Cleaning and Service Equipment and Supplies
What Happens When Cyanuric Acid Levels Get Too High?
Chlorine can become less effective at killing dangerous microorganisms. Experts seek legislation to mandate usage.
Most swimming pool service professionals use cyanuric acid as part of their toolkit in maintaining outdoor pools for their customers. Cyanuric acid was first invented in 1829 as a sanitizing agent and has been used ever since for keeping chlorinated inground pools clean.
Lawmakers Seek Legislation To Mitigate Usage of Cyanuric Acid
Cyanuric acid has gotten quite a bad wrap as lawmakers and scients alike take issue with the potential dangerous overuse in residential and commerical pools. They represent that Cyanuric acid may cause pool maintenance issues as well as public health problems. In contradiction, some public health inspectors mandate the use of cyanuric acid, while others ban it entirely from public pools. The industry can’t seem to make up it’s mind if Cyanuric Acid is beneficial or not. Let’s explore the issue further.
CYA is technically an acid but is unlike muriatic acid, which is commonly used in pool service for adjusting pH levels in the pool chemistry.
What is the difference between Cyanuric Acid & Muriatic Acid?
Cyanuric acid is sold on it’s own or can be bought in combination as an additive to chlorine tablets. It quickly dissolves in water and doesn’t have any adverse effects on water hardness, alkalinity or pH levels. It’s often used as a conditioner or chlorine stablizer and basically protects the chlorine from the sun while it disinfects the pool.
A chlorinated swimming pool with CYA will stay chlorinated on the sunniest day, but the same pool without a stablizer in it will dissipate it’s chlorine in just a few hours. Cyanruic acid builds up over time with each application.
CYA has many important benefits that make it easier and most cost efficient to maintain your inground pool over the life of ownership. It allows for weekly maintenance instead of daily maintenance and way less green-to-clean scenarios for pool service maintenance professionals.
The market for CYA has been incredible with a $300 million dollar a year cottage industry. Unfortunately, the overuse of this product has created some practical cases for legislation to create oversight and moderation of it’s usage.
When CYA levels become too high, it renders chlorine ineffective to killing dangerous microorganisms in the water such as cryptospordium parvum which causes gastrointestinal illnesses similar to Giardia.
What to know about Cyanuric Acid
What Happens When Cyanuric Acid Levels Get Too High
Chlorine’s potential to oxidize, often measured as oxidation reduction potential (ORP), is a good indicator of chlorine’s effectiveness.
Over the years, numerous independent and academic research initiatives have shown that when cyanuric levels build up in the pool, ORP levels consistently drop, indicating that the effectiveness of chlorine diminishes. In addition, there is a clear correlation between increased levels of cyanuric acid and the time it takes to effectively kill bacteria present in pool water.
Furthermore, at high levels of cyanuric acid, chlorine is rendered ineffective in killing the most dangerous microorganisms in the water: cryptosporidium parvum. The CDC says that CYA levels as low as 10- to 20 ppm under hyperchlorinated conditions arent sufficient enough to inactivate the necessary 99.9 percent of cryptosporidium parvum in pool water
Cryptosporidium parvum, or crypto, is a chlorine-resistant microorganism that causes gastrointestinal illness, similar to that of Giardia, which reproduces in the gut of humans. They recommend a free chlorine concentration of 20 ppm for 32 hours (CT=15,300 mg*min/L).
When CYA levels get to high, the only solution is draining and starting over or dillution through reverse osmosis. It’s important to train the industry on the proper use of CYA to mitigate over usage. Poolside kits are often available but seldom utilized.