By far one of the most important chemicals for your swimming pool is chlorine. You must have the proper levels in your residential or commercial swimming pool to keep it clear and free of algae. With that said, the most common chemical used to prevent chlorine loss in swimming pools in Cyanuric Acid (CYA). Sometimes in the industry, you will hear it called conditioner or stabilizer. During our long, hot, muggy summer months the sun’s ultraviolet rays destroy free chlorine but having the adequate amount of conditioner in the swimming pool will prevent this. Knowing that we hope this post helps to explain why CYA is necessary but also what happens when it gets higher than what is considered normal levels which many swimming pool owners deal with if they use chlorine tablets.
If Cyanuric Acid is used properly it can reduce the cost of maintaining a swimming pool because it prevents chlorine loss and reduces the amount of chlorine needed to properly sanitize a swimming pool. With that being said, you are now probably wondering what are considered normal amounts of CYA and what is considered too high? Typically, the ideal amount of CYA is between 30-50 parts per million (ppm) but depending on how much direct sunlight the swimming pool gets, that number could be a little higher. Whereas, when the CYA levels rise above 100ppm, that can cause a fair amount of other problems too. The biggest issue when CYA levels rise above 100ppm is the effectiveness of chlorine because the higher levels tend to bind up the chlorine making it harder to kill algae and other bacteria.
How To Lower CYA Levels in Your Swimming Pool
In the Dallas area, you can lower CYA levels by performing a drain and refill or using The Puripool Process. At Weber Pools, we highly recommend The Puripool Process because not only can we lower CYA but we can also lower Calcium Hardness, Total Dissolved Solids (TDS), salts, and so much more! Just this past week we filtered an18,000-gallon swimming pool with high levels of CYA. They were struggling with algae blooms and with CYA levels that high they needed to do something with their water.
Initial Chemistry
Calcium Hardness – 670ppm
Total Dissolved Solids – 3692ppm
CYA – 200ppm (extremely high)
After filtering this swimming pool for 14 hours with our Reverse Osmosis (RO) mobile filtration trailer we were able to lower their water chemistry to the following:
Calcium Hardness – 150
Total Dissolved Solids – 810ppm
CYA – 40ppm
By conserving 85% of the existing water and filtering their pool water with RO membranes we were able to give them excellent water quality where chlorine will work more effectively. If you should have any questions about our service, please don’t hesitate to contact us!