High CYA and chlorine consumption

[sjmiller]

Once again - THANKS for all of the great information on your web site, replies, and in the forums. I now know that I can trace all of my problems for the last two years back to the pool store convincing me to buy an off-line 3" puck chlorinator three years ago. That way I didn't have to haul so much chlorine. Load up 9 pucks and let it run for three weeks - keeping the chlorine at between 1 - 4 ppm. They never made mention that as my CYA was climbing that I needed to increase my chlorine levels.

Last year was bad, brushing down the pool every other day and shocking everyday with dichlor - not knowing I was adding to the problem. But I kept my FC at 3 ppm!

This year was the nightmare - pea soup is clearer then what my pool looked like when the weather turned warm - including all of the critters growing in the water. I have a 6 cartridge filter - and they would last a whole 15 minutes before they needed cleaning. Per the pool store instructions - add more pucks to the skimmer to keep chlorine between 1 - 4 ppm - and shock everyday. After about 5 weeks of this I found Pool Solutions and within a few hours of reading the web site & forums - knew that the "pool store porked" me. They didn't have a clue - but sure sold me a bunch of stuff that didn't work.

I am migrating to the BBB method and have a few questions.

I have about 20lbs of pucks that I want to use - how do I calculate how much CYA they will add to my pool (10K gal)? (I'm cheap and don't want to just thow them away)

I was using copper algecide they sold me - from what I have read in the forums - I should just take it to the toxic waste dump?

How many nights should I shock the pool before I do the 1ppm over night test?

With the help of your advice, the knowledge from the forums, and the K-2006 test kit - my pool water hasn't look this good in three years.

My formula that I think you and the other modertors might enjoy:
(Frm nwb + pst rpls + frm tpcs) - pl str BS -> Happy Pool owner

Frm = Forum
nwb = newbie
pst = post
rpls = replies
tpcs = topic
pl = pool
str = store
BS = well... means BS

[Watermom]

Save the pucks to use when you go on vacation. As long as they are kept dry in the closed container, they will be fine.

You will know when you can quit shocking the pool when the following conditions are met:
1. The water is clear.
2. You have no more than 0.5 CC.
3. You lose no more than 1ppm of chlorine from sundown one evening to within an hour of sunrise the next morning.

We then advise keeping the chlorine at shock level for one additional day and then you can let it drift down and stay within the appropriate range based on the Best Guess chlorine chart.

Hope this helps.

[PoolDoc]

(Frm nwb + pst rpls + frm tpcs) - pl str BS -> Happy Pool owner