High CYA

[jcarroca]

I have a couple of questions regarding water chemistry. My CYA is way to high. I believe >60ppm. I super chlorinated memorial day 05/26/08 and my chlorine is still at max at what I can read 10ppm (dark yellow). Besides draining my pool, is there any other effective way of decreasing cya. At 10ppm of chlorine, I can smell the stuff. My kids have been in the pool many time. What are the dangers of this. Also, I have metals in my pool because I have dark yellow brown stains around my steps and anything that is white. I am going to do the Vitamin C treatment but I have been waiting for the chlorine to go to 0. Any thoughts on these predicaments would be greatly appreciated.

[CarlD]

I have a couple of questions regarding water chemistry. My CYA is way to high. I believe >60ppm. I super chlorinated memorial day 05/26/08 and my chlorine is still at max at what I can read 10ppm (dark yellow). Besides draining my pool, is there any other effective way of decreasing cya. At 10ppm of chlorine, I can smell the stuff. My kids have been in the pool many time. What are the dangers of this. Also, I have metals in my pool because I have dark yellow brown stains around my steps and anything that is white. I am going to do the Vitamin C treatment but I have been waiting for the chlorine to go to 0. Any thoughts on these predicaments would be greatly appreciated.

You have a bunch of things confused. Sorry to be blunt.
1) Get your water tested and find out what your CYA and FC are.
2) Check out the "best guess" table here on the forum for the correct levels.
3) What you smell are CCs--combined chloramines. The way to get rid of them is add MORE chlorine--enough to metabolize the CCs. Your "smell" will go away. I'm guessing your CYA level is so high you can't measure the chlorine level properly to see what it is.
4) You need a proper FAS-DPD chlorine testing kit. You can order the K-2006 or K-2006c from Taylortechnologies.com, or the FAS-DPD Service Test Kit from Leslie's pools on-line, or the TFP-100 from Troublefreepools.com. All 3 are essentially the same and I think anyone of them serves you just fine.
5) Have you considered that like everyone else here your yellow is due to pollen? Spring time is TERRIBLE and the stuff is yellow, like yellow plaster. Also it's possibly mustard algae and the cure for that is...shocking your pool with chlorine.
6) There are only two ways to get rid of CYA--draining and replacing water or months of neglect (many of us have little or no CYA when we open in the Spring). But it's not worth doing unless you KNOW how high your CYA is.

Hope this help.