How much CYA in trichlor tablets?

[aylad]

aylad - I am in SE Florida and also have a pool in the sun all day. I plan on using your method of high CYA. What do you keep your chlorine level at and is there a downside to keeping it lower with a high CYA? Do swimmers find it uncomfortable?

Thanks!

I keep my chlorine level between 8-10 at all times. I also shock it after a couple of days of heavy rains, especially if they're hurricane-driven, and at the end of a week of heavy bather load (my house is the place where all the kids on the street hang out all summer).
I use the best guess chart (link in mine and Watermom's sig) just like we recommend to everybody else. Letting your chlorine get below 5 or 6 with high CYA will result in an algae bloom, and it takes a LOT of bleach once that happens to get it up to shock level, but if you never let it get below 6 to begin with, it's not a problem.

As for comfort, like Watermom said, higher chlorine with higher CYA feels exactly the same as lower chlorine with lower CYA. Any discomfort is usually caused by letting your pH get out of whack, or letting CC build up without a shock.

Janet

[HofstraJet]

Thanks, everyone, for your thoughts. I am adding 50 ppm borates to the pool this weekend and will keep a close eye on things when I start using trichlor tabs next week. My goal is to minimize the amount of active maintenance my pool needs. Pool guy used to come once a week and add liquid chlorine best I can tell, but now that I know what is involved, I see things were certainly out of whack for part of the week as it doesn't really seem possible to maintain a pool with once-a-week maintenance.

[Watermom]

it doesn't really seem possible to maintain a pool with once-a-week maintenance.

You are right, once a week maintenance isn't going to work for your pool chemistry but 5 minutes every day or two will!