Cyanuric Acid – Keeping the Pool Stable
While the first day of summer is not until June 21st, we often associate June with summer. Summertime brings sunny days that we hope to spend in the pool. Besides being ideal for a pool day, the sun has effects on your pool and your water chemistry. Those without heaters, utilize the sun for warming the water; however, all pools are subject to the degradation of UV rays from the sun which can deplete our chlorine. Depleting chlorine can lead to cloudy water, algae growth, and the development of recreational water illnesses. How can we protect our pools from such depletion? We use Cyanuric Acid.
“CYA”
Many of associate the acronym “CYA” as meaning “cover your #$@!”, but Cyanuric Acid (CYA) is known as a stabilizer or conditioner in the pool industry. CYA is a compound that is either added directly or added indirectly via stabilized chlorine products (trichlor tablets or dichlor granular). Did you know that in less than an hour, chlorine levels can be decreased by the chlorine’s UV rays? And, we all know that low or no chlorine is not good. That is why we want to stabilize our chlorine with Cyanuric Acid.
How to Cover
To add Cyanuric Acid into our pools, we either manually add Cyanuric Acid or a stabilized chlorine. Stabilized chlorine means that the Cyanuric Acid is built into the form of chlorine which is either a tablet (puck) or granular. The stabilized chlorine includes trichlor or dichlor. Trichlor is commonly found in tablet form and used in a chemical feeder. Granular trichlor is less common and used for treating black algae. Dichlor is more common as a granular form. It is very soluble and often used to shock pools, and is especially beneficial for vinyl-liner pools and spas.
Conditions of Cyanuric Acid levels
For prime operation, Cyanuric Acid should be between 30 and 50 ppm (mg/L). Most state codes permit a maximum level of 100 ppm for commercial pools. If your Cyanuric Acid levels are above 100 ppm, it needs to be taken into account and testing for your alkalinity. We need to take 1/3 of the Cyanuric Acid level reading and subtract it from the alkalinity levels to get our accurate alkalinity. To reduce CYA, we need to add fresh water. When we add fresh water, it is going to reduce all our water chemistry readings. This includes both those we want on the low end (I.e., TDS, phosphates, and minerals), as well as our readings for those essential to our pool functioning properly (I.e., chlorine, pH, alkalinity, and calcium hardness). It should also be noted that if we need to treat for a recreational water illness, we want to reduce our Cyanuric Acid levels to 15 ppm or less with higher chlorine levels in order to destroy the germs.
Covered
Now that we know what Cyanuric Acid is and how essential it is for the optimal operation of our swimming pools, we want to make sure we are covered. During your visit, we will ensure your chemical feeder is filled and set for your pool’s needs and treat as needed. In between visits, we know that many things can happen that affect our water chemistry readings including storms, hot weather, sunny days, and large bather loads. It is recommended to test your water in between those visits and we can let you know what needs to be done to keep everything covered!
