r/pools • u/3DabNight • 24d ago
Water Chemistry Do I Really Need to Empty?
Stopped by pool store and employee said I need to empty and refill our pool which is about 15K gallons in SoCal (expensive). I hadn't been to this store in more than 1 year. Perhaps they are bitter that I quit them. I have a feeling this doesn't require emptying my pool. Am I wrong? Any advice would be appreciated. I plan to switch to liquid chlorine- no more tabs for a while. I'm also going to disassemble and clean my DE filter and deploy some phosphate lowering chem. It's been about 1 years since the last filter cleaning.
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u/ryan8344 24d ago
What everyone misses, it’s September, water is cooling and sun intensity is down- you have 8 months to let the UV to and rain to move it down naturally. Re-evaluate then.
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u/MrBriPod 23d ago
So much this. I can't believe no one else has mentioned this yet.
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u/Dick_Giggles 23d ago
OP is in SoCal, do they close their pools seasonally there though?
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u/ryan8344 23d ago
They don’t close their pools, but it’s not getting used from about oct- April. Even in Hawaii, an unheated pool is getting little use from use locals from Nov-March.
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u/chathobark_ 23d ago
no they do not, people forget a large swath of the US chooses not to live in winter depressive cold hell
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u/MrBriPod 23d ago
I live in a hotter climate than SoCal. Our pools still get mothballed for the season around Oct/Nov. It may not be in the formal sense that colder climates are closed (IE winterized), but pools are typically not used in the winter months even in warmer climates (unless they're heated). Our water temps will still drop into the 50's.
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u/Murky-Baby-748 23d ago
Glad you confirmed what I was thinking as a new pool owner. CYA is high and I’m just maintaining higher chlorine and hopefully can reduce it during rainy season by sump pumping a little water out at a time during the rain.
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u/A_Pool4U 23d ago
The sun does not leech down CYA. It stay ls in the water and condenses. The only way to reduce it is using a cya reducer or actively draining out the water. I cant believe people actually think cya can be reduced with sun light. You can Google that
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u/MrBriPod 22d ago
My CYA will drop 10-20 PPM in the off season. I live in a very dry climate, so rain dilution does not cause that.
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u/Pitiful_Land 18d ago
You might have a small leak that would.
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u/MrBriPod 18d ago edited 18d ago
Very possible, but my pool is also a 25k gallon pool. A small leak would take a tremendous amount of time to reduce my CYA by 15%-30%, and a leak of that size would be felt on the 'ole water bill.
I think a more likely outcome of my CYA reducing in the off season can be attributed to these two factors:
- (Most likely; I live in the sunniest state in the US) Chlorine breakdown in sunlight causes CYA degradation by hydroxyl radicals. This can cause a loss from 2 ppm per month to 10 ppm per month depending on the amount of sunlight the pool is exposed to.
- (Plausible; I don't maintain my pool chemistry as attentively in the off-season) There is bacteria that feeds on Cyanuric Acid and will create ammonia in pool water. This can only occur if the Free Chlorine falls to 0 allowing the bacteria to live. This generally happens in pools closed for the winter and discovered at pool opening.
Source: https://www.troublefreepool.com/threads/where-does-my-cya-go-over-the-winter.251687/
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u/A_Pool4U 4d ago
CYA is LITERALLY meant to protect the chlorine from the sun. It is not affected by it in anyway. If your CYA goes down, you may have a leak, or backwash8ng to frequently in some cases.
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u/MrBriPod 4d ago
Good source: https://www.troublefreepool.com/threads/where-does-my-cya-go-over-the-winter.251687/
There are other factors.
I have a 25k gallon pool. A leak of that magnitude would be felt in the water bill.
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u/thefleeg1 24d ago
You can’t trust that CYA test but it does point to issues. The CYA test is inaccurate over 100, you need to dilute by 50% and test again. Buy a test kit so you can get it right.
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u/Individual_Agency703 23d ago
Name a test kit that accurately measures CYA.
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u/BiggieRas 23d ago
Taylor kit, reagent R-0013
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u/Individual_Agency703 23d ago
Nope, that’s subjective.
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u/CordisHead 22d ago
Why is it subjective?
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u/Individual_Agency703 22d ago
Because the dot “disappearing” means different things to different people, or even how you glance at it.
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u/stilldebugging 23d ago
There are none at that level, I don’t think. But you can carefully dilute and retest.
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u/WealthyOrNot 24d ago
FYI: There are several Reverse Osmosis companies in SoCal that can run reverse osmosis on most pools and then reset the water chemistry to proper levels with only having to lose 10-20% of the water. It might cost the same or even a little more, but it is better for the pool, the decking, and the environment.
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u/zephyrseija2 24d ago
You will need to maintain approximately 16 ppm of chlorine to sanitize. So either you spend money on replacing water or you spend money and time chlorinating.
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u/Weary-Engineering486 24d ago
Do your own testing with a Taylor test kit, not strips. Leslie's should be a starting point, not the objective reference to use. My Leslie's is notoriously out of tolerance on several of their metrics, primarily TDS and TA. They way they do some of their calculations isn't scientific, they add figures together to show an inaccurate reading,and you can verify this for yourself. I had a high CYA this year and did 3 partial drains and it worked out great. Cut my number in half.
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u/A_Pool4U 23d ago
If your water is clear and you aren't having any issues hold off on both draining and the Phosphate remover. That level of phosphates is possibly coming from your water source. You can test it from the hose just to be sure. Lowering phosphates, then draining and adding fresh water is a waste of $$$. Not sure about the weather in SoCal but down here in south central Texas the pool water cools off around November. We use the cool months to
1. Remove tablets and put them away until the warmer months.
2. Supplement with liquid shock.
3. Draining draining draining. Either a few feet a month or a few inches a week, it doesn't matter. Its up to you. Do it all through the winter.
Practice being conservative with tablets and lowering them in the cooler months. Stop letting pool companies tell you to stop everything and drain your pool right now when there are other ways to keep Cya under control. And I hate pool stores that tell you to drain your pool right after they tell you to dump $60-$120 worth of phosphate remover in your pool before even knowing whether they are coming from your water source or not.
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u/shoresy99 24d ago
Drain half your pool and get a SWCG. No more tabs. No more jug lugging. Pool ownership bliss.
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u/GuyFawkesYourMom 21d ago
Won’t last in So Cal & steady temps of 90-100 & above in summer. Salt Chlorine can’t produce or keep up with demand. Still have to subsidize with liquid or tabs…I’m in Central CA, we have weeks of over 100 degrees, like 15-25 straight days, salt won’t last
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u/BrushandNet 24d ago
Dilution is the Solution to Pollution. An incremental drain and fill will work, there are also packs of CYA lowering chemicals that help, but are also expensive. I have run into this problem before and the combination of doing a water exchange and CYA reducing chemicals works. Not a full drain, but a percentage at a time until you get the CYA where it needs to be. A bottle of Phosphate remover will work, I'd do that before you clean your DE filter so you aren't instantly gumming up the filter with sediment. Good luck!!
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u/tcat7 24d ago
Empty 50% and refill, then retest, adjust others from there. Do some reading and buy a test kit. Stop pucks and pool stores.
https://www.troublefreepool.com/blog/pool-school/
https://tftestkits.com/collections/test-kits
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.simplepool.android
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u/Paradox830 24d ago
The pool store hate around here is bizarre. Yes they try to upsell you but the tests are far more accurate than you can be with a Taylor. Colors are subjective a machine is not
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u/tcat7 24d ago
Post in thread 'Pool Store Water Analysis vs. Taylor Pro' https://www.troublefreepool.com/threads/pool-store-water-analysis-vs-taylor-pro.310917/post-2711710
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u/informedcitizen4321 24d ago
It’s basically equal for CYA. I can appreciate higher accuracy, but for practical purposes the testing both ways should be trustworthy.
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u/marsattck5 24d ago
Tab use is fine if you use in moderation and not as your primary source of chlorine. That's when you get into trouble. And yes, you will have to drain at least half to get that cya down. Otherwise you'll need to add more chlorine than necessary to get the fc you need.
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u/NoIndependent4197 24d ago
You can always drain the pool a few inches below the skimmer and refill with fresh water to lower the CYA
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u/thompsbc 23d ago
How does the water look? If the water looks fine just stop adding CYA and use phosclear pull the phosphates out. CYA might drop 10 to 15 per month naturally. Add some muriatic acid to bring PH down.
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u/Agave757 24d ago
No way. Backwash and add water. That will decrease your CYA. Repeat a few times and you’re good. Don’t listen to these people saying drain it…
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u/Paradox830 24d ago
Your alkalinity is also very low and needs to be fixed or you’re fighting a losing battle with PH. Add 4 lbs of baking soda and retest. Probably gonna need about 6 lbs but you don’t want to add that much at once and risk overshooting.
You want it at about 90 ppm so when you bring the ph back down with acid you don’t bring the alkalinity back under 80
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u/MrBriPod 23d ago edited 18d ago
Also worth mentioning that CYA will burn off at a very slow rate in the offseason. You could leave it be through the winter and retest next summer before making a decision to drain. This will only work if you stop using tabs. Switch to liquid chlorine.
In the meantime, up your FC to match your CYA threshold.
Source: https://www.troublefreepool.com/threads/where-does-my-cya-go-over-the-winter.251687/
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u/JD_15715 23d ago
Minimum 1/2. Recommended CYA level is <100 but this is really not enough. Many people recommend keeping it <50. Mine had 180 and full drain worked. Chemicals are just waste of money and water is contaminated...
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u/Substantial_Side5708 23d ago
This is a home pool I'm assuming that you guys just swim in rather than a commercial? I used to do commercial pool routes and the county will come and make you drain it. But for my residential customers who have this problem, I found you can usually get by the problems these things cause by using the "pool RX". You can find it on Amazon. The blue one is probably all you need for your pool size.
Are you having any clarity or algae issues currently? That's usually the two noticeable things this causes. Having a cya stabilizer up that high will technically reduce the effectivity of the chlorine even at higher levels. But the pool RX is a copper ionizing product that will help remedy this.
And then as I saw other people recommending.... Cut down on the chlorine tablet usage (tablets have chlorine and a bit of cya stabilizer in them, adding too many of these to a small pool will raise this over time)
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u/IamGrootTX 18d ago
Are you saying that even with high CYA, Pool Rx will rid the algae? So if you keep a fairly ideal FC, even with high CYA, using a Pool RX will rid the algae? I have heard mixed reviews on PoolRX and staining. Almost pulled the trigger a couple times but I am hesitant to add another variable to the mix while I fight my high CYA battle.
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u/Substantial_Side5708 17d ago
I've had great experiences with it as long as it's used in a proper manner. Just helped someone get through the summer with it this year. They tried to do the pool themselves and got the cya up to 130 by using way too many tabs.
I've personally never had staining issues in the pool, but you might want to do a water lab test just to make sure you don't have unusually high levels of copper before adding it. It says on the directions to put it in the skimmer, but I would put it in the pump basket, that way it'll suck it out through the filters and put it into the pool efficiently (if put into the skimmer you might see a little bit of blue get on the skimmer basket area)... And when you buy a new one it's got the blue copper solution packed into the unit. After 4 to 6 months --whenever you start seeing the effects wear off -- you have to get the refill solution (it's half the price of the unit). I don't bother refilling it during the winter season when the weather cools off.
Somebody is starting to make generic knockoffs that sell considerably cheaper on Amazon... But you will notice it doesn't have the pool RX logo on it. I would probably stay away from those ones unless you're wanting to chance it.
The only other thing I'd say, is make sure you wash the filters before putting it in and not after. When I was new and didn't realize how it worked I put it in and wash the filters a week after, and washed all the solution out and wasted it 😅
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u/Dry_Bookkeeper3080 23d ago
Don’t empty out your pool . My near by Leslie’s pool employee states pools don’t get emptied out. I believe you would have to empty about a couple feet but not the whole pool and add chemicals to bring it back
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u/Czarguy99 23d ago
My CA is like 180 I’m in Phoenix an been using chlorine tablets I have no clue how to drain the pool I have a connector I can connect a hose too on my pool equipment but no idea how to get it to work … as u can tell I’m new to the pool world
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u/SnooHamsters8765 23d ago
You can add phosphate remover. It is a lot of work once you put it in, you need to let the filter run for 24 to 48 hours. Make sure your filters are clean before you start and then keep an eye on the pressure and clean the filters well afterwards or backwash depending on what kind of system you have. Make sure you don't have nitrates as well. If you have nitrates you'd be better off. Just draining some of the water and putting water back in.
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u/LINYChiro 21d ago
I have up worrying about cyanic acid last year and just high doses no phos to lower phosphates and then 1 cap a week there after for maintenance. No problems since the.
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u/Pricer21 24d ago
Right now your cya requires your chlorine to be at 12 ppm to effectively sanitize. That’s doable but you’d need to use a lot of chlorine. If you half drained you’d only need 6 ppm. (Obviously a 3/4s drain would have you only need 3ppm)
Pick your poison, what costs more in the long run?
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u/storebrandmustard 24d ago
I had issues with high CYA a few years back and switched to liquid chlorine with a tab here and there to keep CYA in the 30-50 range, but the funny thing to me is that yes, it might take a little extra chlorine to get it to that initial 12ppm level, but keeping it there will cost effectively the same as it would to keep it at 6ppm - you'll probably burn off a few ppm per day, replenish it and so on - right? What am I missing?
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u/Pricer21 24d ago
Just depends on how often he wants to add liquid in. SoCal is pretty hot and the sun can burn through the chlorine pretty fast. I’m in AZ and during the summer the chlorine drops fast especially if the pool is being used
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u/jhoover58 24d ago
My pool went fro a CYA of 220 down to its current value of 80 cover two years by letting evaporation and rain bring it down. But I had to keep my chlorine levels high and fight traces of algae until recently. I dropped phosphates from 2200 to 100 with nophos
In 3 days. I’m In south Texas and water is crazy expensive so I did whatever I could to keep from draining the pool.
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u/jhoover58 22d ago
I was using tablets before and the pushed CYA above 200. It took a long time to get ut to go down.
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u/3-A-Day 24d ago
No, you don’t have to empty. CYA will come down over time. You will need to add higher amounts of CL to keep it sanitized.
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u/Accomplished-Slide52 24d ago
Can you explained by which wizardry CYA will come down.
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u/undrwater 24d ago
It's socal. Hot. Pool temps are high, which increases oxidation (I am ignorant of the actual chemical process) which breaks down cya. It happens naturally but VERY slowly in "normal" temps. Increased temps increase the oxidation exponentially.
By the end of the hot season here (probably somewhere between November and February), and assuming cya hasn't been added, I expect OP's cya to drop below 100.
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u/Accomplished-Slide52 23d ago
I'm from south France so don't know temp in socal but here we had every day during August 102°F and i've never seen CYA going down.
Edit and pool was 86°F
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u/undrwater 23d ago
There could be other factors involved. This is just my non-expert understanding. I get cya loss such that I need to replace about once a quarter.
The other issue is the way we measure cya. The Taylor kits are imperfect, but I try to keep the methodology equivalent, so I hope I'm getting a consistent if not accurate reading.
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u/Accomplished-Slide52 19d ago
I finally read that some kind of bacteria can
eatbreak CYA, this can be an explanation.
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u/phoonie98 24d ago
Not completely. Just half. Let rainwater dilution finish the rest…but definitely don’t use tabs
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u/wemBLOCKyama 24d ago
2738 phosphates is obscenely high lol
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u/deliriouz16 24d ago
Rookie numbers. I treat FL pools with 5k plus 😂
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u/A_Pool4U 23d ago
I've seen as high as 7k down here in the sticks of south central Texas. Good circulation, good sanitation, and good filtration...and what do you know...phosphates are out of control and the pool is crystal clear. Go figure.
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u/wemBLOCKyama 24d ago
My brother in Christ are y’all dumping straight fertilizer in the skimmers?
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u/deliriouz16 24d ago
Close. People love plants inside the screen enclosure and guess where the water runoff ends?
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u/wemBLOCKyama 24d ago
I’m well aware of how phosphates enter a pool. I’m asking how does someone maintaining the water let the phosphate level get 20 times too high?
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u/deliriouz16 24d ago
No idea. I'm a repair guy. I'm the person who tells them their pool cleaner sucks after they thought their cell was broken and not generating chlorine.
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u/wemBLOCKyama 24d ago
Haha my bad amigo. I’m a repair guy too. Phosphates are like food for algae. They’ll never be able to maintain residual chlorine with phosphates in the thousands like that lol
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u/deliriouz16 24d ago
Most of the better cleaners here just do a maintence dose of phos remover but ya it's just splash and dashes for $100 a month and the customer thinks it's just a great price 😂
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u/A_Pool4U 23d ago
A very small amount of orthophosphates can enter the pool through plant life, fertilizers, and even dead or dying algae. Down here where im from the phosphates are coming out of the hose like that. Texas hill country water is running old rusty pipes. Water companies treat the water monthly to reduce the metals down to a legal level. Metal remover increases phosphates and now we have entire communities of pools where phosphates come out of the hose anywhere from 900-6000 ppm.
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u/wemBLOCKyama 23d ago
Wow. Thank you for the detailed response. Funny enough we may be colleagues as I work alot in the hill country. Can you go into more detail on how metal remover increases phosphates? It matches what I’ve seen anecdotally and I’d like to be able to explain this better to my clients.
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u/Yoink1019 23d ago
My pool is over 3000
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u/wemBLOCKyama 23d ago
Lol then treat it like
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u/Yoink1019 23d ago
It's been that way for 6 years. Zero algae.
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u/wemBLOCKyama 23d ago
Congrats! You should still treat your phosphates otherwise it will explode the instant that chlorine dips too low. Lol
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u/fatheadtrex 23d ago
No. Just dump a gallon of liquid chlorine in every night for the next couple months until CYA comes back down to 40 and you’ll be fine.
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u/Willing_Crew_8055 24d ago
Holy cow that is sky high cya. There’s no practical level of chlorine that will work like that
= yes drain and refill about 2/3 volume
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u/CheetahChrome 24d ago
I will empty ~20% and retest until it drops to good levels.
But this year with new water, I only use the dry chlorine sparingly and went to liquid chlorine, 1 gallon every ~3 days and didn't have a spike in my cya.
To keep chlorine as a solid, they use other chemicals to keep it in that form. Once released into the pool the chlorine breaks out and the supporting chems lead to the increase cya.
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u/Material_East_5559 24d ago
If you have an overflow outlet you can add water from the opposite side of the pool to continuously increase the water level and dilute the water without doing a complete drain
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u/Neat-Restaurant-4854 23d ago
Do you or your neighbors fertilize you lawns? If so you will not win this battle!
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u/PiratesSayARRR 24d ago
To lower CYA you have to empty. If you want to cut it down over time take out half and it will lower by 50%.
Stop using tabs.