Water Chemistry and Treatment Protocols FAQ

Both SettingsWater Chemistry and SettingsTreatment Protocols ship working. Water Chemistry arrives with industry-standard targets for every reading, and with no protocol at all a tapped symptom simply puts every product you have tagged for it on the plan. Treat both screens as tuning, not as setup you have to finish before your crews can work.

What does have to be set up is elsewhere, and this article starts there because it is the reason most first Dose Plans come back empty.

What actually has to be set up

Only the first two can stop a Dose Plan from sizing chemicals, and the visit wizard will not build a plan at all until the pool has a sanitizer system and a volume on file (or the tech chose Can't measure today).

Sanitizer system is the other thing the wizard insists on — on every site, on the Pool Profile card. The visit wizard asks for it on Water Test and will not build the dose plan until it is set. There is no skip: a salt pool dosed as chlorine gets a plan that looks right and is not.

To find pools that still need setup, filter DirectoriesSites by Pool setup → Missing sanitizer or volume or Volume estimated. To clear the Estimated badge, Edit the Pool Profile and untick This volume is an estimate.

The fastest way through step 2 is the Dosing Rules section at the bottom of SettingsWater Chemistry. It lists What the Dose Plan can dose, and Attach Recommended Dosing Rules attaches our defaults to every product on your shelf whose name we recognise — liquid chlorine, cal-hypo, dichlor, trichlor, muriatic acid, soda ash, sodium bicarbonate, calcium chloride, cyanuric acid, pool salt and phosphate remover. Products that already carry a rule are never overwritten. See Dosing Rules and Application Rates for the full walkthrough.

The two setup steps, and what to click

Setup asks about chemistry twice, and the two steps are not the same job. The first is about target ranges and comes before you have any products; the second attaches rules to the products you add in between.

Both screens stay reachable afterwards. The ranges live on SettingsWater Chemistry, with the same Dosing Rules section under them.

Water Chemistry

What are the default targets?

These are what every account starts with. Each row on the screen takes a Min, an Ideal and a Max, and every one of them is yours to change. For why each number is what it is, and the public sources (CDC, MAHC, Hayward, Taylor LSI), see Why Pool Chemistry Defaults Are Set This Way.

Three readings are recorded on a visit but have no range to set. Total Chlorine exists to work out combined chloramine against free chlorine. Water Temp feeds the saturation index and the seasonal chlorine calculation. TDS is recorded for reference.

Phosphates are reported in ppb, not ppm, and there is no benefit to any amount of it — phosphate is algae food and it drives chlorine demand — which is why the min and ideal are both 0.

Why is the recommended chlorine higher than the Free Chlorine range I set?

Because cyanuric acid protects chlorine from the sun but also binds it: the more stabilizer in the water, the higher the residual has to be to sanitize at the same rate. A flat 1–3 ppm band ignores that, which is how a salt pool held at the recommended CYA 70 ends up dosed chlorine on every visit and then flagged High for it.

So the working chlorine target is scaled to the stabilizer reading taken on the day:

The Free Chlorine (FC) row is a floor and a ceiling on that calculation, not the target itself. Chlorine is never targeted below 1 ppm however little stabilizer is present, and never above 10 ppm, because past that the water is a shock rather than a residual.

Do salt pools use different targets?

Yes, and you do not have to do anything to get it. A pool with a salt cell uses the Total Alkalinity (TA) — Salt Cell Pools row instead of the liquid-and-tablet row, because a cell pushes pH up continuously and a high alkalinity gives it more to push against. It also uses the Cyanuric Acid (CYA) — Salt Cell Pools row, and holds a lower chlorine residual for its stabilizer level than a tablet pool does.

A pool counts as having a cell when any of these is true on its Pool Profile: the sanitizer system is Salt (SWG), a salt cell model is recorded, or one of its features mentions salt. That is deliberately wider than the sanitizer system alone, because an ORP-controlled pool on liquid feed is Automated (ORP Controller) with no cell, and some chlorine-system pools have one fitted.

Why are there three stabilizer rows?

Because the three sanitizer systems want cyanuric acid to go in opposite directions, so one shared row cannot serve them.

Salt (SWG) and Automated (ORP Controller) are not the same thing and are not interchangeable on the Pool Profile. Salt chlorine generation is a way of delivering chlorine; Automated means a chemical controller is dosing the pool, which also covers a controller driving liquid chlorine with no cell at all. A salt pool that happens to have an automation panel is still Salt (SWG). If a pool has both a controller and a cell, the cell wins the stabilizer row, because the cell is what makes the chlorine unstabilized.

What about spas and commercial pools?

A spa has its own rows rather than an adjustment on the pool rows: Free Chlorine (FC) — Spas & Hot Tubs and Cyanuric Acid (CYA) — Spas & Hot Tubs. A spa runs hot and carries a far heavier bather load per gallon, so it burns chlorine off fast — CDC sets a 3 ppm floor for hot tubs against 1 ppm for pools. CDC also advises no stabilizer in a hot tub, because it slows how fast chlorine kills germs at spa temperatures, so the spa CYA ideal is 0 and nothing is ever dosed toward it. The maximum only sets where an inherited level starts getting flagged.

Because the spa rows are separate, editing your pool chlorine range never moves your spas, and editing the spa range never moves your pools. A spa keeps its own stabilizer row even if it is on a salt cell.

Commercial pools work the same way, on Free Chlorine (FC) — Commercial & Public Pools. It defaults to 2 to 4 ppm, the CDC Model Aquatic Health Code floor, and applies to any site whose Pool Kind is a commercial pool. Your local health department may require more than the CDC minimum, so check your operating permit before lowering this row. Sites with no commercial Pool Kind keep the residential Free Chlorine (FC) — Pools row.

How should I read the ORP row?

ORP Setpoint applies only to pools whose sanitizer system is Automated (ORP Controller), and it is a check on the controller rather than a chlorine level.

ORP does not convert to parts per million, and it is not comparable between two pools. The same free chlorine reads a different millivolt value depending on pH, stabilizer, temperature, dissolved solids and how clean the probe is, and the relationship is not a straight line — it flattens out above about 3 ppm. The 650 mV floor is the CDC and WHO disinfection threshold and the default setpoint on most controllers, which is why it is the default here.

So judge whether the water is sanitary from the free chlorine reading, which is on the same panel. An out-of-band ORP flags the equipment for attention — a drifting setpoint, a fouled probe, or stabilizer that has crept up — and never on its own marks the water unsafe.

Can I set different targets for one customer's pool?

Not from Settings — target ranges are company-wide, and the screen says so. What varies per pool is read off the Pool Profile automatically: Sanitizer System picks the alkalinity and stabilizer rows, Surface Type picks plaster versus vinyl and fiberglass calcium, and Pool Kind picks the spa rows or the commercial chlorine row. Chlorine Source picks the chlorine product, as the next section explains.

Which chlorine does the Dose Plan use?

When chlorine reads low and more than one chlorine product on your shelf carries a dosing rule, the plan picks one in this order:

1. Safety rules. A product that would make another reading worse loses. When the test shows stabilizer (CYA) at or above its max, the pool gets no tablets or dichlor, because those add stabilizer and only a drain takes it out. When it shows calcium at or above its max, the pool gets no cal-hypo. A shock passes over tablets and dichlor too: it uses liquid chlorine, or cal-hypo on a pool set to Granular or when no liquid chlorine has a dosing rule. Only when neither has a rule does a shock fall back to dichlor or tablets. These rules only see readings that were tested, so an untested CYA cannot steer a tablet pool away from tablets.
2. The pool's chlorine source. The Chlorine Source on the site's Pool Profile. When it is blank, a pool with a salt cell counts as Salt, and any other pool uses your company's Preferred Chlorine at the top of SettingsWater Chemistry.
3. Liquid chlorine, when nothing else decides. After liquid come cal-hypo, dichlor and tablets, in that order. Between two products of the same kind, the one showing stock wins.

Preferred Chlorine starts at Liquid chlorine, marked Default, until your company picks another and saves. Change it with the radio buttons at the top of the screen and click Save Water Chemistry Settings. Reset to Defaults does not change it.

To give one pool a different source, open the site, click Edit on the Pool Profile card, and pick a Chlorine Source. The first choice in that list, Company default (…), follows the company setting and names it, for example Company default (Liquid chlorine); on a pool with a salt cell it reads Salt (salt cell).

When the plan uses a different chlorine than the pool's source, the line says why. For example, Used instead of chlorine tablets: stabilizer (CYA) is at or above its max, and chlorine tablets add more. If the source you chose has no product with a dosing rule in Inventory, the line reads Used instead of liquid chlorine: no liquid chlorine product in Inventory has a dosing rule. A company that never picked a Preferred Chlorine gets no such note.

Until October 2026 the plan had no chlorine source. When tablets and liquid chlorine both carried a dosing rule, it picked the one that showed stock, then the one created first, so a company that imported its tablets first saw tablets on every pool. A plan already built keeps its products. Re-save the water test on an open visit to rebuild it with the new pick.

What do the Custom and Default badges mean?

Every row carries one. Default means the row still holds OpsVara's recommended range. Custom means your company has recorded its own numbers for it. Only rows whose numbers actually differ from ours read Custom, so the badges are a reliable list of what you have changed — saving the screen does not mark rows you left alone.

To put a single row back, type OpsVara's numbers from the table above into it and save; the row returns to Default. Reset to Defaults, at the bottom left, clears every custom range and the season settings in one go after a confirmation. It leaves Preferred Chlorine as you set it.

What is "Account for the season when calculating doses" doing?

It sizes chlorine to still be in range when the tech next visits, rather than to the band at the moment of the test. Chlorine demand roughly doubles for every 18°F of warming, so the same weekly pool needs a great deal more chlorine in July than in October, and a dose that ignores that is under the minimum within a day or two in summer.

With it on, chlorine is sized from the water temperature recorded at the pool, the gap to the next visit, and the site's sun and bather load. Five numbers tune it:

Turn the setting off to dose to the target band exactly as read, with no allowance for the interval.

Why won't my change save?

Every row needs all three numbers, in order. Two messages appear under the row:

• All three values are required. — one of Min, Ideal or Max is empty.
• Must be Min ≤ Ideal ≤ Max, all numbers. — the three numbers are out of order, or one is not a number.

Save Water Chemistry Settings stays disabled until the whole screen is valid and something has actually changed.

Who can edit this?

Company admins and office managers. The tab only exists on pool accounts. Field techs never see it, but their app reads the same targets you set here, so the Low / OK / High badges a tech sees in the field are the ones the office chose.

You can also reach the same screen as the Water Chemistry step of SettingsSetup Wizard.

Treatment Protocols

Do I need one?

No. With no protocol, tapping a symptom on a visit puts every product you have tagged for that symptom on the plan. Add a protocol when you want to do one of four things: choose between tagged products, name a product that is not tagged, keep two products apart, or put something on every visit.

Does a protocol change my chemistry doses?

No, and this is the most common misunderstanding. Chlorine, pH, alkalinity, calcium, stabilizer, salt and phosphates are always dosed from the water test against the ranges above. A pool protocol shapes only the symptom lines — which algaecide the plan reaches for when a crew taps Green algae, and what must never go in alongside it.

What is the difference between Pick One and Use Together?

Pick One puts a single product on the plan: the first in your order that is available, preferring one that also covers another symptom the tech tapped, so one jug covers two problems. Use Together puts every listed product on the plan. Products listed under Backups are kept for the applicator's reference and are never recommended automatically.

Full detail, including combinations and Never Together pairs, is in Configure Treatment Protocols.

A symptom is missing from the rules list

The list only shows symptoms scoped to the work type you have selected. Scope it to this work type under SettingsSymptoms and it appears.

Verify it worked

Run one real visit and read the Dose Plan. That single check covers everything on this page.

1. Amounts appear against the readings that were out of range. If they do, volume and dosing rules are both in place.
2. On a salt pool at a stabilizer level of 60–80 ppm, the chlorine target reads higher than the Free Chlorine (FC) — Pools row you set, and alkalinity is judged against the 60–80 ppm salt-cell band.
3. On a spa, the chlorine target holds at 3 ppm or above even if you have narrowed your pool chlorine range below that, and stabilizer is targeted at 0. A commercial pool likewise holds its own 2 to 4 ppm band.
4. If you tapped a symptom, the plan line says where the product came from — a Treatment Protocol rule, always included by your protocol, or a tagged product.
5. Open SettingsWater Chemistry again. Any row you changed reads Custom; the rest read Default.

Troubleshooting

Every message below appears on the Dose Plan itself, so a tech can act on it without calling the office.