New Bromine User

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W

wkuengineer

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Jul 9, 2011
63
Hi,

I am a first time bromine user. This is actually my first pool (helped my parents take care of their above ground chlorine pool). I just moved into a house with a 28,000 gallon in ground pool. I just had the liner replaced because it was about 11 years old and coming off the wall. The original pool was sanitized with bromine and the owners had several buckets left over so I figured I would just continue to use bromine (just recently read that once a bromine pool always a bromine pool so maybe a bad mistake!) I am using a Rainbow 320 feeder (feeding from the top port). All my levels (hardness, alkalinity, and pH) are right on the mark. However, I cannot get my bromine levels up. The feeder is at the maximum setting and my total bromine is basically 0 ppm. I bought 4 lbs of bromine booster and put them in yesterday but still reading 0 ppm. I've been using chlorine granular shock to try to bring the levels up (my pool place recommended this) but still 0. The water looks great, however, I am concerned about why I cannot get my sanitizer level right. Any help for this newbie would be great. How can I get my levels up? Is it still to late to switch to chlorine as my sanitizer?
 
I have a similar setup, and also use Bromine, The BBB method easily works with your Bromine setup.

There are much better people here to advise you on technical issues. And if anyone corrects something I say, they are probably right not me. But here is what my experience has led me to believe.

Bromine is a sanitizer like chlorine and has advantages and disadvantages.

One advantage is that Bromine doesn't seem to go away (hence - once bromine always bromine) it just gets exhausted. The good news is Bromine is reactivated with the addition of Bleach. This is where BBB comes into play for us Bromine users.

Continue to use your Bromine feeder, but on a regular basis check your total bromine and Free chlorine numbers. Add Bleach to get your numbers back up, you will actually be reactivating the bromine with the bleach. With numbers like 0 I would recommend hitting it with 6 gallons before you will believe it is working, then tweak it from there. Since you have a new liner you are starting with basically 0 bromine in the pool, and one disadvantage of bromine is that it dissolves in your feeder very slowly, so it will take quite a while before your bromine levels come up, in the mean time add bleach more bleach then some more bleach till it finally just gets better (search my old posts to see all the trouble I had when starting, but after using the BBB methods for a while all my problems went away)

In my 30000 gal inground I add about 2-3 gallons per week when things are good. WHen I started I had to use 10 -20 as a shock to get the pool under control. Have faith once you get it there it will stay pretty stable. two things I learned from this site PATIENCE, and when in doubt - add more bleach. - Good luck
 
Normally, when you startup a pool after it is re-filled you add a bunch of bromine to establish a "bromine bank". If you never did that, and have only been running the tablets for a little while, you probably don't have enough bromine in the pool yet to be a problem and can still switch to chlorine.

What test kit are you using to measure the bromine level? Some of them can bleach out and report the sanitizer level as zero when it is actually fairly high.
 
JasonLion said:
Normally, when you startup a pool after it is re-filled you add a bunch of bromine to establish a "bromine bank". If you never did that, and have only been running the tablets for a little while, you probably don't have enough bromine in the pool yet to be a problem and can still switch to chlorine.

What test kit are you using to measure the bromine level? Some of them can bleach out and report the sanitizer level as zero when it is actually fairly high.
Click to expand...

I am using leisure time test strips. It checks total bromine, alkalinity, calcium/hardness, and pH. My feeder holds 98 1" tablets. It is fed from top for higher erosion and the valve is all the way open. I am adding tablets almost every 5 days.
 
JamesW said:
Almost definitely too much bromine bleaching out the test strips. You need to use FAS-DPD to test. Try using an OTO chlorine/bromine test to see what that shows.
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Should I shut the bromine feeder off until I can get it tested? Should I also stay out of the pool until I can verify what the levels are? I just several bags of chlorine shock in last night because the water was getting very cloudy (lots of rain here). I'll purchase one of these kits.
 
In addition to getting you own kit and taking charge of the pool, I hope you will consider switching to a chlorine pool. There are not too many bromine pools in use and, as such, you will always be "odd man out" when it comes to getting advice, etc.

There is certainly nothing wrong with a bromine pool it's just that it's not mainstream and, as a result, difficult to manage.
 
It's important that you find out as soon as possible whether the bromine is too high or if there is no bromine. Do not use the pool until you can verify what is happening.

Any place that sells pool supplies will sell an OTO chlorine/bromine test kit. OTO is not very accurate, but it will let you know if there is any bromine.

Bromine is not stabilized, so it dissipates fairly quickly in the sun, so you might not have any.

Turning the brominator off is not a good idea. Once the feeder fills with water, the tabs begin to dissolve and if the valve is closed, the tabs will just continue to dissolve and create a very strong liquid bromine in the feeder. You could remove the tabs, but then you have to find a safe way to dispose of them since they cannot be stored once they have gotten wet.
 

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PoolGuyNJ said:
Is tghe Rainbow set up for a top feed or it's Out Of The Box low feed set up? The low fed set up might not be providing enough. The top fed config washes water over more tabs,

Scott
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I set the feeder up to the top feed port after my water was tested by our pool place 1 week after re-filling the pool and they said my level was basically 0. It has still been at zero since. I have ordered a taylor fas-dpd testing kit and plan on taking another sample to the pool place tomorrow to see if I really have no bromine or my levels are way to high.
 
PoolGuyNJ said:
If you turn off the pump first, the Rainbow 320 will empty. Then turning off the feed flow valve will prevent water from entering there and air pressure and the check valve will keep it from coming in the return port.

Scott
Click to expand...
You will still have wet tabs in the feeder. Once the tabs get wet, they continue to dissolve and break down. If you leave the feeder off for too long, there will be a strong buildup of concentrated chlorine/bromine, which can be dangerous.
 
So I had our pool place check my water. They used a bioguard strip reading unit (not for sure on details). It showed 0 ppm on my bromine levels. They said that I am probably just on the edge since my water is clear and there is no slime, or cloudiness. They also recommended that I change to chlorine.

So, the big question can I still switch without incurring any extra costs? Since I started with bromine will it cost more to use chlorine on the water? Also, I have purchased a taylor fas-dpd kit (K-1515) for bromine. Can I just buy different reagents and still use the same kit or will I need to buy a new kit? I haven't made a decision just yet on whether I want to switch or just use bleach until my bromine residual is acceptable and continue to use bromine.
 
Similar situation here. Bought a house last fall. Bromine pool, new liner this year, so I started the season with new bromine-free water. Like you, I was also a bit concerned when I filled the brominator and the bromine level didn't change. It seems that bromine tabs alone will take a fairly long time (possibly weeks) to build up appropriate levels in the water. But, over time they will. What I did was use bleach as needed for the first few weeks until the bromine levels ramped up to where they are supposed to be. Since then the bromine has remained pretty constant and I've turned down flow on the brominator until I eventually found the "sweet spot" for my pool. I now leave the brominator alone (aside from replacing the tabs), and manually adjust santizer levels with bleach when needed (rarely) if I anticipate high bather load or the like.
 
JamesW said:
Get an OTO chlorine test to see what that shows.
Click to expand...

I bought a Taylor FAS-DPD kit. I'm going to guess that my levels are at most 1ppm. I used the power to turn the water pink (two scoops as required by kit directions). It was very light pink and only one drop turned the water clear.
 
Added another 12 gallons of bleach (6%) yesterday. Came home today and checked levels. They are not around 7 to 7.5 ppm according to my taylor test kit. Looks like bleach did the trick :-D Dialed my chemical feeder back (still on top feed though) and will check again tomorrow. Thanks for all the help!
 
Readings after throttling back the valve on my feeder were disappointing. My levels are back to basically 0 ppm again. I went from full open (5) to around 1 to 1 1/2. I opened the valve to about 3 1/2 to see if it increases.
 

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