Pools need a stabilizer for chemical balance. One of the things you need to know with it is how to increase stabilizer in pool. Here’s how we do it.
Why are stabilizers important to swimming pools?
You see, when the sunlight hits the pool, the chlorine is broken down too much and does not become effective anymore. The thing about the process of breaking down is that it happens really fast on a sunny day. In fact, the chlorine may get broken down in just a matter of hours before it becomes effective as a sanitizer.
In order to prevent this from happening, you need to know how to increase stabilizer in the pool. If this will be your first time doing this process, let us teach you how.
Contents
What Is Pool Stabilizer And How Does It Work?
Before anything else, we have to talk about pool stabilizers. At the very least, you need to know what exactly are pool stabilizers and how they work. In a nutshell, a stabilizer is a buffer that can protect the chlorine from the sunrays. The stabilizers can keep the chlorine from breaking down.
A good stabilizer is a cyanuric acid, otherwise known as CYA. It is a very effective chlorine stabilizer that comes either in liquid or granule form. It is usually added in the pool before the swimming season so that it can protect the chlorine all season long.
Now that we’re done explaining the details of the pool stabilizers, let’s now proceed to steps on how to increase stabilizer level in pool.
How To Increase Stabilizer In Pool (5-Steps)
Learning how to increase stabilizer in pool water is actually easier than what most people think.
All you have to do is follow these very simple steps:
1. Determine How Much To Add
The first thing you need to do is determine how much stabilizer you’ll need to add so that your CYA level is at the right range. As a general rule, you’ll need to add approximately 13 ounces of stabilizer so that it can reach a level of 10,000 gallons. However, this may vary depending on the current chemical level of your pool and the size.
2. Pump The Stabilizer
Once you determine how much stabilizer to add, the next thing you need to do is put the stabilizer in a skimmer basket and start the pump. Make sure that the pump is running first for 24 hours before you add the skimmer. Also, make sure that you don’t clean the filter for a week before you do this.
3. Wait For Several Days
Just because you’ve put in the stabilizer, it doesn’t mean that the CYA level will already change. In fact, it will take a few days before you see any significant change in the test reading. That’s why we recommend that you do a test before you add the stabilizer and after applying it so that you can monitor the changes.
4. Add More Stabilizer If Needed
Usually, you should see some changes in the reading levels a week after you add the stabilizer. If you see that the CYA levels haven’t reached the desired levels, then you may need to add more stabilizer. You can add the same amount of stabilizer that you added the first time around and see what happens. If the CYA levels have already reached a significant point but not the ideal level yet, you can just add a little bit more.
5. Reduce The CYA Level
What if you exceeded the recommended CYA level and it reached too high?
In this case, you’ll probably need to decrease the CYA level with a CYA Reducer. There are CYA Reducers that can be bought in most pool maintenance stores. Most pool owners say that a lot of brands aren’t that effective but from experience, the best ones really work wonders (but we’ll discuss that in another blog). So, it pays to do research on the high-quality CYA Reducers out there before making a purchase.
Conclusion
If you want to know how to increase stabilizer in pool with ease, then just refer to our 5-step approach above. Now, the process in itself isn’t that hard to do. However, there is a lot of waiting and testing involved so you have to be a bit patient.
You also have to be quite precise since you can’t have a CYA level that’s both too low or too high. That’s the reason why a CYA stabilizer test kit is also important in this process.
The next time you want to increase stabilizer in your pool, get yourself a good stabilizer, a CYA reducer, and a test kit. After that, whip out our guide and start the process!
