Chlorine Pucks vs Bleach

[sunofthebeach]

Sunofthebeach,
As I said, it's your pool, your are the lord of your domain. But you need to realize that CYA levels directly effect the level of chlorine you need to keep your pool sanitary. At 100ppm of CYA, you need to keep your Free Chlorine level at around 8ppm. But at 30ppm of CYA, a Free Chlorine level of 3ppm is more than sufficient.

As long as you KNOW how much CYA is in your pool and therefore how high your Free Chlorine level needs to be--and keep the Free Chlorine level there--you'll be fine, no matter what the CYA is. But if you do NOT know the CYA level, then you are probably underchlorinating or overchlorinating your pool and relying on luck to be at the correct level of chlorine and not get an algae bloom.

I not big on relying on luck myself--I just test my CYA level once a week.

I was not as clear as I should have been. What I meant to say is I don’t really care about the added CYAfrom the pucks, because I open my pool to 0 CYA at the start of every season. I do put 35 ppm of CYA in my pool at the start of the season and it elevates a little from the pucks. The part I don't care about is that I am adding CYA, because by next season it will be gone.

[CarlD]

I was not as clear as I should have been. What I meant to say is I don’t really care about the added CYAfrom the pucks, because I open my pool to 0 CYA at the start of every season. I do put 35 ppm of CYA in my pool at the start of the season and it elevates a little from the pucks. The part I don't care about is that I am adding CYA, because by next season it will be gone.

As long as you are aware of what the CYA is throughout the season and adjust your FC accordingly, you are OK. See the post below yours for how much CYA pucks can add.

When we went on vacation a couple of years ago (for 2 weeks), I left 4 floaters wide open, each with 4 pucks in a 20,000 gal pool. I'd say about 10-12 of the pucks had dissolved, and my CYA shot from 30ppm to 65ppm. My pH was at 6.8 (which means less) and it took 4 boxes of Borax to get it back to normal. That means each puck was adding 2-3ppm of CYA to my 20,000 gallons.

Something to think about.

[faithfulfrank]

Carl,
Reading between the lines, I'm guessing that Tri-chlor has the side effect of lowering your ph.........
or does acid rain, normal life do this. I ask because i do not think i've ever had to lower my ph, but I do need to bring it up using 20 mule team borax every so often.
I just added some today because my ph was 7.2...although I won't even "open" my pool and hook up my filter for a few weeks.

Thanks,
Frank D.

[Watermom]

Yes - trichlor is very acidic and will lower your ph.

[geordie]

It is all about balance and the frequent testing of your water. Amazing how quickly you will get the hang of adjusting your water simply if you test it accurately and often.

Carl and Watermom really do know what they are talking about and if you follow their advice it will get you on the right track. I don't think anyone on this board actually hates the pucks, although it sure is a good idea to understand their effects. Many prefer not to use them and I think most people would advocate not using them exclusively.

I have a 12K gallon pool and I use pucks sparingly during the summer. Our water has a naturally high ph here, and for some reason using regular bleach drives the ph up. For most people the ph rise from bleach is temporary and drops naturally. In my pool the ph goes up and just keeps going up if I don't deal with it.

In my pool a puck a week keeps my ph nicely in balance, and I never add anything else other than bleach. Not BBB... just the first B. We get heavy rain or snow most winters and I lose/exchange enough water that I open to little or no CYA every spring. I use pucks to open and it brings my CYA up to around 30. Our swim season is about 16 weeks. I use two or three pucks during our vacations to maintain.

Since CYA is basically measured in increments of 10, 1 puck dissolved in 12K gallons is not measurable. After about 8 pucks (usually 8 weeks for me) I see an increase in my CYA of about 10. We also experience quite a bit of rain, and how much your CYA increases will depend upon the dillution and backwashing that you do.

If you decide to continue using some pucks you really need to test CYA every week as Carl said. Also, be aware that any CYA you add to your pool takes roughly a week before you get an accurate measurement.

When your CYA rises you have to look at Ben's chart to help you figure out what ppm level of chlorine you need to maintain in order to effectively sanitize your water. If you run your CYA low and keep your chlorine constant at 3ppm it works okay. If your CYA goes up 10 or 20 and you continue to keep your chlorine at 3ppm, you will wake up one day with swamp thing :-) I know, I did it a few years ago... that is how I found this site.

Good luck.

Jean

[CarlD]

I don't think anyone on this board actually hates the pucks

This is certainly true. The more you understand about Tri-Chlor tablets, the more you realize they can be very useful such as in Jean's strategy.

However, I can honestly say I HATE the pucks that also have copper in them. HTH puts the copper in their pucks SOLELY so they can market them as "dual acting", knowing full well that the adverse effects of copper on your pool and water offset the algae killing advantages. It's a cynical, cold attempt to get you to buy their product which is INFERIOR to ordinary Tri-Chlor pucks. In WalMart and CostCo and K-Mart, HTH is marketing this garbage along with 48% chlorine Cal-Hypo--another garbage product.

Nothing wrong with Cal-Hypo--if you use it appropriately, but the good stuff is 68% chlorine, not 48%.

[faithfulfrank]

thank you Carl and Lisa!
I'm pretty much along the lines of Jean.......I use the pucks mainly winter/spring since I don't cover my pool, and for vacations.

I enjoy this forum and all the great help, etc.......
I'm really getting excited about getting the pool open this year, but we have another 3-4 weeks before we do that around here, so I'm using this forum to get myself ready, and to satisfy the "pool craving" until I can.

Thanks again for your kind help.

Frank D.