Saltwater pool manufacturers recommend keeping your cyanuric acid levels between 60 and 80 ppm. Remember, more cyanuric acid does not mean more protection from the sun. If your CYA levels are high, you may experience algae growth or cloudy pool water. That's because your chlorine's effectiveness is reduced.
Saltwater pool manufacturers recommend maintaining cyanuric acid levels around 60-80 ppm. This is a bit higher than the 30-50 ppm range recommended for non-saltwater pools. And if you live in an area where your pool gets a lot of direct sunlight, you may even consider bumping your cyanuric acid up to 80-100 ppm.
What happens when CYA in a pool is too high? – CYA Levels exceeding a threshold of 70 parts-per-million of cyanuric acid can reduce the effectiveness of the chlorine in a pool. The amount of time it takes to kill bacteria lengthens as the concentration of CYA increases.
The cyanuric acid in your pool should be between 30 and 50 ppm, although some find it more effective closer to 80 ppm. Keep in mind that the higher your cyanuric acid levels, the weaker your chlorine becomes. The World Health Organization recommends that cyanuric acid levels don't exceed 100 ppm.
Cyanuric Acid in a Saltwater Pool
Hayward and Pentair both recommend 60-80 ppm of cyanuric acid for their salt systems. Why more CYA? Manufacturers of salt systems want more output from the salt cell, without fighting against UV degradation. As cyanuric acid bonds to chlorine, the chlorine residual can build faster.
2. Dichloroisocyanuric Acid: Also known as “dichlor,” this is another type of chlorine shock. Dichlor contains both chlorine and cyanuric acid and will, over time, raise your cyanuric acid levels.
All alkaline materials are buffers. Cyanuric acid happens to be the most common buffer found in pool water. In effect, cyanuric acid helps stabilize both chlorine and pH. It binds with chlorine to prevent photolysis and it keeps pH elevated.
Answer: Cyanuric acid shouldn't be at Zero for an outdoor swimming pool because chlorine will deplete faster in hot and humid weather, leading to cloudy water. If your FC is at normal level of 3ppm, raise Cyanuric acid level to 40 ppm and you will reduce chloramine levels that make your water appear cloudy.
If your levels are too low and you need to bring your levels up above 30 ppm, it's time to add some cyanuric acid to your pool. This process usually involves dissolving some granules in a bucket and pouring it around the edges of your pool.
Cyanuric acid (CYA), also called stabilizer or conditioner, is used in pools and spas exposed to the sun to reduce the rate of decomposition of available chlorine by ultraviolet rays in sunlight. Stabilized forms of chlorine, such as dichlor and trichlor, contain CYA in their formulas.
Cyanuric Acid (CYA) is a pool balancing product used to help chlorine last longer. Chlorine, in its natural form, is unstabilized—which means it degrades when exposed to sunlight. Adding Cyanuric Acid reduces the sun's impact on chlorine loss.
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?
But if the cloudy water persists long after you've shocked the pool, you're likely having an issue with water balance, circulation, or filtration. Heavy use of a calcium based pool shock (cal-hypo) may increase Calcium Hardness over a period of time, increasing your odds of cloudy water.
For the most part, yes. It can be unattractive and it should be addressed, but it is mostly safe to swim in cloudy water. The only exception would be if the pool is cloudy because there are too many chemicals in it. This pool water would be unsafe to swim in and should be avoided.
We also found that cyanuric acid is denser than water so it sinks to the bottom of a body of water.
Although there are no known adverse health effects associated with high CYA concentrations, most health officials usually limit CYA levels to 100 ppm. Some states recommend a lower level for spas, and some jurisdictions ban the use of CYA altogether.
When cyanuric acid levels get too high, it can cause something referred to as chlorine lock, which basically means your chlorine has been rendered useless. You'll know it has happened when your chlorine test shows very or little chlorine even right after you've added it to the pool.
As mentioned earlier, it will take at least 48 hours and up to a week to fully dissolve. Powdered cyanuric acid is not so common and it may not be available to buy in your area. It's reported to not dissolve any faster than granular stabilizer.
Recent CDC research presented at the October 2015 World Aquatic Health Conference demonstrates that even at cyanuric acid levels as low as 10 to 20 ppm, the current recommended remediation protocol is not adequate to inactivate the necessary 99.9 percent of Crypto in pool water.
Why You Have Low Cyanuric Acid
The most likely reason is that you've only ever used unstabilized chlorine in your pool. Heads up: Unstabilized chlorine, such as sodium hypochlorite (liquid chlorine), lithium hypochlorite, and calcium hypochlorite, is pure chlorine.
Use your test strips to monitor the chlorine stabilizer amounts. If the number falls below 40 ppm, add stabilizer. This level, unless it's extremely warm outside, will rarely decrease if you maintain your pool's chemicals regularly.
For pools with plastic piping, Stabilizer 100 can be added VERY SLOWLY through the skimmer with the pump running. Circulate continuously for at least 24 hours.
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.
Regular bleach, or sodium hypochlorite – contains no cyanuric acid. Household bleach is normally a 5% or 6% strength, while commercial strength bleach for pools is generally 12.5% strength, and delivered by truck and hose.