Ever wonder why a pool stays clear for months and then collapses in a heatwave despite “weekly shock”? We pull back the curtain on the most persistent pool chemistry myths and replace them with simple, durable rules you can use on every visit. This is a frank guide to working with stabilizer, choosing the right chlorine, and avoiding the subtle traps that turn easy weeks into green emergencies.
We start by dismantling the calendar-based approach to shocking. Chlorine demand isn’t a date on your route sheet; it’s a relationship with cyanuric acid. Using the 7.5% FC-to-CYA guideline, we show how to set smart targets, when breakpoint chlorination makes sense, and how to avoid dumping gallons that don’t move the needle. From there, we explain why trichlor, liquid chlorine, and cal hypo are not interchangeable. Each has a job, a byproduct, and a best-use scenario—understanding that is the difference between controlled, predictable water and chasing problems.
High CYA gets a hard look. Yes, some techs maintain clear water at 150 to 200 ppm CYA, but they pay for it with higher chlorine demand and slower kill rates. We outline practical ways to cap stabilizer—dilution plans, mixed dosing strategies, and seasonal resets—so you’re not stacking tablets all summer. We also revisit the old habit of weekly algaecide and how modern enhancers like borates and phosphate enzyme blends can help without becoming crutches. The priority remains constant: solid FC/CYA targets, clean filtration, good circulation, and consistent brushing.
• weekly shock myth versus measured breakpoint
• FC targets tied to CYA at 7.5 percent
• trichlor, liquid, and cal hypo roles and byproducts
• high CYA management, limits, and dilution strategy
• algaecides versus enhancers and prevention basics
• saltwater generators as continuous chlorine supply
• testing, filtration, and circulation as first principles
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Episode Transcript
Hey, welcome to the Pool Bay Podcast Show.
In this episode, I'm gonna coversome common myths that you may
believe.
A lot of pool pros still thinkthis way, and some of these
myths about pool chemistry, Ithink should have been debunked
a long time ago, but of course,it's hard to kind of fix
something that's kind of beenbelieved over time in the
(01:25):
industry.
Are you a pool service prolooking to take your business to
the next level?
Join the pool guy coachingprogram.
Get expert advice, businesstips, exclusive content, and get
direct support from me.
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(01:45):
I'll start with this one, andthis is one of the things that I
often hear out there when poolcompanies hire people, and this
is something that is a practicethat was, I think, more
prevalent than it is now becauseof the cost of chemicals.
But you would always tell yourpool techs that are starting out
(02:06):
in your business that you wantto shock the pool weekly.
There is this company here in myarea, and I know a pool tech
that worked for them, and theorder had them pour in two
gallons of liquid chlorine everyweek.
No matter what the chlorinelevel was in the pool, he would
just have them just pour thisin.
And he would, of course, orderfrom Hosta directly, have it
(02:27):
delivered to the property.
So the pool techs had a fulltruck of liquid chlorine all the
time.
I thought this was odd that hewould have this mandate of just
shocking the pool every week.
And this is something that amyth that I think is in the
industry still, where in thesummer you have to shock the
pool every week.
And of course, the truth is,yes, some pools do need shocking
(02:50):
when the chlorine level dropsbelow the level that you should
be maintaining it at.
Now, I could talk the wholepodcast on what chlorine level
the pool should have.
I'm just gonna say that you wantto factor in cyaneric acid and
your baseline chlorine levelbased on the amount of cyaneric
acid in the pool.
And I'll just use Bob Lowry'sformula.
(03:12):
This, of course, is actually aminimum in the formula, which is
your free chlorine level shouldbe 7.5% of your cyaneric acid
level.
So if your cyaneric acid levelin the pool is 100 parts per
million, your free chlorinelevel daily should be 7.5 parts
per million.
If the cyaneric acid is less, ofcourse, then you would have less
free chlorine.
(03:32):
And so, yes, if it does fallbelow the baseline chlorine
level for that pool, you willneed the shock to pool.
However, you know, like I wasmentioning, telling employees to
pour in two gallons of liquidchlorine, no matter what the
level is, is not logical.
You're just wasting product, andit's not something that's going
to be beneficial to the pool.
(03:53):
Now, you want to, of course,check the free chlorine level
and make sure that it's at thatlevel, then you would add shock
to the pool if necessary.
And shocking, of course, isanother thing that you have to
kind of measure because there'sdifferent levels of shock.
You can raise it to 10 parts permillion, 20 parts per million,
(04:14):
30 parts per million.
And if you have some combinedchlorine, you're trying to get
to the break point of that.
So there's all kinds of aspectsof shocking.
So I think one of the myths isthat you can just shock a pool
in the summer and that helpsmaintain it.
When in fact, there's a lot oflayers to this, there's a lot of
different products you can useto bring the coin level up.
(04:35):
There's a lot of different shocklevels that the pool needs, and
it's not just something that youcan just say, well, if you shock
the pool every week, you'regonna be fine.
That's definitely a myth, andreality is balancing the pool is
important, and calculating theshock level is also a big factor
in this equation.
Here's another one that I oftenhear is that all chlorine types
(04:57):
are basically the same, they'rea sanitizer, and so there really
isn't any difference if you'regonna use cal hypo over liquid
chlorine or if you're gonna usetrichlor tablets.
And I think the easy answer isof course they're all different
because the manufacturers selldifferent chlorine products for
different situations anddifferent usage.
For example, the trichlortablets have probably the most
(05:17):
concentrated amount of chlorine,but they're not used for
shocking the pool because youcan't just add you know four
tablets to the floater if thepool has zero chlorine and
expected to bring it to theshock level rapidly.
And of course, you have yourcalhypo and your liquid
chlorine, which are used moreprimarily for raising the
(05:38):
chlorine level up rapidly in thepool.
You can also use that tomaintain the chlorine level.
However, you're going to losesome parts per million per week,
and since both the liquidchlorine and calhypo have no
stabilizer, no cyaneric acid,and the reason why the
trichloride tablets last so longand are for weekly chlorine
(05:59):
dosing is that they dissolveslowly, they have cyaneric acid
in them, and they're ideal forthat particular usage.
So they're not the same with anyrespect, and the strength is all
different, and it's really oneof those things when you're
starting out an industry, youprobably think that they're all
the same.
Like when you go buy milk at thegrocery store, you have vitamin
(06:20):
D milk, whole milk, then youhave 1%, 2% skim milk.
I'm not a big milk person, but Ithink there's probably more
different milks out there, butit's still a dairy product, milk
product from a cow, so they'reall the same.
But in pool service, all thechlorine types are actually very
different from themselves.
They all have differentbyproducts, they all have
(06:42):
different reasons you're usingthem.
So you can't just say in ablanket statement that all
chlorine is the same, you canuse whatever in the pool and
you'll be fine.
I think that's something thatyou learn as you start to kind
of disseminate which chlorinetype is best for your pool
(07:17):
service use or personal backyardpool use, and which one is not
as beneficial.
And just briefly, I could justsay that if you just use
trichlor tablets as your primarysanitizer in the pool, if your
area doesn't get like 30 or 40inches of rain during the rainy
season or you don't partiallydrain the pool, you're gonna add
a lot of cyaneric acid to thepool, which makes things more
(07:39):
difficult to maintain.
So that's one of the drawbacks.
And I would say cal hypo andliquid chlorine, cal hypo the
byproduct is calcium, liquidchlorine is salt.
So those byproducts are a littleless harmful to the pool, but
everything has a byproduct innature, everything has a
byproduct in chemistry, and sothe chlorine types all have
different byproducts, they allhave different strengths, and
(08:01):
they all have different usage.
Here's one where you're gonnaget a variety of answers
depending on who you talk to inthe industry, and this is you
can't have too much CYA orstabilizer or cyaneric acid in a
pool.
Now, there are many people outthere that believe that you can
(08:23):
maintain a pool properly withvery high cyaneric acid, and the
truth is you can.
You can load up your pool withtablets and have the cyaneric
acid at 200 parts per million inthe summer, and you can maintain
that pool by just adding moreand more chlorine to the pool.
And this is something that a lotof companies do out there.
(08:44):
A lot of people purchase poolroutes and they realize that
man, this this person had thecyaneric acid at like 250 in
every pool, and the pool wasmaintained pretty well.
So there is an argument on oneside that stabilizer level
doesn't matter.
However, there is rules andthere are regulations.
Like, for example, in commercialpools here in Los Angeles
(09:05):
County, you cannot have morethan 100 parts per million of
cyanaric acid in the waterbecause the higher the cyanaric
acid level I mentioned earlier,the higher the free chlorine
level needs to be.
And the somewhat less effectivethat chlorine is at the higher
cyanaric acid level in the pool,the kill rate is reduced pretty
dramatically.
(09:26):
The kill rate of viruses andbacteria is reduced
dramatically.
That's why the LA County hasthese regulations where you
can't have too much cyanericacid in the water, but you can
easily maintain the pool withhigh cyanuric acid during the
summer.
It's not something that cannotbe done.
But there are certain pools withhigh cyanuric acid that are very
(09:48):
difficult in the summer, and soit's one of those things where
it's you can do it, but at thesame time you can't do it on
certain accounts, if that makessense.
And believe me, the old schoolpool guys never really worried
about cyaneric acid levelsbecause they would just keep the
free chlorine level high byadding more and more tablets.
You start the season adding twotablets, and then the next month
(10:10):
you're adding three, and by nearthe mid or end of summer, you're
adding four or five tablets to apool to maintain that chlorine
level, and then of course thecyaneric acid level is
increasing dramatically.
And again, if you don't get alot of rain in your area, I
would say 30 to 40 inches isprobably ideal to dilute that
pool, or if you don't do apartial drain of the pool,
(10:31):
you're gonna have a lot ofcyaneric acid in that pool
through the winter and then intothe next season.
So I'm gonna say that the betterway is to use a combo approach
with your pools with trichlortablets and then liquid chlorine
and calhypo to bring thechlorine level up, so you're not
overusing trichlor tablets andyou're not adding you know a ton
(10:52):
of cyanaric acid to the pool.
So there is a little bit oftruth in this myth.
You can do it, but eventuallyyou're gonna hit a wall with
these pools that have thesereally high cyanaric acid if the
water is not being diluted insome fashion or some way.
Here's one that I think has kindof gone away mostly, but the old
timers and when I was trained, Iwas always taught to put in a
(11:15):
weekly algicide to the pool.
You know, you would just put inyou know one ounce of sodium
bromide in the pool, you woulduse a polyquat squirted in the
pool, or you can use even acopper algecide.
The thing is that the algees,the thinking behind that I
should say, is that adding justa maintenance of an algicide
will prevent the algae in thepool.
(11:37):
And in some respects, this kindof myth has been kind of turned
a little bit, and we do useenhancers in the pools now, like
you can use a pool or x, whichis basically like adding a
weekly algicide to the pool.
You can use borates to 50 partsa million, you can use a
phosphate enzyme combination tohelp prevent algae from growing.
So it is kind of like one ofthose safety nets that hasn't
(12:00):
gone away.
We just we just have kind ofchanged it now to where you're
not adding a polyquat or sodiumbromide or another algacyte in a
maintenance dose every week, butyou are adding enhancers to help
prevent algae from forming inthe pool.
And I think the reason why thismyth that you could you need to
(12:20):
add it, you need these things,and and on in all honesty, if
you sanitize the pool andmaintain it at the proper
chlorine level, you really don'tneed anything.
But these enhancers are reallyhelpful in the pool industry
because we're at the pool once aweek, and this is a great way to
kind of prevent the pool fromturning.
If you're a homeowner and you'reyou can you know take care of
(12:41):
your pool every day of the week,you probably don't need anything
beyond checking the chlorinelevel, balancing the pool, and
adding the sanitizer.
But since we're servicing poolsand multiple pools, by the way,
you know, 70 or 80 pools a week,and the last thing we want to do
is have a pool turn on us, spend20 minutes brushing it, treating
it for algae.
So there is some logic behindthis because you're trying to
(13:03):
get through your day, and ofcourse, you're doing more than
one pool, you're doing 15 poolsa day, and the last thing you
want to do is to be battlingalgae.
So it does make sense for poolservice to have developed this
myth that adding an algecide, amade in stose, is a great way to
prevent algae, and there's alittle bit of an insurance back
there.
And the enhancers are kind oflike an evolution of this to a
(13:24):
point where if you're not usingenhancers, you're probably gonna
be struggling out there in thesummertime.
And I think the actual myth partis that by doing the little
algebra thing, you're gonnaprevent algae in the pool, and
you're ignoring a lot of otherfactors, you're ignoring the
proper free chlorine level,you're ignoring clean
filtration, all these otherfactors kind of just go on to
(13:45):
the back burner, and just byputting a little algacyte in,
you think you're gonna be fine.
So I think this is a dangerousmyth because you are not
counting all the factors that gointo balancing the pool and
making sure the pool staysalgae-free.
So be careful thinking thatadding an algicide is going to
(14:06):
or even an enhancer is going tomake things easy.
You do have to balance the waterand have to kind of think about
the other factors thatcontribute to algae in a pool.
Here's another one, and I justheard this the other day, which
is kind of funny, and this issomeone who was asking about you
know a way to maintain the poolwithout chlorine, like using a
(14:27):
salt water generator, and I findthat to be funny in a way
because the manufacturers andthe salespeople did start out by
kind of pushing these as kind ofa chlorine alternative, and what
they meant by that was you don'thave to add chlorine to the pool
with tablets, liquid chlorine,and cal hypo, but somehow it got
(14:49):
translated that or kind ofmorphed into a saltwater pool is
not a chlorine pool, and infact, it is a little miniature
chlorine factory that isproducing kind of a pure
chlorine into the pool.
I'm kind of dating myself, butback in the day when I was doing
pool service in the 90s, therewere a lot of gas chlorine
companies.
They would have these canisters,and they would have a route
(15:12):
where they would just I had someaccounts actually that had gas
chlorine service too.
I wasn't doing it, but there wasa glass gas chlorine company
that was servicing the pool, andthey would pull it back there.
It was like a littlethree-minute stop for them
basically, go back there, putthe gas chlorine into the pool,
and then head on their way out.
And kind of very similar, thesalt water generators are doing
(15:33):
kind of that.
I don't think there's anycompanies in my area anymore, by
the way, to do gas chlorine.
But this is what the saltwatergenerator does.
So this myth kind of gotpropagated.
I'm gonna just give themanufacturers a benefit of the
doubt, and say by accident, bysmart marketing, and the
marketing was too good, andpeople just started believing
(15:54):
this, and people still till thisday will say, Yeah, I have a
saltwater pool, so I don't usechlorine in my pool.
Really, it's it's something thatif you do pool service, it is a
salt saltwater pool, it is achlorine pool.
And if you're a homeownerlooking to buy a saltwater
system, which by the way, Ireally like the saltwater
systems because it's some it's away to add chlorine to the pool
(16:15):
without having to think about ittoo much.
But in reality, it's probablythe actual best form of adding
chlorine to the pool, believe itor not.
And so it is a chlorine pool, nomatter how you look at it,
you're just not adding chlorineproducts to the pool.
You're not adding liquidchlorine, dichlor, trichlor, cal
(16:36):
hypothes of the pool on aregular basis.
And there are non-chlorine poolsystems out there like
bigwenide.
I don't really have any on myroute, I've never dealt with it,
but that's a non-chlorine kindof pool that you can maintain
without chlorine.
But you're gonna need some kindof sanitizer in the pool,
regardless of either with thesaltwater generator or by adding
(16:57):
chlorine.
So the saltwater pool is a formof sanitizing the pool.
It just requires less manualaddition of chlorine to the
pool.
Looking for other podcasts, yougo to my website,
swimmingpoollearning.com on thebanner, click on the podcast
icon.
There'll be a drop the menu ofclose to 1800 podcasts now.
And if you are interested in mycoaching program, you can learn
(17:18):
more at poolguycoaching.com.
Thanks for listening to thispodcast.
Have your week and God bless.
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