Cal Hypo Tablets in Real Pool Situations

High cyanuric acid can turn a perfectly maintained pool into a weekly battle where chlorine “won’t hold” and algae feels one step away. I walk through a practical option many pool pros consider when CYA gets out of control: switching from trichlor tablets to cal hypo tablets. The promise is simple, no more stabilizer added with every tablet, but the decision is not as clean as it sounds.

We dig into the real chemistry behind both products. Trichlor’s convenience comes with a built-in byproduct that keeps stacking, while cal hypo avoids CYA but adds calcium hardness and tends to push pH up, which can increase muriatic acid use. I also explain why dosing is not one-for-one: cal hypo tablets are typically lower in available chlorine than trichlor, so you often need more tablets to maintain the same free chlorine level, and that can make the seasonal cost noticeably higher.

Then we get into the “field” problems that determine whether cal hypo works for your route or your backyard pool. Safety is critical: cal hypo and trichlor cannot be used in the same feeder. I also cover why hot-water regions can burn through cal hypo tablets in a day or two, leaving you with no slow-release sanitizer for the rest of the week, plus the current state of cal hypo feeders and floaters.

If you’re deciding between draining, staying on trichlor, switching to cal hypo, or blending tablets with liquid chlorine, this gives you a clear way to do the math and avoid surprises. Subscribe for more pool chemistry and service strategies, share this with a pool owner who’s fighting high CYA, and leave a review with the biggest water balance problem you want solved next.

• why trichlor tablets drive cyanuric acid higher than most people expect
• when cal hypo tablets make sense for high CYA pools
• why you must never mix cal hypo with trichlor feeders
• skimmer use versus dedicated cal hypo feeders and why flow matters
• why hot climates can dissolve cal hypo too fast for weekly service
• available chlorine differences and why dosing is not one-for-one
• cost realities plu

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Transcript

Welcome And The Big Problem

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Hey, welcome to the Pool Guy Podcast Show. If you have pools out there that have high cyanaric acid, or if you want to move away from trichlor tablets and try a different sanitizer, CalHypo tablets are something that you can consider using. I'm going to go over some of the pros and cons of CalHypo tablets and some of the benefits and of course the drawbacks of the product. 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. I'll start out by saying CalHypotablets would be something to consider if you have a pool that has a high cyaneric acid level and you want to move away from adding more cyaneric acid through using trichlor tablets. You may or may not know, and a lot of people don't really know this, and it's one of these things where you would think everyone would know this by now, but the trichlor tablets are basically 50% in weight, their cyaneric acid. So half of that tablet is cyaneric acid. And if your pool is already at 150 parts per million of cyaneric acid, if you're using trichlor tablets, you're of course you of course are adding more cyaneric acid to the pool every time you use a trichlor tablet. So a great way to offset that is by using a kind of a blended method, and this is something that I recommend you use out there on your pool route, which are less trichlor tablets, and you're gonna supplement the chlorine level with calhypo and liquid chlorine, and therefore you're not gonna use purely trichlor tablets alone to sanitize the pool. However, the effect of the trichlor tablets, even in a smaller amount, is that the cyaneric acid level is rising in the pool. And there's only one way really to lessen that level, and that's by doing a partial drain of that pool to lower down the cyaneric acid level in that pool. Now, in a lot of areas, draining half the pool is something that you can't really do because there may be water restrictions, or the customer may not want to drain that much water from the pool. So, how can you lower the cyaneric acid without draining it? Well, one way is to stop using trichlor tablets, move away from those, and start using calhypo tablets. The main difference between the trichlor and calhypo tablets is that the cal hypo tablet does not have stabilizer or cyaneric acid in that tablet. It basically has a byproduct of calcium and not trichlor, not trichlor, not cyaneric acid, I should say. A good way to reduce the cyaneric acid is to stop using the trichlor tablets for a period of time and going with the calhypo tablets. Now I have to caution anyone listening to this that if you have a trichlor feeder, a rainbow chlorinator, or haywood chlorinator, you do not want to put the cal hypo tablets inside that chlorinator because you can't mix calhypo with trichlor. There'll be a chemical reaction which would cause an explosion. And so the cal hypo tablets typically I put them directly in the skimmer. They don't have any cyaneric acid, they have a higher pH, and they won't damage the pool equipment. The manufacturer also recommends putting them in the skimmer, or they have they have a cal hypo feeder specifically made for it. These are very large feeders, however, because the cal hypo tablets need a lot of water flow to dissolve in the pool, much more than the trichlor tablets need. And therefore, if you are going to install a Calhypo feeder, it's going to be a really big item that goes by your equipment area. And I would recommend, of course, seeing if you have the space for it, but in most cases, putting the Calhypo tablet in the skimmer is the easiest way to introduce that Calhypo into the pool. I also think I need to mention that in those hotter areas like Las Vegas, Nevada, or the high desert here in California, or of course Phoenix, Arizona, if you're using Calhypotablets in the skimmer, even a good brand of Calhypo tablets, the water temperature is probably in the high 80s, maybe even in the 90 degree range. And this will cause, depending on how long you run the pool pump, which you're going to run it quite a long time in those hot weather environments, this will cause the Calhypotablet to actually dissolve much faster in the skimmer than what they're designed for. What this means is that typically if you're in an area like mine where I'm outside of Los Angeles, it doesn't really get that hot. The pools maybe get into the high 70s, low 80s at the most in my area in the summer. The cal hype tablets will dissolve in there at a fairly steady rate, which is what you want to have happen because the reason why you're going from trichlor to calhypo is that you want to have that slow dissolving sanitizer in the water, so you're not adding liquid chlorine or calhypo every two or three days. If you just got off the tablets entirely and went to liquid chlorine or calhypo, you'd have to be you'd have to be adding that every three or four days to the pool, which means you're going to have to go back to the pool, your service account, more than once a week, which of course is not something that we do out there as an industry industry standard, and therefore you're going to need something that's going to release chlorine in the pool slowly over time, and this is where the calhypo tablets take the place of the trichlor tablets. So back to the hot weather environment. The problem is since the water is so hot, the pump is running, probably the normal cycle or longer because of the hot weather, that calhypo tablet that normally takes six or seven days to dissolve here in my area will dissolve in two days in, let's say, Las Vegas, Nevada. So the problem is you're going to run out of Calhypo in the water because the calhypo has no stabilizer, and therefore if it's it dissolves in two days, that means that you have five days without any calhypotablets in the skimmer dissolving and releasing chlorine into the pool if that makes sense, and that's a problem because you want that calhypo tablet to dissolve in the pool and last an entire week so that it releases a small amount of chlorine in the pool every day. Pool pros have tried various things to extend the life of the calhypo tablets dissolving in hot weather pools. They've put it in plastic bags with holes in it, they've done different things like that, and it seems like nothing is really effective. Even in that plastic bag, the water is pretty warm, and a cow hypo tablet may dissolve pretty fast in there. Pool Life does have a patent pending on a prime chlorine floater, and this is a floater designed specifically for the cow hypo tablets. It looks like the floater, I haven't tried this yet, has a lot more holes in it than your typical trichlor tablet, and it definitely looks like it may work somewhat effectively. I'm not sure again how it would work in really hot water in those desert regions, but you may want to try the Pool Life Prime Chlorine Floater in those areas, and you may see some good results with it. And it's definitely a move in the right direction for the Calhypo tablets because, again, putting them in the skimmer basket in a lot of areas makes them less effective, and having a dedicated floater for the Calhypo tablets makes a lot more sense if they can dissolve in the pool, of course, effectively with that floater that that uh pool life has designed for it, and pool life, of course, makes cal hypo tablets as well. But the bottom line is there's not really a reliable Calhypo feeder that goes on the equipment to date right now. There are some commercial versions that are like$800, and then there's a homeowner version that Pool Life created, but it's really not something that's been tested out there widely. So I would say that until there's a really robust Calhypo feeder created, Panthere probably should make one. They have the technology and they have the rainbow chlorinators, but there's nothing on the market that I can refer you to that I would consider reliable, and putting the Calhypo tablet in a skimmer is the only real way to make this product work effectively, and in those hot areas where they'll dissolve faster, I would really say using Calhypotablets would probably not be effective in those areas. For all the other regions of the country, I think the Calhypotablets would be a great alternative to trichlor if you're wanting to reduce your use on trichlor tablets. There's a couple things you have to understand about calhypotablets versus trichlor tablets. Trichlor tablets are usually 90% available chlorine or higher, and the calhypotablets are only about 73% chlor available chlorine in them. So the calhypotablets, just by the nature of the product, are a little bit weaker than trichlor tablets. And also, I found that since the cyaneric acid level usually is elevated when you're going from trichlor to calhypotablets anyway, you're going to have to use much more or a lot more cal hypo tablets than trichlor tablets during that one-week period than you would think. It's not a simple, simple one-for-one. For example, if you're using three trichlor tablets right now to maintain your chlorine level in your pool, you can't use three cal hypo tablets. It doesn't work that way. You're gonna probably have to use five or six cal hypo tablets to maintain that same chlorine level in the pool. The problem, of course, is the fact that the cal hypo tablets are more expensive than the trichlor tablets. If you look online, if you go to your local wholesaler, you'll notice that the trichlor tablets are less expensive, the cal hypo tablets are more expensive, and you're using you're gonna have to use more cal hypo tablets to maintain the chlorine level. Therefore, I would say using cal hypo tablets in your pool versus trichlor, it's probably gonna be twice as expensive as using trichlor tablets. So if you're spending you know$100 a season on trichlor tablets, you're probably gonna be spending$200 a season on cal hypo tablets. Calhypo also will release calcium into the pool. So if you're in an area with high calcium hardness already, where most of your pools are 400 or 500 parts per million of calcium, using trichlor, using the calhypo tablets, I should say, will add calcium to the pool. Roughly for every one part per million of free chlorine that's added by calhypo, you're adding 0.8 parts per million of calcium to the water. So if you have one pound of calhypo in the skimmer, you're adding eight parts per million of chlorine and you're adding six parts per million of calcium to the water. So over a season, using calhypo can easily raise your calcium partners level by 150 parts per million, and also calhypo is higher in pH, so you're going to have to use more muratic acid to lower the pH in the pool. It's one of those things where the trichlor tablet, since it's half cyaneric acid, it's adding an acid to the pool, and the pH stays relatively stable with the trichlor tablets in there. In some cases, it may even have a low pH because of the trichlor tablets in the water. But with the cal hypo tablets, since the pH is you know 10 or 11, you're going to have to add more murianic acid to the pool to keep the pH in check. So, of course, muriatic acid has a cost to it, and that adds to the cost of using the cal hypo tablets as well. Bottom line, going from trichlor to cal hypotablet is going to be more expensive. And logically, it may just be simpler to do a partial drain of the pool and continue using trichlor tablets. I'm not against trichlor tablets per se. I just think that you have to be aware that the byproduct of the trichlor tablet is cyaneric acid, and the byproduct of the calhypo tablet is calcium. You really have no problem using trichlor tablets if there's a way to do a partial drain of the water, maybe drain a foot of water every month to keep the cyaneric acid level down. Because remember, cyaneric cyaneric acid does not evaporate out of the pool, and neither does the calcium, by the way, that you're adding with the calhypotablets. So a partial drain using cal hypo tablets may also be necessary to keep the calcium level from rising. So you've kind of taken that out of the equation. If you wanted to switch from trichloro to calhypo because you don't want to drain your pool, switching from trichlor to calhypo may still require you to drain some water out of the pool to lower the calcium hardness level of the pool because the calcium does not evaporate out of the pool either. So I would say that that's a pure defeat. If you plan on switching from trichlor to calhypo because you didn't want to drain the pool water, you may still need partial drains going forward. And it's one of those things where the cure for trichlor really isn't calhypo tablets necessarily. If you really wanted to move away from trichlor tablets, you would probably go with a salt water system. But then again, the byproduct for salt, a saltwater system is the salt itself, and you're bringing the water to about 3,000 parts per million of salt. So again, everything you put in the pool has a byproduct, unfortunately, and that's why there's not really a clear way to get away from trichlor tablets without adding a byproduct to the water as well. You're just not adding cyaneric acid, you're adding a different byproduct. Now, there probably is a good way to use cal hypotablets without really adding too much calcium hardness to the water, and that's using cal hypo tablets with liquid chlorine. And this is very similar to what I recommend doing with the trichlor tablets where you're using less trichlor tablets and then you're using another sanitizer like liquid chlorine to add chlorine to the pool to keep the free chlorine level at a good level during the week. Now you wouldn't want to use cal hypo shock or powder with cal hypo tablets because then you're just doubling that calcium. So a good way to use the cal hypo tablets, in my opinion, is to do the blended method as well. Use calhypotablets to give yourself an amount of chlorine you're adding to the pool each day during the week as it's dissolving, but also use liquid chlorine to bring that free chlorine level up when you need to. So, for instance, if you're at a pool and you go there on a Tuesday and the free chlorine level is at two parts per million, you're putting three cal hypotablets in the skimmer. I would add a gallon of liquid chlorine to bring that chlorine level up to 10 parts per million based on the pool size. Of course, I'm just giving you a kind of example here without any kind of measurements. And then you'd bring that free chlorine up to let's say 10 parts per million with those cal hypotablates dissolving over the week. Of course, that 10 parts per million will start drop will start to drop down each day, but with the cal hypotablates kind of refreshing the chlorine by dissolving and releasing cal hypo into the water, you can easily maintain that pool at 5 parts per million throughout the rest of the week. When you get back there on your service day, add some more liquid chlorine, add some more cal hypotablets, and that's a way to kind of mitigate the large amount of calcium being added to the pool. Instead of adding five cal hypotlets or six cal hypo tablets, you're only using three of them, and you're supplementing the pool with liquid chlorine instead of having the calhypo as the primary sanitizer. Don't get me wrong, I do like calhypotablets, and I think there is a use for them, and I you know recommend using them in situations where it's logical to use them. I'm not here to sell you on trichlor or calhypo tablets specifically and which one's better for your pool. But I think if you're going to make the switch to cal hypotablates, you have to really do the math. Think about it logically. Yes, you're getting away from adding cyaneric acid to the water, but you're adding calcium to water. And yes, you're lowering the cyaneric acid level in the pool basically by not using trichlor tablets going forward. But there are other options as well when you're using trichlor tablets to make sure the cyaneric acid level stays at a certain level in the pool. So I would say that if you're looking at the cal hypotablets as a cure-all for the high cyaneric acid in the pool, I don't think it's really that simple and that cut and dry. If you're looking for other podcasts, you can find those by going to my website, Sonypoollearning.com. On the banner, there's a podcast icon. Click on that, and that'll bring a drop down menu of over 1900 podcasts for you there. And if you're looking at my coaching program, you can learn more at PoolGuyCoaching.com. Thanks for listening to this podcast. Have a good rest of your week and God bless.