Good water gone bad... High CYA

[Brookenstein]

The first guy agreed and said there was no chlorine, he called over somebody else and he looked under the special light and he put it at 1 -1.5.  Still not what I would expect 10 hours later.

The water looks to me like it is clearing up a little.  I think I may see what I can do with it and try and buy me another few weeks.  We go on vacation in mid April and I wanted to change it when we got back cause I figured it would got heck when we were gone.

[Tatooed_Lady]

okay, I read this in another post somewhere, so if it doesn't work, don't shoot the messenger.....
Take one cup of your spa water and 2 cups of tap water....mix together and try for chlorine reading....if there's WAY too much in the tub, this should diliute it enough to at least let you know if the strips are bleaching out.
If you get a reading, multiply by 3 to figure out what your actual chlorine count should be...I THINK that's what it all said......makes some sense to me, anyhow.
Good luck!

[Brookenstein]

Ok, the plot thickens...

I went out to check the filters.  I cleaned the filters last week.  It had been an entire month since I cleaned them and they were barely dirty.  Anyway, I just took them out, the one on the circ pump is nasty all others were clean... I'm going to rinse it real good and then run it in the dishwasher.

When I'm done I will try what you suggested Tat.

[Tatooed_Lady]

aww crap.....now I'm making sense to OTHER people....time for me to up my meds......  

[tony]

Don't worry about your CYA levels until they are DOUBLE where they are now.

I see the results of the test Leslie's did, but I don't see a chlorine reading.
Did they give you one?

Without knowing that, I suspect that your massive dose of chlorine is now bleaching your test strips.

I agree.  Don't worry about the high CYA right now.  You should be able to get three to four months out of your water.  The high CYA isn't going to hurt your water in any way...it reduces the effectiveness of chlorine a little.  I suspect you need to bump up the filtering time until your cloudy water clears after your super dose of dichlor.

Although CYA is not needed at all for a covered spa, dichlor is almost half by volume.  In such a small body of water, it is almost impossible to keep CYA levels down.  It is one of the reasons I prefer shocking with non chlorine shock.  Your water should come back around.  I don't think you need to drain.  Three tbls dichlor is a lot.  One tbls gets my free chlorine level up over 5 ppm in almost 500 gallon spa.

[Brookenstein]

I did the method Tat suggested... well sort of, I did it from memory and did it 1:1 and nothing happened.  I came here to write results and saw it was suppose to be 1:2 solution so I added more tap water and retested.  While there still wasn't enough color to make a reading per se, I could see a tiny hint of color, where as before there was no color at all... so I think you guys are on to something.

Couple questions...

Is it safe to assume the reading is much higher than a) what I got on the test strips 0 and b) the 1.5 that the guy got with the Taylor test strips?  Should I not use the tub tonight or is it safe levels to use?  I've had the cover off a lot today.... hoping to help disipate it.  I'm assuming I should wait a while to add the MPS, but if i use it tonight, do I still add my normal amount of dichlor or should I use a small amount of MPS prior to use for a few days instead?  Any suggestions until I get this a little squared away.  Will my chlorine readings eventually get to normal with this high CYA???  I'm assuming I sorta have 2 or more seperate issues going on now.  I don't want to start micromanaging the water now.

[Dr. Spa™ Ret.]

Chlorine stabilizer or conditioner (cyanuric acid) is used, in outdoor chlorine-maintained swimming pools, as a means of helping to protect the chlorine from being destroyed by the Sun's ultra-violet rays.  This helps the chlorine last longer and reduces consumption.  The level of cyanuric acid is easily determined by a simple chemical test.  In northern areas, a range of 20-40 PPM is considered ideal.  In sunbelt areas, a level of 40-80 PPM, is recommended for pools not utilizing a stabilized form of chlorine.  Levels between 80-150 PPM are above the ideal, but are not considered to be a problem.  Higher levels, especially over 150 PPM, are thought to reduce the effectiveness of the chlorine and may require the maintenance of somewhat higher chlorine levels.  Every time a stabilized chlorine is added, some cyanuric acid is contributed to the water.  The only means of lowering the cyanuric acid level is to replace water.