Chlorine Pucks

[ScottS]

I get my pucks from KMart because the the AquaChem pucks do not contain copper.

[CarlD]

While most of us here abhor the games the chemical industry plays on pool owners, the bottom line is that every concoction has its pluses and minuses. The trick is to KNOW what those are and use the concoction appropriately.

Still, generally, simple but consistent techniques like B-B-B work best. There are times to deviate, but they are not typical.

[waterbear]

I get my pucks from KMart because the the AquaChem pucks do not contain copper.

AquaChem is one of Chemtura's companies. Chemtura is also Bioguard, Omni, Guardex, Hydrotech, Sun, and Pool Time. These are the people who feel that CYA up to 200 ppm is accetpable in a pool. I was on the phone with AquaChem yesterday about their test kit (and never got a good answer even after speaking to three different people about the hardness test) and they told me that they didn't feel that high CYA levels were a problem as long as they were under 200 PPM!

[aylad]

and they told me that they didn't feel that high CYA levels were a problem as long as they were under 200 PPM!

I'm guessing they either don't own pools, or have other people that take care of their pools for them!! I'm sure they don't see a CYA over 100 as a problem in somebody else's back yard!!

Janet

[waterbear]

Unfortunately, this is pretty much Chemtura's corporate line across all their brands. I guess if they told the truth about CYA they would loose too much revenue on lost algaecide sales (Not to mention all the sales of expen$ive borax they sell as Optimzier (Bioguard) and Maximizer (Omni, Hydrotech, Guardex, and Sun)! They have 39 different algaecides among their brands and that's just the US market! I thought the only algaecides were either copper, linear quats, and polyquat! (Well there is also sodium bromide and inoragnic ammonia). 5 brands and 5 kinds of algaecide each would only be 25 different products. Is there a pattern here?

Edit: When I was speaking to them I mentioned Arch Chemical's (HTH and Poolife) recent study that showed CYA levels of 100 ppm or higher damaging plaster and they basically discounted it and said that their reseach has shown no problem!

[kickurasin]

well how do you keep this level below 100
mine this spring was 348 so i dumped out 1/3 water now it is 49
how do i keep it under 100 cya

[waterbear]

Simple answer, stop using trichlor and dichlor. Both add CYA to the water. Use an unstabilized chlorine such as bleach or liquid chlorine.

[PhantomAndy]

well how do you keep this level below 100
mine this spring was 348 so i dumped out 1/3 water now it is 49
how do i keep it under 100 cya

Take a look at your method of testing, your numbers here don't look right.

My understanding is that levels above 150 or so are difficult to test accurately. Also, if you did have 348 ppm of CYA taking 1/3 of the water would only lower it to 232, so your original levels were likley much lower.

As stated above however, if CYA levels pose a problem for you (getting high - above about 60-80) then you should discontinue using Trichlor or Dichlor chlorinating products and resort to an unstabilized product like standard 6% ultra bleach or other economical Sodium Hypochlorite solution (i.e. liquid shock - 12.5% NaClO)

I personally use a combination of bleach when it's convenient, and trichlor tablets when it's not (or I need to raise my CYA). That keeps my CYA level below 80 every year. Over the winter I tend to have to pump out at least 7000 gallons from rain fill, that helps with lowering CYA over the winter as well.