Best CYA Level for Lots of Sun - Location Hawaii

[smallpooldad]

Chazas,

As you lived in Hawaii what was your daily chlorine consumption assuming you used liquid and what was your CYA, adjusting your figures for a 10,000 gal pool? This will then give me some idea as to what is normal.

Did you need to put acid in every day to bring the ph down or did you just let it maintain a higher level?

Looking forward to your reply and thank you for your post.

[chazas]

I don't have my "pool book" any more, but to the best of my recollection I ran the pool at around 40-50 PPM CYA.

I tried to keep a minimum FC reading of 3 PPM. I had a 17,000 gallon pool. As best as I can recall, I think I used a couple of the smaller bottles of bleach every 3 or so days. But I don't remember exactly - it's been about a year and a half and I don't have a good memory for numbers.

Bleach did keep my pH on the increase - to the best of my recollection, it would usually go up to 7.8 or a little more during the course of the week, and I'd add about 3 cups of muriatic acid (available from the Ace hardware store on Kaimuki) on the weekend, which would bring it down to 7.5ish. The only time I ever had to worry about increasing pH was when I returned from a vacation after having used a floater with pucks. But I tried to avoid that because it tended to increase my CYA pretty dramatically.

Honestly, I don't think being in Hawaii should impact your pool care regimen too much - summer on the Mainland can have much more extreme conditions.

[smallpooldad]

With CYA now at 50 ppm, CL is dropping from 5-3 over 24 hour period. This requires 40 oz bleach a day or 2gals and 24 oz a week. I am planning on raising it to 60 ppm to see if that further reduces the chlorine need. At that point I will not raise it any higher.

Add 8 oz a day of muriatic acid to keep the pH at 7.3-7.4 for iron stain control.

Will advise on results.

[DavidD]

Boy that's ridiculous. If I were you, I'd trade my house and pool even for one in say, middle Tennessee and let that poor sap deal with it......
Interesting enough, I have raised my CYA to 50 as well and have noticed identical FC loss as you, about 2 ppm a day on a cloudless day. This surprises me as I thought the UV degradation would be slightly higher at the lower latitude. Let us know how 60 works for you.