Pool Questions Answered: Tricks, Tips & Truths

Stuck with a pool that reads sky-high stabilizer and can’t be drained? We break down a step-by-step plan to bring control back fast: how to verify overrange CYA with simple dilution tests, when to abandon trichlor, and the exact chlorine targets that keep algae at bay while CYA slowly falls. You’ll hear the practical math behind Bob Lowry’s 7.5 percent rule and a weekly dosing rhythm that works for a typical 15,000-gallon pool without expensive gimmicks.

We also tackle metal management with a clear take on copper testing. Need a quick yes/no? Strips are fine. Need precision to avoid stains or diagnose issues? Photometers like PoolLab 2.0 and LaMotte ColorQ 2X Pro 9 are worth the investment. We call out a common pitfall with chelated minerals in PoolRx that make readings swing and explain what to watch instead so you don’t chase phantom numbers.

On the gear side, we solve the frustrations that waste your time. If a Polaris 280 tail is soaking your deck, the TailSweep Pro is the simple diffusion fix that ends the spray. Cracked unions on salt cells or filters? Split quick couplers snap over existing plumbing so you avoid cutting and long repairs. Wrestling with a Hayward Navigator that keeps eating parts? We lay out how to seat the A-frame correctly, tighten pods, and when to finally retire a parts hog that’s beyond saving. And for those dreaded seized wall fittings with broken tabs, we share a counterintuitive trick: insert the quick disconnect to fill the hollow, then twist with channel locks—clean removal without cracking the body, followed by fresh Teflon for a future-proof reinstall.

• Verifying high cyanuric acid with dilution tests
• Stopping trichlor and shifting to cal hypo plus liquid chlorine
• Holding 15 ppm free chlorine with high CYA using Lowry’s ratio
• Slow dilution via equipment spigot and autofill
• Copper testing: when strips suffice and when to use photometers
• PoolRx chelated copper and fluctuating readings
• Polaris tail spray fix with TailSweep Pro
• Split quick couplers to avoid cutting and replumbing
• When to ret

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Transcript

Verifying Extremely High CYA Accurately

Switching Off Trichlor And Managing Chlorine

Gradual Dilution And Maintenance Strategy

Affordable Ways To Test Copper

Photometers, Pricing, And PoolRx Caveat

Polaris Tail Sweep Water Spray Fix

Quick Split Couplers To Avoid Re‑Plumbing

When To Retire A Hayward Navigator

Removing Stuck Wall Fittings The Smart Way

Closing Notes And Resources

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Hey, welcome to the Pool Guy Podcast Show. In this episode, I'm gonna answer some YouTube questions I get and I'll expand on those. And I think you'll find this episode helpful as I cover a number of different subjects here and a variety of subjects in a more expanded way to answer them than just a little sentence or two on YouTube. Are you a pool service pro looking to take your business to the next level? Join the Pool Guy Coaching Program. Get expert advice, business tips, exclusive content, and get direct support from me. I'm a 35-year veteran in the industry. Whether you're starting out or scaling up, I've got the tools to help you succeed. Learn more at swimmingpoollearning.com. This first one here is someone who took over a pool that has 200 parts per million of cyaneric acid, and draining is not an option. So what's the best way to do this with a pool and how do you get the cyaneric acid back down to an acceptable level? First, I'm going to say that 200 parts per million may not be 200 parts per million because the cyaneric acid test is only accurate, I think up to about 100 parts per million. After that, it gets kind of a little bit inaccurate. It could be somewhere in that range because again, the test is only accurate to a certain amount of cyaneric acid, and then it becomes somewhat inaccurate. Now you can do a dilution test where you take some bottled water and you take the pool water, mix it together, and then do the cyaneric acid test, and of course, that's going to be half the actual number. So this does help a little bit. Sometimes diluting it, one part pool water, four parts tap water will help get you a more accurate cyaneric acid level. But besides that point, to dive into the question, the best thing you can do, and this is what I do when I get to a pool with this problem, is I of course I stop using trichlor tablets entirely. So no more trichlor tablets in that pool. I'll switch the customer over to Calhypo tablets and I'll use those in the skimmer. Again, Calhypo does not calipa tablets do not work in the trichlor chlorinator, so just put them in the skimmer basket in the pool, and then use liquid chlorine to bring the chlorine level up in that pool when you need to. And gradually the cyaneric acid level will drop from one season to the next. And you can also do some partial drains while you're at the pool. If there is a hose spigot still on the equipment, usually when they pressure test it, they leave the hose spigot on top of the pump. I would suggest running that with running the pool while you're there with that open. Just be careful. You put your truck keys on top of there so you don't leave that pool with the pool draining down from that hose spigot. And then fresh water will be added to the pool with the autofill. And I think it's a great way to just drain part of the pool down while you're at the stop. If you can do that every week, that'll be like a little tiny bit of water being drained to kind of assist you in lowering that cyaneric acid level down. But getting off the trichlor tablets entirely, moving towards cal hypo tablets, and then using liquid chlorine will definitely help mitigate that. Now, the main problem is that with a cyaneric acid level at 200 parts per million, if you take Bob Lowry's formula of 7.5% free chlorine to cyaneric acid level, you're still gonna have to maintain about 15 parts per million of free chlorine in that pool until the cyaneric acid starts dropping down. So you can't technically just stop using trichlor, put in two cal hypotablets, and maybe use some liquid chlorine in the meantime. You have to get the chlorine level back up to about 15 parts per million for that pool to be maintained algae-free during the season. So that really be about four or five cal hypotablets, and depending on the pool size, of course. I would say a 15,000 gallon pool, I would probably put four or five cal hypotablets in the skimmer, and then like a gallon of liquid chlorine every week would maintain that 15 parts per million. And as the cyanuric acid level starts to degrade over time, you can lower that chlorine level down. And this is, of course, part of that question was that draining the pool was not an option. I probably should have stated that at the beginning, assuming that you can't drain. I'm not sure if I read that in the question or not. But basically, this is a way to do it gradually without draining the pool, and it's been done very successfully here in my area of Los Angeles County. Of course, draining half the water out would solve this problem without kind of having to do this. And so if you have a you know 20,000 gallon pool, take out 10,000 gallons, and effectively, mathematically, you've cut the cyaneric acid level in half. Here's a question about a test kit that can read copper at a reasonable price point. There really isn't any out there besides maybe the pool lab 2.0 and a color Q2X, Color Q Pro 92X that reads copper as well. But I wouldn't say that they're reasonably priced. They're still priced at the cost of a photometer over$200 or so. And it's not something if you are testing copper or an iron just periodically in the pool, you can actually probably get away with test strips. Now, these copper test strips are actually pretty good and they're really affordable if you're looking for affordability. I would say if you're just testing a few pools for copper, the copper test strips would be sufficient because if there's no copper, it's gonna come out blank basically, and you'll know. Now, if there's copper, this is where it gets a little bit problematic and tricky with the test strips because it's a really light change in color, and of course, the photometer is much better to use for the copper test because the photometer is reading what's in the water sample tube in a light-free environment, and then you the of course the photometer lights hit it, and it'll give you an accurate reading of the copper level. So, really, if you are testing a lot of pools for copper, I would recommend the pool lab 2.0 or the Lamont ColorQ 2X Pro 9. So the price for the Pool Lab 2.0 at Walmart is 249, and the price for the Color Q 2X Pro 9 is about$350. And so, yes, if you're testing for copper in a lot of pools, I do recommend investing in one of these photometers so you can test the copper very accurately and get a reading or get a number that you can utilize. And again, test strips are good if you're testing it and there's no copper, you'll get a good reading. There is copper, it's left open to interpretation of how much copper is in the water. And the copper level needs to actually be pretty precise if you're talking about the copper falling out of solution and staying in the pool. So you definitely would want to use one of these photometers. On a side note, if you are using a pool RX unit in the pool, once you put the pool RX unit in the pool, the minerals have copper and they're chelated, which means they're suspended in the water. And if you're trying to get a copper reading after the pool RX unit has been put into the pool, you're gonna get a really fluctuating reading. You may get a high copper reading, a low copper reading one week, and that's because again, the mineral has copper and is chiolated or suspended in the water, and you're not gonna get an accurate copper reading with an active pull RX unit in the pool. Just a little side note there. Here's one the Polaris 280 video troubleshooting I did. It says the same cleaner tries to spray me. Now, if you've ever had a pool with a Polaris 280 with the tail sweep active, you're going to get, of course, a lot of water spraying everywhere as that tail. If it's if it's set too high, of course, you're gonna you can adjust it down. But even if you adjust it down to the lowest setting, it may still shoot water out of the pool and looks like it's attacking you. It has I've been sprayed by him, so I know what it feels like to be at a pool cleaning it, and the Polaris shoots water out of the tail and hits you. It's like it is attacking you, just like the comment stated. So, of course, the first solution is to use that little Allen wrench kind of adapter and turn the tail as low as possible. Even then, the tail is still active and it may spray you out. Fortunately, there's a solution, and the solution is to get the Polaris Tail Sweep Pro. Now, of course, since Polaris or Jandy or Floridra knows that this is the problem, and a lot of homeowners don't like the tail sweep shooting water out of the pool, they charge a lot of money for it. It's like a$30 or$40 part, and it's like a little piece of plastic with some foam on the end of it. So, of course, there's a huge markup on this part. But however, putting this on the Polaris tail will actually solve the problem. I don't understand why they don't actually just have this included with the Polaris 280 and 380, but nonetheless, you can get it if you buy the Polaris 3900 Sport. You can get this Tail Sweep aftermarket, it fits the other Polaris model, so that's the good thing about it. So it's the Polaris Tail Sweep TSP 10S Tail Sweep, and again, the lowest price I've seen is$30, and a lot of them are at$48,$63 at Leslie's,$65 at Pool Supply Warehouse. Again, it's just a piece of plastic that's designed a little differently than the Tail Sweep, which has holes in it. If you look at it, you can see how it actually operates and how it diffuses the water into the little foam that's on the bottom of it or the back of it. But this will solve the problem of the player attacking you at the pool side. Here's a question on one of my videos that I filmed on Mikey's quick Mikey's quick couplers. And he was at the pool show and I said hi to him. He's a great guy. Came up with this idea. He started printing them with a 3D printer at first, but now I think they're molded. And these are couplers that split open, and this really saves you a lot of re-plumbing. So let's say you had a salt cell where the couplers cracked on it, which happens a lot with the Hayward, or if you had a filter with a crack coupling, normally you have to cut the plumbing, re-plumb it on, and you know, re-plumb the coupling onto the PVC pipe, and then it's a pretty big job, it could be pretty extensive. But now you just simply move the old coupler out of the way, cut it off maybe if you wanted to, leave it on there, whatever you want to do, and then you would just put this on and it kind of snaps over it as two pieces coming together, and it's a great invention and it's highly effective. The question was would this fit the resilience E-Series salt cell? I don't know the answer to that. I told him to check on the site or check with him directly, but I just wanted to highlight these quick couplers with with you here because these are he's always making new ones. He he was he was telling me at the show he has a new one, I forgot what it was, but he's always making new versions. But there's a ton of them out there that will fit everything from a Jandy to Penter, the Hayward filter, salt cell, you know, whatever you backwash valve, whatever you have out there. I bet he has one that will work for it, and this will save again tons of time replumbing it. You just put this on there, and you the coupler splits come together and you thread it on, and no replumbing necessary. Here's a question with the Hayward Navigator. I have a video, a couple of videos where I filmed me doing the A-frame turbine kit, and this person's replaced this one already two different times and is still not moving. And there is something to be said about the Hayward Navigator eventually fully wearing out. So it's something that is a we in the industry we call this a parts hog cleaner because it eats a lot of parts up, requires a lot of part changes. But there is a point where the navigator actually should be retired. I would say 10 or 12 years would be a good lifespan for a Hayward Navigator changing the parts over and over again. After that, there may be some other factors that just make this not working workable anymore, even with part changes. It's just too old at that point. But the A-frame turbine kit does have a little bit of a I wouldn't say user error, but there is a little notch in there where one of the bearings should fit into and lock in. If you've rebuilt these before and didn't lock that in there, it will have the same symptoms of it not working. Also, the pods have to be on pretty tight for it to work. Also, I've rebuilt these like crazy, so I know all the ins and outs, and I know when something is not working, it could be just that the pods are not tight enough and tighten those more, and that should solve the problem. It could be that the A-frame turbine kit is not installed correctly in there. And I've also had this problem before where I've changed out these parts and the cleaner just doesn't operate correctly. I just say that maybe the body is just worn out too much. You know, there again is a certain point where this cleaner is just no longer able to be rebuilt. And I have some that are operating that are about 12 years old and they still work with the part changes, but if you are changing parts and you realize that it's just not spinning out of the step area or not working or it's not moving that fast, I would just get a new one at this point. And again, you could probably change the parts half a dozen times before you would want to move into a new unit, but there is kind of a actual lifespan to these cleaners, believe it or not, and it's not infinite. Here's one, I don't know why I'm talking about Polaris so much, but here's another one on Polaris, the quick disconnect. This also works with the legend cleaners or even any other pressure cleaner, but a lot of times that quick disconnect that's on the wall, there's two little tabs that hold it in place, and a lot of times when the homeowner is using the pool, they want to remove the cleaner, they'll actually break these tabs off by not pushing in and twisting, they'll like just turn it and snap the tabs. And so now you have a quick disconnect that needs to go back into the wall, into the threaded part in the wall, that won't go in because the tabs are broken in there. And a lot of times when these are put in originally, no one put no one has put Teflon tape on the threads, which would save you a lot of trouble later. So, what I do when I install a pressure cleaner into the one and a half inch threaded fitting in the wall, I'll put some Teflon tape on it so that later on it won't seize up and get calcified into the wall. But I was doing this one day, and I think I'm the only one that came up with this idea that I was breaking these off all the time with channel locks, trying to get them off by getting the channel lock and turning them, and it they would just snap. And for some reason, I just got this brilliant idea, call it an epiphany. I saw the quick disconnect and hose lying on the deck. Customer left me a note saying, Oh, I can't get this reattached. I sorry, I think I broke it. And then I took the quick disconnect, and for some reason I'm like, I'm gonna what if I stick it in to the wall fitting and try to get it off with the channel locked with that in the wall fitting? Because I realized that since it's hollow, it's all physics. I guess I should have got a physics degree and I would have been able to solve this problem very easily. Of course, I would have to spend a lot of time getting that degree, but I re- but to get the point across, if you put the quick disconnect back into the wall fitting and then use the channel locks to turn it, you've actually filled that hollow space with something solid, and you're not gonna crack in theory and in practice out there, you're not gonna crack that wall fitting by twisting it and getting it off with something inside it. So it's actually highly effective. The comments I get all the time, and this comment says, You saved me money and a headache with this tip, thank you. And that's pretty much like the whole video has all these comments that I did save them a lot of trouble with this tip. Again, don't try to get the wall fitting out of the wall why it's hollow because you're gonna just crack it. And the video again I put up eight years ago and has a hundred thousand views because it's highly effective. The method I designed and created. I I guess I should patent it. But basically, you stick that in there and then you can take it off. They do sell uh Polaris does sell like tools that you can try to get it off with, but those tools to remove the wall fitting require the tabs to be intact. And I don't think I've ever encountered a wall fitting that I'm trying to remove that has the tabs intact. That's why I'm trying to remove it so I can replace it with one with the tabs in there, so I can put the quick disconnect back on if that makes sense. So, again, put the Polaris quick disconnect in there, holding them with one hand, with the other hand, get the channel locks and twist it out. And I can almost guarantee you you're gonna get it off the wall without cracking it. Because if you crack it and it's in the wall, the process of removing it is really tough. You gotta get into the pool with a little saw blade and try to get it that way. You may be able to chip it out with the screwdriver and a mallet, but doing anything above the pool, reaching over, trying to get it out, is really difficult, and it's better not to be in that position in the first place. So if you use my trick, I guarantee it's gonna work and save you a lot of headache later. I hope you like these tips and expanded answers to the YouTube questions, and of course, I'll do more of these on occasion when I feel like I've got plenty of questions piled up, which I do all the time. And please feel free to go to my YouTube channel and comment on videos, and maybe I'll unpack your question deeper here in this type of podcast. To get more podcasts, go to my website, swimmingpoollearning.com. On the banner, click on the podcast icon. There'll be 1800 pad podcasts for you to download and listen to. And if you're interested in the coaching program, you can learn more at PoolGuyCoaching.com. Thanks for listening to this podcast. Have a rest of your week and God bless.