Jandy SWCG's "optimal" water conditions: why raise CYA?

[BigTallGuy]

NOW raise it up to where it SHOULD be (around 80 ppm), drop you TA to 70 if it is higher than that, and start saving money on acid and maintenance and stop being a big tall dumb guy and become a big tall smart guy!

I ordered my Taylor K2006 test kit via Ben's link and I am waiting for it to arrive so I can do proper testing. You may remember that I had an extremely bad experience with CYA a few years ago and I would like to know who sets the 80 PPM standard for SWCG Pools, and why.

My SWCG owner's manual says 50 PPM of CYA, and I believe I read one of ChemGeek's post that says the higher above 50 you get the CYA, the more it actually counter acts with chlorine. In addition, I still need to run my filter at least 4 hours a day for a good turn over.

SO HERE IS MY QUESTION TO ANY AND ALL POOL OWNERS WITH A SWCG THAT KEEP THEIR CYA AT 80 PPM AND THEIR CHLORINE AT 4.0 OR HIGHER, DO YOU EXPERIENCE OR GET COMPLAINTS ABOUT BURNING EYES? BE HONEST, BECAUSE THAT WAS MY EXPERIENCE.

[waterbear]

I ordered my Taylor K2006 test kit via Ben's link and I am waiting for it to arrive so I can do proper testing. You may remember that I had an extremely bad experience with CYA a few years ago and I would like to know who sets the 80 PPM standard for SWCG Pools, and why.
The manufactuers and for some of them it's as high as 100 ppm such as for the unit you have. Actually, a lot of it came from discussions on here and on TFP and chem geek is an integral parto of it. It came from the range that SWCG manufactuers recommended and it is the upper limit for most of them (Some units, set the upper limit at 100 and Penair sets it at 85. I don't know of any that set the upper limit at 50 ppm btw.) It was determined that SWCGs operated most efficiently at the upper limit of CYA and had the best pH stability.
My SWCG owner's manual says 50 PPM of CYA, and I believe I read one of ChemGeek's post that says the higher above 50 you get the CYA, the more it actually counter acts with chlorine. In addition, I still need to run my filter at least 4 hours a day for a good turn over.
No, I think you have that confused. There is evidence that above 60 ppm CYA has a direct UV blocking effect in water. Chem geek wrote quite a bit on that either here or at TFP, I can't remember which.
Also, if I remember correctly you have a compupool CPSC-24 which has a MINIMUM CYA level of 40-60 ppm and a MAXIMUM level of 100 ppm (as do many of the Australian units) so your CYA should be at 100 ppm and your FC at 5 ppm. When you posted about burning eyes your CYA was at 50 ppm and your FC at 5.
SO HERE IS MY QUESTION TO ANY AND ALL POOL OWNERS WITH A SWCG THAT KEEP THEIR CYA AT 80 PPM AND THEIR CHLORINE AT 4.0 OR HIGHER, DO YOU EXPERIENCE OR GET COMPLAINTS ABOUT BURNING EYES? BE HONEST, BECAUSE THAT WAS MY EXPERIENCE.

I have never known CYA to cause burning eyes (and my own has been at 80 ppm for several years now). pH problems can cause burning eyes. Chloramines can cause burning eyes (and with high CYA and bad pool management it is very possible to have persistent chloramines.)

YOUR CYA should be at 100 ppm. If you don't believe me look on your manual on the first page after the table of contents where it says at the bottom that CYA should be maintained at 40-100 ppm and that 40-60 ppm is the MINIMUM where it should be maintained. I have explained many times WHY higher CYA is beneficial in a salt pool (and for that matter it is often beneficial in a non salt pool, as Ben and the mods can tell you also.)

When you posted problems of eye irritation it is very possible that your FC was very high since you said it was 5+ and you did not have a test kit capable of testing high chlorine levels (or FC for taht matter so it is possible that you also had chloramines present and that would explain the eye irritation.)

Bottom line, it's your pool and you can do what you want but if you want ot minimize the problems associated with salt pools and save money then raising your CYA to 100 ppm is in your best interest.

I realize that you are very slow to take the advice here since you just now ordered a good test kit even though it's been recommended to you for quite some time. I understand that you have a problem with an overstabilized pool in the past (I suspect you were using trichlor at the time) but to try and correlate that experiece with managing a salt pool is comparing appels and oranges. High levels of CYA are not intrinsicially bad or evil but many seem to think so. In acutallity, CYA is the best thing that every happened to outdoor pools. Stabilized chlorine, on the other hand, can be problematic since it continaully causes CYA to rise to levels high enough to cause problems.

[famousdavis]

Just an epilogue to yesterday's "pro" water testing and my own K-2006 test results. Yesterday I tested my TA after The Pool Store said I had a TA of 150 and Pinch-a-Penny said my TA was 140 (and who also said I should dump a LOT of muriatic acid in to bring down the TA). My K-2006 said I had a TA of 90. My OTO test kit also had a TA test I could perform, and it said I had a TA of 90.

So today I took another water sample (without having done anything to my water since yesterday) to a different Pinch-a-Penny on the southside of my town. Guess what? According to them, my TA was *too low* (75) and I was supposed to add alkalinity increaser to my pool!

What a bunch of bologne!

In the cases of drop-based Pinch-a-Penny, I observe them *hurriedly* working through their various tests, and that leads, I believe, to a lot of imprecision when it comes to rinsing out their tubes and correctly measuring the amount of water they poor into their tubes and jars. For one Pinch-a-Penny to test my TA at almost one-half of what the other Pinch-a-Penny determined is just plain ludicrous.

How happy I am that I can do my own water testing, saving me from regular weekly trips to the pool stores! I'm going to save a TON of money doing my own testing and carefully adding *only what's needed* to my pool, rather than blindly following the "expert" advice of the pool stores!

[waterbear]

NOW you are catching on to why we say to test the water yourself with a good test kit!

[famousdavis]

NOW you are catching on to why we say to test the water yourself with a good test kit!

Yes, I've caught on, alright. I'll happily sing the praises of self-testing one's own pool water to whoever will listen to me. I've got a friend at work who just bought a house with a pool (he's a first-time pool owner now), and I'm anxious to show him my recent "pro" test results to emphasize the point he should test his own water, rather than relying on his pool service or a nearby Leslie's pool store.

[rpoldervaart]

SO HERE IS MY QUESTION TO ANY AND ALL POOL OWNERS WITH A SWCG THAT KEEP THEIR CYA AT 80 PPM AND THEIR CHLORINE AT 4.0 OR HIGHER, DO YOU EXPERIENCE OR GET COMPLAINTS ABOUT BURNING EYES? BE HONEST, BECAUSE THAT WAS MY EXPERIENCE.

I don't feel any burning. If my son swims in our pool, he'll have pretty clear eyes later on. He came home the other day after swimming in a public pool and his eyes were bright red. I have no idea what the chemicals were like in the public pool.

[famousdavis]

I don't feel any burning. If my son swims in our pool, he'll have pretty clear eyes later on. He came home the other day after swimming in a public pool and his eyes were bright red. I have no idea what the chemicals were like in the public pool.

I'll second rpoldervaart's observation that a high CYA pool and free chlorine >= 4.0 doesn't lead to burning eyes. It's been a little over a week now since I upped our pool's CYA to 80, but in that time no one has complained about burning eyes. We swam after I used the Boost button on our SWCG, and so even swimming in a pool that had FC = 12.5 didn't lead to burning eyes or any eye irritation at all. I'd say we've had about 10 different people swimming in these conditions -- adults, teens, young children -- and not a problem at all.

But everyone's eyes are different, so what works for most people's eyes may not work for a few others.