What Is Cyanuric Acid (CYA) And How Does It Effect Your Pool

When it comes to being a pool owner it doesn’t take long to realize that your pool water can fluctuate very easily. It can go from crystal clear and completely clean to green and swamp like in what seems like only seconds. In this informational guide we’ll tell you all about the reasoning behind this happening, *spoiler alert*, it’s due to your Cyanuric Acid levels.

What Is Cyanuric Acid

Cyanuric Acid is a stabilizer for your chlorine, you can think of it like an extra layer of protection helping your chlorine last longer. The reason why you need this is due to the fact the chlorine burns off from the UV rays of the sun. Because of these ultraviolet rays, you may need to add in CYA to prevent the chlorine burn off while also helping to lower the amount of chlorine needed due to this burn off. (If you have an indoor pool you don’t need to worry about this issue)

Not only this but you’ll also be able to enjoy your pool water remaining crystal clear while controlling your Cyanuric Acid levels. For your standard pool you’ll want to keep your CYA level between 30-50 PPM (parts per million). If you have a salt water pool you’ll want to keep them around 70-80 PPM, anything above 5o/80 PPM (respectively) will no long have the ability to kill bacteria in the water.

An Unfortunate Truth About Cyanuric Acid

The one unfortunate truth about CYA is the fact that if the levels become to high then it will actually start to work in reverse. Instead of it working at keeping your water clear, it will actually begin to actively help in making it green. The CYA levels can increase with the addition of other stabilizer products such as chlorine shocks that are paired with stabilizers.

Corrective Measures

When these levels get to high there are a few things you can do to get them back on track and level. You can use a product like Bio-Active that will reduce the CYA levels or you can lower the level of your pool and add in fresh water. Both will effectively lower the CYA level and it is up to you to decide which method you’re going to use. Determining exactly how much water to drain is the tricky part. You want to make sure that you DON’T DRAIN the entire pool, this can cause issues with your pool wall stability. What we recommend you do is either drain 1/4 of you pool, then refill and repeat to effectively drain 1/2 your pool water. Or you can go straight for a 1/2 pool drain, but you are opening up the ability for something unfavorable to potentially happening to your pool walls. But, a 1/2 pool drain is totally doable, don’t let us scare you away from it.

Once you’ve refilled the pool to a proper level you can then test your water and treat it with any need chemicals to get it to its normal ranges.

You’re Good To Go

That’s it, that’s all! You now know what it takes to overcome this issue with CYA levels and what needs to be done to get everything back on track and squared away. If you find yourself looking for more information on Cyanuric Acid levels feel free to reach out, we’d love to help!