Clear sparkling pool water strategy
I finally have a clear sparkling pool water strategy that works. I have been using chlorine tablets for several years to maintain my pool.
They work great at delivering acceptable levels of chlorine to the pool water over a long period of time. Along with an offline pool chlorinator, they make a perfect pair for the low-maintenance pool.
Unfortunately, there is a dark side to using chlorine tablets. The tablets have what I call a binder. This material helps reduce the loss of chlorine from the pool. This binder is Cyanuric acid(cya). Low levels of cya are needed to keep your chlorine from being rapidly burned out of the pool by the sun’s UV rays. So low levels of cya are needed to maintain pool chemistry. Unfortunately, if the levels of cyanuric acid get to high then chlorine begins to lose its punch on algae. The higher the level of cya, the less chlorine works at keeping control of algae.
Pool Chemistry and Cya
Pool chemistry is always a balancing act. If something gets too high, add this to lower it. If something gets too low, add this to raise it. With all of the different parts of the pool water chemistry always moving to the high or low. But when you get to cya levels being too high things change. There just seems to be only one thing to do. Change out the water, drain the pool, get the levels below 100 ppm to keep it in range. That’s when you start to look at the chlorine tablets you love with a different point of view.
Granular Calcium Hypochlorite Pool Chlorine – Amazon.com
Options to reduce Cya
“I just drained my pool, when will my next pool drain occur” is always on my mind when I am using chlorine tablets. Not a good option here in drought-ravaged California. Yes, there is a cya reducer. But as I read the reviews, the results/reviews were terribly mixed as to whether it works like it should. Also, it is a very costly product to “try”.
My solution
So I drained half the pool last Sept./Oct. time frame. 
I had to split the fill time across the two months so that I would not get a sky-high “water waster” water bill. Then I started to use powdered chlorine(calcium hypochlorite, at almost twice the price) over tablets. I chose this product because it has no stabilizer(cya) added. I have used the powdered chlorine since then until the end of May. In the meantime, I have been keeping an eye on my Cya levels and I can say that the numbers have been going down. My cya levels after the pool drain were in the high 90’s. The levels as of May are at 40ppm. How did this happen?
Here’s how:
- Use of calcium hypochlorite from Oct to May
- Every time rain would overfill the pool instead of letting it evaporate out of the pool I drained the excess water away.
- I backwashed the pool sand filter every second month to rid the filter of organics.
- I will be switching back to chlorine tablets in June thru September for ease of maintaining the pool chemistry.
Use of powdered chlorine from Oct to May
The use of calcium hypochlorite allows the chlorine levels to be easily maintained during the months when high chlorine use is not going to happen. This makes the use of this product easy due to the cool weather. Bonus there is no cya added to the pool during this time. A note: I use this product sparingly as I don’t want to get a High Calcium problem which is just as bad as high cya.
Rainwater in the pool
Making use of the rainwater to reduce the cya levels by draining or backwashing the pool filter makes sense. Because it’s free water and not on my water meter it helps reduce the cya without any further cost. Not letting it evaporate out(my normal operating mode) was an epiphany for me.
Reduce the organics in the pool water
Backwashing the pool, cleaning out the filter baskets, staying on top of leaves and organics blown into the pool reduces the organics that the pool water is exposed to and reduces the food available for the algae to feast on. Removal of this material makes the available chlorine in the pool water work less hard and makes using powdered chlorine much easier to control algae.
Natural Chemistry Phos-Free Pool Phosphate Remover – Amazon.com
These steps have allowed me to switch back to tablets for the busy pool season ahead. You can be sure however that I will be going back to calcium hypochlorite in Sept./Oct. This is my clear sparkling pool water strategy.
Related Article: Hard Lessons Learned on Pool Water Chemistry
A horror story review on cya reducer(click here)
(Mybusyretiredlife.com All Rights Reserved)
(Mybusyretiredlife.com All Rights Reserved)
(Mybusyretiredlife.com All Rights Reserved)
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