[AA702]

Originally Posted by WestieJeff

No I don't. It's weird. I use my pool only maybe 2 times a year (sad I know), if that, and no kids so no major splashing or water loss that way. No water feature either. The only water loss in my pool is from evap.

Two years in a row I've noticed it drop from 80 to 40-60 and had to add CYA to bring it back up. I never add any dichlor or trichlor though.

The CYA test is a little subjective since you're supposed to add the cloudy pool water until you can't see the black dot. Even then, I doubt I am off that much.

Yeah that is strange! but in a good way because it actually keeps you from draining your pool to get rid of CYA.

[MediocreButArrogant]

Originally Posted by WestieJeff

No I don't. It's weird. I use my pool only maybe 2 times a year (sad I know), if that, and no kids so no major splashing or water loss that way. No water feature either. The only water loss in my pool is from evap.

Two years in a row I've noticed it drop from 80 to 40-60 and had to add CYA to bring it back up. I never add any dichlor or trichlor though.

The CYA test is a little subjective since you're supposed to add the cloudy pool water until you can't see the black dot. Even then, I doubt I am off that much.

Reviving an old thread because this happened to me this year (I just opened the pool in late August, after being covered since December).

I did a little more investigation, and over at TFP I found a post that described how bacteria could break down CYA and form ammonia in the presence of zero chlorine. This is likely what happened to me - the pool is covered so no algae grows, but there was no chlorine in it for months, so the bacteria grew and broke down the CYA. My CYA was up around 70-80 before closing and after I opened it was down around 30ppm. I did not have the massive chlorine demand described in the post though, a couple gallons of liquid chlorine took care of everything and I could hold a high FC level overnight.

Degradation of Cyanuric Acid (CYA))

It Can Happen to Anyone - Zero Chlorine, CYA-->Ammonia

I'll have to be more careful about maintaining an FC level while the pool is covered.

[LVAllen]

On the other hand, if you can somehow bottle and store that bacteria, you could make a lot of money selling the cure to overstabilized pools.

[AA702]

There is a product that has been around for about a year and it is an enzyme based product that does get rid of CYA and is proven to work. I've used it a few times and it worked better when the water temp was above 70 degrees and the chlorine was low or zero. 1 bag costs about $40-$50 and lowered the CYA by 50%. Every pool is different so a lot of people will get varied results. Its called Bio-Active

[MediocreButArrogant]

Just read the first page of an eight page thread over at TFP on it. The thinking is that there are at least two types of bacteria in it, one to break down the CYA into ammonia, and the other to break down the resulting ammonia. The low chlorine is a requirement so you don't kill the bacteria in the product.

[Mindlessness]

My pool was plagued with yellow algae this year. Even with careful attention. I now have a service and they are keeping it under control.

[OmegaSupreme]

this thread may be a little to advanced for me, but i didn't want to start a new one

just got a house with a pool and was quoted $110/m from the pool guy that said he was taking care of this pool

there's lots of what looks like dirt on the bottom of the pool and some cracks and peeling.... there's a hose attached to some rectangular object that is sitting in the pool and a blue and white circular object that is floating. don't know what these are

since i haven't the first clue about pool maintenance, i thought i'd ask here about what i should do... i don't mind getting my hands dirty to save $100/m if i can.... if i fail at maintenance, i can always go and hire a pool guy later

[WestieJeff]

$110/month is reasonable for a guy who comes weekly and cleans the pool plus provides chemicals.

The rectangular object with the hose attached is most likely a pool vacuum, helps keep the dirt off the bottom of the pool.

The circular object is a floating container that holds chlorine tablets. It basically controls adding chlorine to the pool.

You'd need to learn a lot about pool maintenance, but it can be done. This is a great site to learn from: Pool School - Pool School

In Vegas, I find the most important things to pay attention to pool chemistry wise are FC (free chlorine) and CYA (chlorine stabilizer). I always keep FC and CYA in check. PH is next, but I admit I get lazy controlling it (which is done by adding muriatic acid). Our water is very hard here, so it's difficult to keep PH, TA, and Calcium in check.

Most important thing in your pool is keeping chlorine in check. There are three main methods of doing this:

1) Using chlorine tablets and granular chlorine - This is very common in the valley. Like I said before, the blue and white floater holds the chlorine tablets. Some people add granular chlorine (usually called shock) weekly or monthly. It's very popular, but my least favorite method. Both granular and tablet chlorine add CYA to the water. Once you get too much CYA in the water the chlorine stops working. The only way to remove CYA is by draining all or part of the pool. Anyone using mainly tablets and granular chlorine will have issues with CYA. Usually the problem presents itself as algae showing up even though you've added lots of chlorine. The problem is that the CYA "locks up" the chlorine and makes it unavailable to kill algae.

2) Liquid chlorine - I used this method for a few years. Just dump bleach (with no additives) into the pool. I used to buy 15 boxes of Clorox at Costco on a regular basis. Using liquid chlorine doesn't add CYA to your pool, so you don't have that problem. It's laborious though, I was adding a gallon of chlorine every other day in the summer.

3) Salt water chlorine generator - I upgraded to this method. Basically you add a piece of hardware that creates chlorine from a small amount of salt you add to the water. If you're maintaining a pool yourself, this is definitely the best method. The salt water chlorine system doesn't mess with CYA, so no problems there. I basically just clean the salt generator cell every 1-3 months (more in the summer, less the rest of the year). Cost of adding a salt water chlorinator is probably around $1500 installed. The salt cell has to be replaced about every 3 years and that costs around $450. You don't need to buy liquid/tablet/granular chlorine though so I think it's probably a wash cost wise and a huge labor saver.

You also need a good test kit, it needs a DPD (dropper) chlorine test (not the one that turns yellow) and a CYA test. This is the kit I use: TFTestkits.net

This is the chart you need to reference in determining what your FC chlorine level should be: http://www.troublefreepool.com/conte...art-slam-shock . SWG means "salt water generator" meaning salt water chlorine system. Sounds like you don't have a SWG so use the non-SWG chart. It's impossible to know how much FC you should have until you know your CYA level.

It's a lot to absorb, but not terribly difficult. Get your CYA and FC in check and that's 90% of the work.

This site is great too for calculating how much chlorine you need to add, etc: http://poolcalculator.com/ to adjust your pool levels. You do need to know the approx. gallons of your pool, which unless you have the specs from the installer, you need to do an estimation procedure.

Originally Posted by OmegaSupreme

this thread may be a little to advanced for me, but i didn't want to start a new one

just got a house with a pool and was quoted $110/m from the pool guy that said he was taking care of this pool

there's lots of what looks like dirt on the bottom of the pool and some cracks and peeling.... there's a hose attached to some rectangular object that is sitting in the pool and a blue and white circular object that is floating. don't know what these are

since i haven't the first clue about pool maintenance, i thought i'd ask here about what i should do... i don't mind getting my hands dirty to save $100/m if i can.... if i fail at maintenance, i can always go and hire a pool guy later

[MediocreButArrogant]

Originally Posted by OmegaSupreme

this thread may be a little to advanced for me, but i didn't want to start a new one

just got a house with a pool and was quoted $110/m from the pool guy that said he was taking care of this pool

there's lots of what looks like dirt on the bottom of the pool and some cracks and peeling.... there's a hose attached to some rectangular object that is sitting in the pool and a blue and white circular object that is floating. don't know what these are

Blue and white floating object is probably a simple plastic floating chlorinator. You put tri-chlor tablets in it and they slowly dissolve. Rectangular object with hose is most likely a suction-side (vacuum) cleaner, like a Hayward Navigator or similar.

since i haven't the first clue about pool maintenance, i thought i'd ask here about what i should do... i don't mind getting my hands dirty to save $100/m if i can.... if i fail at maintenance, i can always go and hire a pool guy later

Go to troublefreepool.com and read the articles in "Pool School".

$100/month is pretty typical, but very few pool services understand even the basics of pool water chemistry. Most just keep dumping in tabs and driving up your CYA levels until you can't put in enough chlorine to keep the algae out. Then they drain the pool, refill it, rinse and repeat.

My feeling is that during pool season, you need to be skimming the pool and checking the water every other day anyway, so if you're going to be doing that yourself, why pay to have someone come once a week and do a worse job than you.

[qingguy]

Originally Posted by MediocreButArrogant

Go to troublefreepool.com and read the articles in "Pool School".

Couldn't agree more. I do my own pool care, super simple and cheap, all learned from TFP.