had been pool stored(triclor and diclor). My cya was over a hundred and I had algea I could not get rid of. Since I have been on the BBB method all I do is add 1 jug of bleach a night and brush once a week. I did add 320 lbs of salt. I purchased some salt strips and tested. Took my salt to 1650 ppm. This really seems to help the comfort factor. My pool is the cleanest it has ever been, and upkeep has been very easy.

[Furbabyvet]

dhanger:
I'm also in Phoenix and still working on straightening out a pool I had royally messed up by following pool store advice. My CYA was over 250 a couple months ago. After partial water changes, we got it down around 30-40. I am currently losing 2.5-3.5 ppm of FC during most days. I'm using just a couple of trichlor pucks at a time to slowly increase my CYA, but not sure what my goal is. Not >250, though, that's for sure.

I did just add borax to 40 ppm and may be seeing a slightly decreased FC demand. I am going to start putting our solar cover on the pool to conserve FC, though not sure I can stand to swim in 95 degree water . If the FC demand goes down significantly, I will go buy a solid colored cover. I'd love to avoid worrying about algae and adding LC every day! SWCG is not in our budget this year.

[chem geek]

If you want to not heat up the pool so much, then have the cover be opaque white or reflective or certainly a very light color. That will minimize the amount of sun's heat transferred to the pool.

[CarlD]

I've not yet seen a solar cover that won't heat a pool, no matter the color or style. If it's a floating cover, it's a solar cover and will heat your pool. I even had them with light blue on top and black underneath and THEY heated it, too.

Any cover holds in heat, unless it's mesh.