Newbie Q about Frog Pack and Liquid Bleach

[HomeBrewGuru]

Hello - I just purchased a home that has pool. So, I have been spending a lot of time here learning about how to care for it. My 11k gallon in ground pool has a frog pac xl system. I was pained to see how expensive the Frog Pac items are. So, I think I will be using chlorine bleach in an effort to keep the pool clean for cheap and limit the CYA buildup as well.

So, here are my questions:

1) Abandon Frog system for liquid bleach?
2) I have heard of people popping 3" trichlor tabs in the frog pac. If i do both is it overkill? Or is it useful to keep a puck in the frog pac to act as a floater in addition to using bleach?

Any help would be great...Thanks in advance.



Ryan

 

[Richard320]

Hello - I just purchased a home that has pool. So, I have been spending a lot of time here learning about how to care for it. My 11k gallon in ground pool has a frog pac xl system. I was pained to see how expensive the Frog Pac items are. So, I think I will be using chlorine bleach in an effort to keep the pool clean for cheap and limit the CYA buildup as well.

So, here are my questions:

1) Abandon Frog system for liquid bleach?
2) I have heard of people popping 3" trichlor tabs in the frog pac. If i do both is it overkill? Or is it useful to keep a puck in the frog pac to act as a floater in addition to using bleach?

Any help would be great...Thanks in advance.



Ryan

1: Yes
2: Yes/No.

Any puck is either going to add CYA or Calcium to your water. While you need both, you don't need them in the quantities you'll end up with at the end of the season. Get some water test results, preferably your own, not a pool store's, and not done with strips, and folks here can advise you even more on what's useful and what's not. Pucks are great for vacation, assuming your water chemistry can bear the additional load.

Just stay away from any "system" unless you know exactly what's in it. And then you'll find you're paying too much for the stuff and stop buying it anyway.

 

[Bama Rambler]

Your best bet is to read pool school then search for pool frog. You'll find out more than you every knew.

Your plan to use liquid is the best one. You need a good test kit so you can keep your levels in check.

Don't be fooled by the test kits that the pool store sells. The TF-100 is the best out there.

 

[HomeBrewGuru]

Thanks for the input. Looks like I will just use the floating chlorinator when on vacation and add bleach or liquid chlorine as needed. Thanks for the advice. Out of curiosity, a local supplier has this:
http://www.azpartsmaster.com/Products/P ... AY-TK.aspx

is this a decent water test kit or should I look for that tf-100?

 

[dmanb2b]

That is an OK kit (can only test FC up to 10ppm), but you really want to also have the fas-dpd test (up to 50ppm), which that kit lacks. The TF100 from tftestkits.net (best value imho) or the taylor-k2006 or taylor-k2006c is what you are looking for The tf100 really does pay for itself in terms of not wasting money on chemicals that are not needed.

You can see kits compared here...and welcome to TFP

pool-school/pool_test_kit_comparison

 

[Bama Rambler]

Ditto what Dman said.

I searched and that site doesn't have the K-2006. Even if it did, the TF-100 at tftestkits.net is the best buy all around and the service is top notch.

 

[SoFlaPoolGirl]

Hello All,
In my opinion, the Taylor kits are very over priced when you can get what they call " strips " that test for pretty much anything you need way cheaper. The test strips that I use myself, and have heard that the health department uses as well, are called AquaChek 7. It comes with 100 strips and test for 6 different things. Total Hardness, Total Chlorine, Free Chlorine, pH, Total Alkalinity & Cyanuric Acid. Which is pretty much your basic tests unless you're testing for phosphates or TDS or salt. But like these strips, there are plenty strips for thoes as well.
The Taylor kits become costly over time with having to buy the replacement bottles, then eventually having to buy the entire new kit. Although they have been around for many years, strips are becoming better and better.

 

[Ohm_Boy]

Test strips lie.
We've seen strips be wildly inaccurate. Worse, in a lot of cases, than just throwing a dart at a barn wall and then choosing the square root of the current time multiplied by the number of green cars you can count on the closest freeway.

You may think you'll save some money on testing, but you'll easily lose the savings and more in chemicals and lost swim time.

 

[chem geek]

This post compares test strips, including the 7-way AquaChek, against the Taylor K-2006 and TF-100 kits. The comparison isn't even close.

First of all, test strips do not test for Calcium Hardness (CH) which is what is relevant for determining the saturation index to protect plaster surfaces. Test strips only test for Total Hardness (TH) which includes magnesium in addition to calcium so are not useful for determining the saturation index.

Second, the accuracy and resolution of test strips is far, far less than that of the drop-based tests. The error in calculating the saturation index is up to 4 times higher than with drop-based tests and that ignores the CH/TH issue (saturation index resolution error with test strips is from 0.6 to 1.3 compared to 0.3 for drop-based tests). If you wanted to do an overnight chlorine loss test, you couldn't do that with test strips since you wouldn't be able to know that you lost <= 1 ppm FC overnight even at higher chlorine levels, say after shocking.

Third, test strips usually do not measure Cyanuric Acid (CYA) accurately yet it is very important to know the accurate CYA level in order to know what FC level one needs to prevent algae growth. There are numerous threads and posts on this and other forums about the very inaccurate readings from test strips, especially for the CYA level.

The FC and pH test strips tests can be useful for a very quick check of those levels, especially after one already knows their typical daily chlorine demand, but the strips are not useful for more accurate readings, especially for other tests, nor for pools that operate at higher FC and CYA levels that are on the edge of preventing algae growth.

 

[Richard320]

Hello All,
In my opinion, the Taylor kits are very over priced when you can get what they call " strips " that test for pretty much anything you need way cheaper. The test strips that I use myself, and have heard that the health department uses as well, are called AquaChek 7. It comes with 100 strips and test for 6 different things. Total Hardness, Total Chlorine, Free Chlorine, pH, Total Alkalinity & Cyanuric Acid. Which is pretty much your basic tests unless you're testing for phosphates or TDS or salt. But like these strips, there are plenty strips for thoes as well.
The Taylor kits become costly over time with having to buy the replacement bottles, then eventually having to buy the entire new kit. Although they have been around for many years, strips are becoming better and better.

Light the torches and gather the pitchforks!

The whole basis of troublefree pool is accurate testing. Strips don't really work well with that philosophy.

 

[Bama Rambler]

SoFlaPoolGirl, you really need to read and learn before posting such obvious misinformation. A little reading here will reveal that strips aren't to be trusted and are pretty much useless for anything other than pH and even that can't be trusted without verification with a drop based test.

A good test kit is cheap compared to fighting the inevitable algae outbreak you're sure to have while relying on strips. And kit refills aren't any more expensive than strips (which you have to replace as well) in the long run.

 

[Ohm_Boy]

Yep. I stand by my assessment.

 

[dorpo75]

I used those danged test strips for two years and had the most awful time with maintaining my FC. :grrrr: This was before I was introduced to TFP and I want to say that the pool store LOVED me b/c I was in there every other day wondering why my water had a terrible chlorine smell. :?: They would tell me that I needed to "shock" my pool :blah: by throwing in several pounds of dry chlorine shock (and by spending $$$ every time I went in there) and adjusting my in-line chlorinator up or down a notch. Little did I know that I was adding CYA EVERY TIME I added a bag and those white round pucks were adding it as well. The TEST STRIPS did NOTHING to help me get my water in check, in fact, all the test strips did was give me a different read out every time I tried to check my #'s. I mean, I would get a different reading testing 2 min apart from the same vial of water.

Anyway, read pool school and become aware of what you can do with a bit of knowledge and a good, no, scratch that, GREAT test kit like the tf-100 and don't be swayed by the pool stores to use those nasty vile strips. All those things are good for is to line the pool store's register with $$$$$$. YOUR $$$$ to be exact.

 

[kplaster]

TF-100 usier for the first season...Well worth the money..Have enough stuff left to use for next season...Very simple to use..Direction's posted on container..Best money that I have spent ..It was trully a trouble free year...