Taking control of my pool this year

[jilted]

OK Walmart had the HTH brand that was a 4 lb container of 96% CYA for like $14
Went back to Lowes on the way out and they DID have CYA this time heh.
Our Lowes has the Aqua-Chem brand and it was a 3 lb container of 100% CYA for $13

I had already bought the HTH and wasn't going back in that madhouse.

Is there much of a difference in the two brands being 96% and 100% CYA?

Anyway, I put another 4 lbs in which should give me maybe another ~15 ppm which would bring me to 50. Should I try to bump it up a tad bit more?

Thanks,
-stephen

[Watermom]

I wouldn't add anymore CYA yet. The 4 lb. addition should add about 18ppm more of CYA which would put you up to about 53 which is in range suggested by your SWCG manufacturer. You can always add more later. Easier to add more later than need to remove.

[jilted]

Thanks. So now that I have my CYA under control, about where should I try to keep my chlorine level at? I think I read that since the SWCG is constantly producing chlorine that you can keep it lower than if you were using granules and tablets.

Also, is there a consensus on when I should run the pump? Day or night?

Thanks,
-stephen

[Watermom]

Read your literature that came with your SWCG. It should give you the chlorine levels needed for your system. I run my pump during the day. Some people do nights because electricity rates are cheaper then. I am not too familiar with SWCG operation, so let's see if one of our SWCG guys has any opinions on this and why.

[jilted]

I'll check. This forum has been a wonderful learning experience so far. I appreciate the knowledge I have gained! I already have a friend emailing me to come test his pool!

So I'm getting down to basics now as most of my tougher issues seem to be getting resolved.
-Is there a rule of thumb on how many hours to run the pump? A friend in Texas that has a pool said 1 hour per 10 degrees of pool water is pretty close.
-For a "true shock" I should use liquid chlorine bleach, so how many ppm should I try to raise it by for it to be effective? Also, is it best to "pre prepare" the pool (set the SWCG to 100%) say before a party when you know 15-20 people are going to be in the pool?
-Regarding shocking the pool, should it be on a regular proactive schedule or reactive to things like heavy rainfall?

Think I am getting close to knowing just about everything I wanted to know about my pool!

-stephen

[jilted]

Reduced my SWCG output to 20% this evening because the OTO kit has been showing about 5 ppm (maybe more its pretty dark yellow) for the past 2 days in the evening. Also put my pump back on a 9 hour run time from 9am to 6pm. So my pump is finally getting a break tonight!

For reference, last year when there were still other chems in the pool from being pool store'd, I was able to run the SWCG at 20% all season so I'm guessing there was some CYA still in the pool back then. Once a week I would hit the superchlorinate button back then.

[kelemvor]

What I do is run my pump enough to adequately filter the water, and then adjust my swcg output to a suitable percentage given the runtime I'm using. Currently at 40% output with a pump runtime of 6 hours/day. I've only got 12k gallons of water and a 2hp pump, though. I think to "calculate" the proper runtime for your pump you need to know the actual flow rate you've got; which from what I can tell is difficult to determine unless you buy and install a flow meter. I'm pretty sure the filter size plays into this as well, but I don't fully understand how that would affect the calculation. I think there's a "rule of thumb" that you want to be able to filter 100% of your water x time's /day but I can't remember what that x is (2 or 4 or something I think I read).

I started with 4h runtime and bumped it up to 6 recently because I could see particles in the water when the light was on in my pool. I also just bumped my swcg up to 40% from 10% because I tested yesterday and found 0 FC in the water around noon. My CYA level is lower than it should be at around 45; and FC levels are a little higher than the 2ppm I was shooting for as well (I still don't fully understand why I'm supposed to target a lower fc level given my cya than the best guess chart shows). Based on the 4PPM fc level I just measured I think I'm going to back the swcg down to 30 tonight.

I think in general, from a chlorine generating perspective you want longer runtime and lower swcg output so you have a more consistent chlorine level. My cl gets a little higher by the end of my daily run, and gradually drops until the next run. I think I've seen pooldoc recommend multiple shorter runs over running once a day like I do. I run the pump when I do because I like to see the waterfalls and stuff and 4p-10p is when I'm most likely to be out there.