400 cya

[atkinson40]

Performed the following tests:

1. ph is a little less than 7. Will go to find borax and wait for instructions.

2. Free chlorine test does not turn pink when powder is added. (indicating no free ch?) Will get gallons of bleach. I did not continue on to combined ch test.

3. CYA test per Ben's directions: 7 ml of half diluted pool water. 7ml of reagent. Added this to tube until dot disappears and the level only comes up to about a third of the way to the 100 mark. Multiply this by 2 to get 60. Can I say YIPPIE!!! ??? Maybe my CYA isn't so high after all?? What's up with my pool supply store who gave me a 400 CYA reading? Thanks Kevin

[PoolDoc]

What's up with my pool supply store who gave me a 400 CYA reading?

Once people get their K-2006, more often then not they discover that their pool store's testing was bogus. What people don't realize is that pool stores have a NEGATIVE incentive to provide accurate testing, because ACCURATE testing reduces chemical sales!

=> With at 36K pool at pH less than 7.0, start with 2 boxes (added slowly to the skimmer, pump on), wait 4 hours, and retest.

=> You really, really want to avoid zero chlorine.

[atkinson40]

Added 2 boxes of Borax. Now that I know my pool's not a disaster due to high CYA, what is maintenance chlorine levels? Should I use bleach? How many gallons a week of the %6? Thanks Kevin

[PoolDoc]

There are many ways to do it.

One very easy way is to use trichlor, with a floater or two, to maintain a constant chlorine feed, and bleach to kick it up 1x per week. By using both, your CYA will move upwards pretty slowly.

You know about bleach; here are the other items:

Trichlor tabs: buy at at Sams Club IF you can buy the PoolBrand product in the 40lb bucket OR Kem-Tek 3" Trichlor 35lbs @ Amazon . Do NOT buy from Costco, Walmart or local pool stores - most are selling trichlor blends which can be a real problem. If you find the Kem-Tek brand at Home Depot or Lowes, that's OK. Other brands, you have to learn to read the chemical ingredients section of the labels VERY carefully!

Trichlor floater: This one is typical, and fine - Kem-Tek 879 Pool Floating Tablet Dispenser Pool and Spa Accessories, but if you want to buy that locally, I think most of them are fine. If one DOES spill trichlor tabs in your pool, get them up quickly -- they will often leave a very difficult to remove stain, if left on the pool for hours.

[atkinson40]

Tried the free chl test and after adding 2 spoons of powder the sample now turns pink. But after 30 drops of the R0871 it still doesn't turn back to clear. Over the past 2 weeks I've added about 20 gallons of bleach. No other chl added. I'm waiting for the tabs to come in the mail. Am I doing the test wrong somehow? Thanks kevin

[PoolDoc]

Just means your chlorine is higher than 15 ppm -- assuming you are using the 10 ml sample size (the lowest sample size).

[atkinson40]

OK, I'm a doofus. I went to the pool store today to talk about the differences in their/my cya readings and the clerk pointed out to me that the scale on the sample tube was inverted. Soooo this means they were correct and my cya is over 400. The dot disappears about a third of the way up to 100. Given the logarithmic type scale I can only imagine it is actually over 400.

I'm going to bite the bullet and drain the pool. It was drained once before to have it re-plastered and didn't float so I'm hoping I can do it again. Any precautions?? I've found a way to use the pool pump to drain it. Anything I should be aware of before I start? Thanks kevin