Cyanuric acid (CYA) or stabilizer is an important aspect of salt water pool maintenance and should be maintained at around 80 ppm at all times. Because your salt water chlorinator
Halogenation
Halogenation is a chemical reaction that involves the reaction of a compound with a halogen and results in the halogen being added to the compound. Organic compounds undergo halogenation much more readily than inorganic compounds. Dehalogenation is the reverse of halogenation and results in the removal of a halogen from a molecule.
Why do they put stabilizers in saltwater pools?
in Saltwater Adding Stabilizer Outdoor saltwater pools should have stable chlorine levels since chlorine acts as a sanitizer. But their exposure to the sun means that their chlorine levels decrease over time. The sun causes the chlorine to evaporate that, which means the addition of stabilizers.
What is the ideal chlorine stabilizer level for a salt water pool?
The ideal stabilizer range in a regularly chlorinated pool is usually suggested to be between 30 ppm and 70 ppm. In a salt water pool the ideal cyanuric acid level is 80 ppm. PPM stands for parts per million. Why the difference? Salt water pool chlorinators produce chlorine at a slow, steady rate.
What happens if you don’t add stabilizer to your pool?
If you don’t use stabilizer or let your levels drop too low, you’re opening up a Pandora’s box of possible bacteria and algae growth that can take over your pool and destroy your water chemistry in a matter of hours. By adding stabilizer to your pool, you’re effectively giving the chlorine a fighting chance against the sun.
How often should I add pool stabilizer to my pool water?
Also, remember to replace your pool filter and balance the water once you’ve eradicated the crypto from your pool before letting any swimmers back in. You will probably only need to add pool stabilizer to your pool water once a year. No, that is not a misprint.
How often should I put stabilizer in my saltwater pool?
You should only add stabilizer if your levels are below 30ppm. Usually, all you have to do is check the level of stabilizer (cyanuric acid) in your pool every week to judge whether it's doing the job or not. What is this?
What should stabilizer be in salt pool?
50-80 ppmSalt water pools are most stable with a pH of 7.6, and Alkalinity of 70-80 ppm. A stabilizer level of 50-80 ppm is recommended by most salt system manufacturers. High calcium hardness levels have no effect on salt water pools, but a level of 180-200 ppm may result in less scale on the salt cell plates.
What happens if stabilizer is low in salt water pool?
If you have low pH and stabilizer, the most common product to use is Cyanuric Acid. The way it works is by forming a bond with the chlorine and preventing it from breaking down under the UV light.
How do you balance chemicals in a saltwater pool?
0:477:539 Common SALT WATER POOL MAINTENANCE Mistakes - YouTubeYouTubeStart of suggested clipEnd of suggested clipYour free chlorine levels should be between one and three parts per million with three parts perMoreYour free chlorine levels should be between one and three parts per million with three parts per million being ideal.
Can you swim in a pool with low stabilizer?
Alkalinity Balance, pH up, pH down, Calcium Balance, Water Stabilizer, and clarifier are all swim-safe chemicals. Wait about 20 minutes, and you are free to swim.
Can I add pool salt and stabilizer at the same time?
You should not add all pool chemicals at the same time. You should also avoid mixing pool chemicals together. Adding chemicals at one time can cause dangerous chemical reactions and serious injuries. In addition, it will make it difficult to balance the pool.
What are the disadvantages of salt water pools?
Disadvantages of Saltwater Pools More complex than traditional pools, they often require experienced technicians even for minor problems. Salt can cause damage to some materials, so you may have to avoid using specific types of heaters, fixtures, underwater lighting, liners, and even some types of masonry work.
Should you shock a saltwater pool?
A salt pool changes salt from the salt cell into chlorine instead of having to add chlorine directly into the water. It is okay to shock your saltwater pool and it is important to do so.
What order do you add chemicals to a saltwater pool?
1:504:03What's the RIGHT Order to Add POOL CHEMICALS? | Swim UniversityYouTubeStart of suggested clipEnd of suggested clipFirst can help bring your ph. Into range if you need to raise your alkalinity. You can use anMoreFirst can help bring your ph. Into range if you need to raise your alkalinity. You can use an alkalinity increaser or baking soda. If you need to lower your alkalinity.
What is a good stabilizer for a pool?
Stabilized chlorine is the easiest way to add chlorine and stabilizer to your pool at the same time without a second step. Both trichlor and dichlor contain over 50% CYA by weight. You'll likely never have to adjust chlorine levels when you add them as a combination duo.
What happens if stabilizer is too high in pool?
If the stabilizer level is too high in a pool, it will lock the chlorine molecules, rendering them ineffective as a sanitizer. This usually happens as a result of using chlorine tablets that contain cyanuric acid.
Can you add salt and stabilizer at the same time?
Yes, at the same time is fine.
Is shock and stabilizer the same thing?
Pool stabilizer is also known as pool conditioner, chlorine pool stabilizer, chlorine stabilizer, or Cyanuric Acid. And you can buy this chemical additive as either liquid or granular (powder). It's also included in chlorine tablets or sticks (called trichlor) or shock (called dichlor).
Quick Highlights
Stabilizer helps to protect the chlorine from the sun so that it can be used for its intended purpose.
Stabilizer requirements are higher in salt water pools for a reason
The ideal stabilizer range in a regularly chlorinated pool is usually suggested to be between 30 ppm and 70 ppm. In a salt water pool the ideal cyanuric acid level is 80 ppm. PPM stands for parts per million.
Why keeping stabilizer within range is important for salt water pools
While you want to ensure you have enough stabilizer in your pool water, you also want to ensure you don’t have too much.
Summary
Cyanuric acid (CYA) or stabilizer is an important aspect of salt water pool maintenance and should be maintained at around 80 ppm at all times. Because your salt water chlorinator produces chlorine at a relatively slow rate, it’s important to protect the chlorine that you do have and that’s what stabilizer does.
One final note
The first thing my pool company told me when they first told me add some stabilizer to my salt water pool during spring opening was this:
How to add stabilizer to salt water pool?
How do I add a stabilizer to my saltwater pool? You can add it directly into the water or mix the stabilizer with warm water before pouring it. You should also determine first the amount of stabilizer necessary for your pool size and its chlorine levels.
Why do saltwater pools need to be stable?
It is because the sun causes the chlorine to evaporate that, which means the addition of stabilizers.
What does it mean when a chlorine level is above 50?
If it rises above 50 ppm, the chlorine test will read zero (o), known as a chlorine lock. There are also other disadvantages related to CYA levels above 50 ppm. First, there isn’t a significant increase in ultraviolet protection for the sanitizer, meaning chlorine will continue to evaporate quickly. Second, there is an increased risk ...
How to lower CYA level in pool?
But if you used CYA as a pool conditioner, then the best way to decrease CYA levels is to dilute the pool water. You can either partially drain your pool or allow splash-outs to decrease the water level. Afterward, you can add fresh water to your pool and measure its CYA level again.
What is the chlorine level in a pool?
Yet another general rule is keeping the chlorine level at about 7.5 percent about the stabilizer.
When to add CYA to pool?
We suggest reading the pool conditioner label since there can be differences in dosage. We also recommend adding CYA at the start of the swim season. You can then leave your pool well enough alone afterward except for the regular testing.
Can you add stabilized chlorine to a pool?
Keep in mind that adding stabilized chlorine to your pool means little to no need for adding extra CYA. Both dichlor and trichlor sanitizers already have a small amount of CYA in them. But CYA levels can slowly increase over time, known as a creep when stabilized chlorine is used. There’s then a need to reduce CYA levels.
How to add stabilizer to pool?
The first way to add a stabilizer to your pool is with a stabilized tablet, stick, or shock that contains both chlorine and CYA. The second way to add a stabilizer to your pool is as a liquid or granular additive separate from your chlorine addit ive.
What happens if you add stabilizer to pool?
If you add pool stabilizer beyond the maximum suggested range, the CYA will prevent the chlorine from doing its job. Having too much stabilizer causes a problem called “creep.” CYA levels will creep up too high over time, and your chlorine will no longer be able to disinfect your pool.
How Much Chlorine Pool Stabilizer Should You Use?
If you don’t add enough pool stabilizer to your pool, your chlorine will start to evaporate, so it’s important to keep levels in check.
How long does it take for chlorine to evaporate from a pool?
If you go to the trouble to chlorinate your pool and don’t add pool stabilizer, it will take approximately 2 hours for most of the chlorine to evaporate out of your swimming pool.
What is a pool stabilizer?
Using a pool stabilizer is a necessary part of keeping your pool clean. Pool stabilizer is made from cyanuric acid (CYA). CYA slows down how quickly chlorine evaporates so that chlorine will stay in the water longer.
Why do people use pool stabilizer liquid?
Some people choose pool stabilizer liquid over granules because they don’t feel like the granules dissolve well enough. I’ve never had this problem, but I also make sure that I use granules that are as close to 100% cyanuric acid as possible. If the CYA isn’t concentrated enough, your CYA levels won’t raise as much either.
How much stabilizer do you need to get 30ppm?
Calculate how much stabilizer you should add. To achieve 30 ppm, you need one pound CYA per 4000 gallons of water.
Why add stabilizer to pool?
By adding stabilizer to your pool, you’re effectively giving the chlorine a fighting chance against the sun. Think of it as a suit of armor; it still has to go into battle and will certainly get banged up, but it will last a lot longer than it would without it.
What is Pool Stabilizer?
Pool stabilizer goes by several names: pool conditioner, chlorine stabilizer, or cyanuric acid. You can get it in granule or liquid form to add to your pool water.
What happens when chlorine and pool stabilizer bond?
When pool stabilizer bonds with chlorine, the chlorine’s ability to kill bacteria (and therefore sanitize) is somewhat limited. The term for chlorine’s sanitizing power is known as the Oxidation Reduction Potential. This potential is reduced when chlorine and pool stabilizer bond together. To put it simply, stabilized chlorine lives longer but is less powerful than it would be in its original state.
What is trichlor in pool?
You might see it called trichlor when it’s mixed with chlorine tablets or sticks and dichlor when it’s mixed with pool shock. The main purpose of pool stabilizer is to keep the chlorine in your pool water from degenerating due to UV exposure.
What is the best level of chlorine to maintain?
Maintaining levels around 50 ppm will safeguard your chlorine, allowing it to do its job without getting destroyed by sunlight. Remember, more pool stabilizer doesn’t mean more protection, it will actually just decrease your chlorine’s efficacy. This is a Goldilocks situation — 50 ppm is “just right” and stabilizer is really only helpful at these specific levels.
What is the creep in a pool?
Weekly testing is especially important for pools that don’t get refilled very often. If you’ve tested and found that your stabilizer levels are higher than 50 ppm (parts per million) you may have developed “the creep”. No, not a weird guy with binoculars in the bushes. This term refers to stabilizer levels that have gotten too high, thus rendering itself (and chlorine) useless.
What happens when you bolster chlorine in a pool?
When you bolster the chlorine in your pool with a silent helper like pool stabilizer, what it’s actually doing on a molecular level is quickly binding to the chlorite ions in chlorine. These guys are stronger together than apart: without this chemical bond, the UV radiation would break apart the chlorine, causing it to lose all sanitizing power.
Why do you need a pool stabilizer?
A pool stabilizer helps to support the correct chlorine in your outdoor pools that are under direct sunlight. Regulating the level of chlorine is essential for prolonging disinfecting your pool water (killing bacteria and algae). The pool stabilizer provides 4 times more water purity support than without using a stabilizer.
How much pool stabilizer needs my pool?
On average, pools need 1 pound of the pool stabilizer per 3,000 gallons — such simple math.
What to do if your pool test shows below 30 ppm?
So, if your test shows below 30 ppm, you need to add a pool stabilizer. If higher than 50 ppm — reduce accordingly. The easiest way to do this is to drain some of the water from the pool and add clean water back. Nothing complicated.
How much less should chlorine be than stabilizer?
The chlorine level should be 10 times less than the stabilizer level (you can determine both of these values using test strips). Thus, if the stabilizer level is 30 ppm, the chlorine should be 3 ppm, and so on.
Why do you need a pool filter pump?
The transparency, cleanliness, and beauty of the pool are achieved not only thanks to the pool filter pump: to keep your water as clean and safe as possible, you are required to add additives that help regulate the water balance in your pool. Some people ignore this and then have some problems.
How often should you do a stabilizer test?
On average, The World Health Organization recommends doing such a test should be carried out no more than once a week and look at the result.
Can you use a bucket to dissolve pool stabilizer?
For this, you can use a bucket with a little water.
How much stabilizer does your pool need?
Opinions vary a little among experts about the proper level of CYA a pool should have, but as a general rule, it should not dip below 30 ppm or rise above 50 ppm.
What is pool stabilizer?
Did you know that without a buffer, the sun can consume up to 90% of your pool’s free, unstabilized chlorine in just a couple of hours?
What if your stabilizer is too high?
I talked about chlorine lock earlier and this is what can happen if your CYA levels are too high.
What is the best chlorine level for a pool?
A good rule of thumb is to keep your sanitizer levels at round 7.5 percent of your stabilizer. So, doing the quick math, if your pool conditioner is 50 ppm, you should shoot for free chlorine levels between 3 ppm and 4 ppm.
What is the chlorine level of a chlorine lock?
Most of the time, levels above 50 ppm cause chlorine lock, which is where you have added plenty of chlorine but your tests are reading 0.
How to reduce CYA in pool?
The most reliable way to reduce CYA levels is dilution. That means you will need to drain a portion of your pool water and add fresh water to it.
When to add CYA to pool?
You usually won’t have to add CYA to your pool after the initial dose at the first of the season, but sometimes it’s necessary. For example, if your pool water has been lowered for some reason (think huge pool parties with splashing kids) or if you’ve had some rainfall.
Why does my pool pump not stabilize?
The desired stabilizing effect may not be reached easily because the pool pump has to run for an extended period of time to create the required amount of chlorine. If you turn off the pump prematurely, there will be low levels of chlorine in the water.
What makes a pool saltwater?
The chlorine gas then combines with the pool, forming liquid sodium hypochlorite chlorine, which is what makes the pool a saltwater one. The chlorine stabilizer has a complex mechanism, and there are many factors that can affect it.
How much salt is needed to make a pool saturated?
To enable this process, two to five hundred pounds of salt needs to be added to the pool to make it saturated.
Why is there no chlorine in my pool?
Natural conditions like excessive sunlight is another factor that increases chlorine demand and lowers the stabilizing levels. Sunlight causes chlorine to vaporize, causing a lack of chlorine in the pool. This is especially common in the case of outdoor pools that are always exposed to sunlight and warm temperatures.
Is salt water pool maintenance cheaper than chlorine?
Saltwater pool maintenance may seem easier than that of a chlorine pool; however, this is not always the case. While saltwater pools are an excellent alternative to chlorine pools, they are in no way cheaper or easier to maintain so here’s what you need to know about saltwater pool care.
Does salt make a pool cloudy?
The pool may even begin to appear cloudy.
Can a saltwater chlorinator fight off algae?
This also results in the rapid usage of chlorine bleach in the water. When phosphate levels are high, the saltwater chlorinator cannot produce enough chlorine to fight off the algae. If a water analysis shows excessive phosphates in the pool, increase the chlorine production to three times so as to create a chlorine reserve.
How much does it cost to maintain a salt water pool?
However, you also need to take into account the cost to maintain it. Most of the time, you can operate a salt water system for less than $100 a year, as opposed to about $300-600 a year for chemicals for a traditional chlorine pool.
What is salt water pool?
But in the world of swimming pools, a salt water pool is one that uses a salt chlorine generator instead of traditional chlorine for sanitizing. This means that the pool is still chlorinated, just with a different type of chlorine. The way the salt generator works is by creating its own chlorine with an electrical reaction between the salt in ...
How do salt test strips work?
Test strips are the easiest way to test pools and they work the same for both chlorine and salt water pools.
What is the best way to lower pH?
You may also need muriatic acid to lower pH levels when they get too high and soda ash to raise them. You'll also need sodium bisulphate to lower alkalinity, sodium bicarbonate to raise alkalinity, and of course pool salt to keep your levels in check.
How does a salt generator work?
The way the salt generator works is by creating its own chlorine with an electrical reaction between the salt in the salt cell and the electrode in the generator. So, instead of pouring chlorine into your pool or adding tablets, the generator is constantly creating it.
Why is salt water more prone to calcium buildup?
Salt water pools are more prone to calcium buildup because the pH levels tend to get too high. Salt water tends to corrode metal pool equipment. Chlorine is cheaper to purchase than salt cells. Salt generators are more expensive to repair.
How often should you check your calcium and salt levels?
But the salt, alkalinity, cyanuric acid and calcium levels can usually be checked once a month unless you are having problems with scaling or algae.
