How do you maintain an outdoor Bromine Pool??

[funk]

Hi everyone, I have been researching a lot about how to maintain my pool...and I still feel like I don't know what to do and need it laid out for me. We just moved in and it was green...I kept shocking it and it turned clear, but when I do the test strips they left, it says there is no chlorine in it.

I am wondering exactly how to maintain my pool. I had a chlorine pool as a kid, and bromine seems so unknown to me now! The pool is outside, in direct sunlight. After reading up on bromine, I really don't know why they didn't just do chlorine..but maybe that is just because I am nervous and it is all unknown to me.

1. Do I just use the regular test kit that I would for a chlorine pool? I know there is the Taylor kit, but from what I understand it doesn't tell you how much bromine is in the pool?

2. The house also has a spa which has the bromine floater. Can I use the same floater for the pool? I don't see a separate one for the pool. The previous owner has tablets in the filter of the pool, but from research I have done, this seems like the wrong spot. The pool used to have an automatic dispenser when the pool was built..but I found it in the garage, haha, so I am assuming it came off when they disconnected the pool heater.

3. I have looked at another thread which I found helpful (How do I use Bromine in my spa (or pool)?)), but it seems so different from the chemicals left at the house when we bought it. They were using HTH step products (so the loose chlorine, shock treatment bags, and a preventative algae liquid). Do I use a mixture of what they left as well as the floating bromine tablets?

4. Since the pool is bromine, is it safe to say that the hot tub is also bromine? Do I just use the same process for the pool and the spa? (yes..as you can guess, I have yet to understand how to do the hot tub, really I am just avoiding it until I understand the pool).

5. The solar blanket is dark blue, but it is sitting on the fence and doesn't look like it is used often. Should I keep this on the pool whenever I am not using it to preserve bromine? I am assuming I cannot have the floating bromine at the same time. How often do you keep the floating bromine in the pool? I am assuming there is a test kit (maybe Taylor?) that will tell me when I can stop using the floater as levels have adjusted?

6. I used the test strips left at the house that say chlorine-free. I am now not sure if they are meant for the spa instead. Can I use them on the pool as well? I am confused as it says I have zero chlorine in the pool and it is not stabilized. There is green algae stuck to the sides and any crevices in the pool, as well as murky grey stuff (algae?) stuck to the bottom of the liner that won't come off with sweeping or vacuuming the pool. Any suggestions??

Ah!! Thank you in advance! Any and all help would be MUCH appreciated!

 

[JVTrain]

Once a bromine pool, always a bromine pool. That's the rule to know.

You can use chlorine products to oxidize bromide that's present in the pool back into bromine. Essentially a bromine pool has a "bank" of bromide in the water. Whenever you add an oxidizer such as chlorine or monopersulfate, a portion of this bromide bank is converted into bromine. Bromine is your active sanitizer.

What type of test kit do you have now? A Taylor test kit such as the K-2006 or the even better TF-100 from tftestkits.net can certainly tell you how much bromine is in the pool. The FAS-DPD test kit in these kits can tell you either bromine or chlorine concentration. You just have to know what type of sanitizer is in the pool. For the default 10 mL sample volume, 1 drop of R-0871 reagent represents 0.5 ppm of chlorine. However, if you have a bromine pool. 1 drop of R-0871 reagent represents 1.15 ppm of bromine. So... if your FAS-DPD test took 10 drops to clear the sample from pink, your FC would be 5 ppm. If you knew it was a bromine pool, that would be 11.5 ppm bromine.

It's hard to give you a hard and fast set of recommendations for an outdoor bromine pool. Bromine is not recommended for outdoor pools here at TFP because bromine has no protection from UV light (sun light) like chlorine has. Using cyanuric acid with chlorine has two purposes. It holds the chlorine in reserve, buffering it's active strength and protects that reserve chlorine from being rapidly lost to UV light. Bromine has no equivalent to cyanuric acid. The best guide to go by is the How to... on bromine but use liquid chlorine/bleach to oxidize your bromide bank rather than powdered shock or tablets. The temperature of pool water, especially in Canada unless heated, won't dissolve bromine tablets fast enough to provide sanitation. That's the best method for your spa as well, unless you want to use a bromine floater in the spa. The higher temps of a spa allow the tablets to dissolve fast enough to make them viable for maintenance.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

First off, Welcome

Second, can you please update your signature with your pool specifics and volume as well as your location in Canada (it's a big country!).

Honestly speaking, bromine pools are just an expensive headache to maintain. It's was fad-ish many years ago to switch to bromine as there was so much misinformation about how to properly maintain a chlorine pool that the market was looking for an alternative to the bad 'ole days of burning eyes and bleached hair chlorine pools. TFP teaches a much better way with chlorine.

With that said, any chance you can just drain the pool and get off bromine? It's a liner pool so you can only drain down to a foot of water in the shallow end so it will likely require several partial drains to dilute away and remove the bromine. In the long run, a chlorine pool managed with the TFP method of pool care will be a lot cheaper.

 

[funk]

Thank you for your help and quick response! I am going to do a bit more investigating into this pool. Everyone keeps saying how rare it is to have an outdoor bromine pool...think we are going to contact the previous home owners again to confirm 100%...if I add bromine and we are mistaken - we are stuck!!