Best Range of CYA for Salt Pool

70 to 80 ppm. That band sits inside both of the ranges the major sources publish, so you can hold it without contradicting your manufacturer or the largest owner community in the country.

If you want a single number to aim at, 75 ppm. If your manual gives you a different figure, follow the manual, because the warranty follows the manual and nobody at a warranty desk has ever read a forum thread.

What each source says

The disagreement is smaller than it looks. Both floors are 60. The whole argument is about the ceiling, 80 versus 90, and about whether 80 is a target or an upper limit.

Note also what both agree on completely: a salt pool runs higher than a chlorine pool. Trouble Free Pool’s two ranges make that explicit, 30 to 60 with liquid chlorine against 60 to 90 with a cell.

Why they disagree

They are answering different questions.

Hayward is writing a specification for a piece of equipment it warranties. A published range has to be conservative at the top, because it is also the number a technician will check when something goes wrong. Their table lists stabilizer alongside free chlorine 1.0 to 3.0 ppm, pH 7.2 to 7.8 and alkalinity 80 to 120 ppm, as a set of conditions the unit is expected to operate within.

Trouble Free Pool is describing a relationship rather than a spec. Their central claim is that the free chlorine level you must hold depends on your CYA level and rises as CYA rises, and that if free chlorine drops too low for your CYA you get algae. Under that model there is no single correct CYA number. There is a CYA number and a matching chlorine number, and 90 ppm is fine as long as you hold the chlorine that goes with it.

There is a genuine tension between the two, and it is worth naming. Hayward asks for CYA at 80 ppm and free chlorine at 1.0 to 3.0 ppm, and that chlorine figure does not move with CYA. Trouble Free Pool’s argument says it has to. At 80 ppm CYA, the bottom of Hayward’s chlorine range is thin. If you run Hayward’s target, run the top of their chlorine range, not the bottom.

How to choose

If you have a manufacturer’s number, use it. Hayward owners: 60 to 80, aiming at 80. Pentair, Jandy and everyone else: read your own manual, because the range does vary and yours is the one that matters for warranty.

If you have no manual, or your manual is silent, use 70 to 80. It is inside every published range for salt pools and it gives you room on both sides.

Aim for the middle, not the edges. The standard CYA test is a turbidity reading judged by eye, which is not precise enough to defend a target of exactly 90. Sitting at 75 means a test that reads 10 ppm off in either direction still leaves you in range.

Aim low when you are adding. Going up is a bag of stabilizer and one afternoon. Coming down means replacing thousands of gallons.

What goes wrong outside the range

Below 60 ppm. Sunlight destroys chlorine faster than a cell can make it, so you raise the output percentage, then the pump hours, and the cell wears faster for the same water. Cells run three to seven years and $700 to $1,100 to replace according to River Pools, with retail pricing at Leslie’s from $899 for a Hayward T-CELL-9 to $1,949 for a Jandy AquaPure 1400. Which end of that window you land on is partly this number.

Above 90 ppm. Your required free chlorine climbs past what a cell delivering a slow, steady output can comfortably hold, and correction gets expensive. In The Swim says to add 50% more shock above 20 ppm CYA and to double it above 40 ppm, so every shock treatment costs more as CYA climbs. The dosing detail is on salt water pool shock.

Well above 90 ppm, which is where trichlor users end up, and there is no chemical way back. Dilution is the answer, and the arithmetic is on reduce cyanuric acid swimming pool.

Testing it

Twice a season is enough for most pools. Once at opening, so you know what the winter took out, and once in midsummer, while there is still time to act on the answer. Test more often if you are using tablets, because that number only moves one way.

It belongs on the routine check alongside salt, pH and alkalinity, which is the argument on salt water pool maintenance. Keep a bag of stabilizer on the shelf so a low reading is a same-day fix, and see salt water pool chemicals for the rest of that list.

One number this is not

No salt reading tells you anything about CYA. Your generator has no salt sensor, it infers salinity from how easily current crosses the cell, and it measures neither chlorine nor stabilizer. So a pool at 25 ppm CYA with a healthy cell produces exactly the symptoms of a failing one. Test CYA before you price hardware on salt cell for pool.

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