New member needs help (HCL)

[expatinindo]

Hydrochloric. At least I hope that’s what HCL means. I've been at battle with my 28,000 litre tiled pool for about 4 years now and have just managed a reasonable connection to the internet which is helping a lot.

In Bali (That Indonesia for you old colonial friends) information here is as transparent as the CIA and MI5. There’s a couple of pool chemical suppliers nearby but when I mention the chemical name of a product I am interested in they look at me as though I am from the planet Pluto.

After spending some time on the internet trying to find out what was in the container (labeled Nalco 8103) with no success, I returned to the shop only to be told the containers were not original and just used to store the chemicals. They have sodium and HCL was the information I managed to extract from them later. Yes Sodium What? (Like having a tooth extracted) Not having my interplanetary dictionary with me I was unable to take the matter much further, but my Hindu Balinese wife managed to find out which was sodium (Bleach) and which was HCL, but alas to no avail as when I asked for a container of each, the guy who loaded them said the names were the other way round. The dark blue container was HCL and the transparent one was sodium hypochlorite (beach) I think! When opened I think the guy was correct as the chemical in the blue container (HCL)? seemed capable of burning my lungs out a lot quicker that the other chemical (bleach)? in the transparent container should I decide to consume that instead of scotch.

This forum seems pretty good but being a Yorkshire man I do not like computers to be ‘user friendly’ I like them to be ‘easy to use’ lets call a spade a spade.

I put soda ash in my pool to lift the PH (Potential/ percentage hydrogen) I think? and tried shocking with Caborate, (calcium hypochlorite) or called ‘Kaborate’ out here, and for the last couple of weeks have been swimming in ‘CLOUD’ cuckoo land, hence wanting a product to lower the PH. Hence HCL and the search for a non calcium based chlorine, but asking the secret service based at the pool supply shops in Bali for the different chemicals (Lithium for example) I came to a stand still, then I discovered that the bleach (sodium hypochlorite) hopefully 10% + chlorine, they sell works out about Rp 4,500 a litre (Rp 9,000 to the $ today) so the cost of about 3 litres in my pool each week (Rp14,000) is about double that of caborate at about Rp 7,000 for 300/ 400 grams each week so out here is affordable. About 40 years ago the UK joined the common market and everything went metric, so I tend to think in litres (UK Spell-check) about 4 ½ litres to the gallon. But as I assume this website is from the old colonies, you have a different version of the gallon, 3 litres or something to the gallon, but as I am also familiar with the old pound / ounces I struggle through.

Ques 1. How long do I have to wait for the PH to come down after I have put HCL in the pool? I have tried sending my satpan (security guard) in but his skin is still attached to his body although I'm sure like Michael Jackson he seems to be changing colour. Maybe I should call him 'Honky' now

Ques 2. Apart from a presumed accelerated chlorine loss from the HCL, does putting the HCL in the pool in the daytime have the same affect of lowering the PH as it does if you put it in at night time?

Ques 4 Does the reference to gallons in this web site refer to US gallons and not imperial gallons?

Ques 5 What percentage chlorine does HCL have in it?

Ques 6 PPM (parts per million) and the numbers on the testing kit tubes? Any relation? When it says add so much chemical to lower or lift a point here or there, not sure what the points are. I am sure in the US you can get an unlimited amount of kits for anything, but out here in darkest Bali, it is quite difficult, and don’t come up with order and post as Indonesia is one of the most corrupt countries in the world, the only advantage of this is that it keeps prices down, and acts as a deterrent to any potential bankster who may think of doing business here.

Money saving tip, apologies if you know already, but it seems to be costing me a fortune in the testing kit refills, although I have just found one shop which sells them at Rp 35,000 and not Rp 50,000 for one red or yellow 22 ½ ml bottle. The test kit as I assume you all know has 5 red and yellow boxes each side of the tubes to check the recommended levels. As you put 5 drops of the tester in each tube, try filling the tubes up to the level of say 2 or three boxes, and just put 2 or 3 drops of the tester in as appropriate. An instant saving of 40 or 60%, to check if it works you just fill 1 tube full and the other one up to the second box and put 5 and 2 drops of the tester in to compare.

Kind regards
ExpatInIndo (Time for a banana)

PS. How do they get the milk into coconuts?

 

[257WbyMag]

Welcome to TFP!

HCl is the chemical formula for hydrochloric acid. Many people call it by it's older name, muriatic acid, simply because over here in the U.S. the label on the bottle reads as such. HCl is used to lower the pH in a pool.

I'll go question by question for you...

1. Assuming that you have added the correct amount of HCl to lower your pH from a given point to a given point, the effect should be almost immediate. When added with the pump running, as one should always do, it should disperse and be fairly well mixed within a half-hour. Recheck pH at that point and adjust further if needed.

2. HCl does not cause chlorine loss. Adding it at night or in the daytime makes no difference.

4. We refer to US gallons.

5. HCl has no chlorine in it. It consists of hydrogen ions (H+) and chloride ions (Cl-). It adds no chlorine to your pool.

6. Please check into getting a good test kit. You may have to pay extra money to get one from abroad. I would first look into kits at www.tftestkits.net. The TF-100 is an excellent kit and is offered at a good price point. You may be able to get one sent to you.

 

[Dalandlord]

Expatinindo, no matter what happens with the pool, do come back as your posts are very entertaining.

The test kit you have is not going to do. There are many other things going on in the water that you need to get a handle on. I have seen posts on here where tft test kit people have shipped to other parts of the world so hopefully they can help you out. I would go with the TFT-100 and the speedstir. You can get buy without the speed stir if the money is an issue. If shipping turn out to be expensive or a hassle, you also might want to get the XL option that give you more fc and cc test. I would also check on the cya regents. If an extra bottle of that is nit a lot more you might want to get that. I would just be sure to ask about the shelf life on that one. It won't due you any good to stock it if it doesn't last on the shelf. Maybe someone will chime in on the shelf life here.

 

[expatinindo]

Hi there,

Thanks to ‘257WbyMag’ for the information. I was going to use HCL as a shocker after reading the website http://www.livestrong.com/article/20988 ... z1Ydq1ulhk
where it suggests hydrochloric acid provides the added benefit of increasing the free chlorine concentration in the water, until I read one of the previous articles on this website about a guy who asked how much HCL to shock with, Perhaps this is for other reasons and not because I thought HCL contained chlorine.

So! After adding 1 ½ litres (½ litre each time) of HCL I now have the Ph to normal levels, shocking with the bleach (transparent tub not the blue tub) I have got rid of the clouding caused by the calcium in the caborate.

OK so when I test the chlorine levels even 2 days later its still the colour of infected urine. As it’s sunny most of the time the levels should come down quickly but to speed things up I was thinking about diverting the septic tank for a few days to help form chloramines, but as this involved digging up pipes etc; I came up with a brilliant solution, but with hindsight letting our 2 black pot-bellied babi-babi (pigs) swim in the pool for a day perhaps wasn’t a such good idea. Although my Hindu wife now prefers the 2 honky pot-bellied babi-babi we now have.

My wife now seems somewhat nervous when I am adding chemicals to the pool, although when I stopped carrying the HCL on my head through the living room she seemed to calm down, but still insists on putting the swim suit I bought from the Fukushima prefecture in Japan when she goes in the pool.

Both you and ‘Dalandlord’ suggest I need to purchase a better testing kit, and I checked out the website you suggested. Hells Bells man, I counted what looked like 17 different testers in the kit; tell me, you seem like intelligent people, has bollocks got one ‘L’ or two? The day I have to use more than a couple of testers is the day I start putting water lilies in the pond and swimming with the frogs, and yes, I have looked at natural pools, put as I have a small fish pond which resembles swamp lands in the Everglades, I decided it may not yield the spectacular results shown on the various websites.

Still, I got the testers and enrolled at night school and took a ‘Ph’d in Chemistry and the 17 testers, but to save time I mixed all the liquid from each of the 17 testers into 1 bottle and added them to the swimming pool, hoping a for spectacular results, sadly this wasn’t the case, and I now have the only multi coloured satpan (security guard) on the island, and the local Kalapadesa (village head) has ordered an evacuation and put a 20 kilometre exclusion zone round my house.

The ‘Texas syndrome’ I was asked what this meant; it is similar to the ‘China syndrome’ but occurs when you add excessive HCL in the pools. The idiot followed the instructions implicitly, emptied the pool and added PPM (parts per million) 28,000,000,000 litres of HCL in the pool. Perhaps if the website was more ‘user friendly’ (easy to use) the idiot would not have got PPM mixed up, and ‘emptied’ the pool of water, instead of bathers. Look out Texas, you’re about opposite to Bali on the globe, but it may solve your colour problem. By the why, I have 28,000,000,000 empty HCL bottles if any one wants them. Apply [email protected].
Time for a banana

Thanks and Kind Regards
ExpatInIndo (where’s my bloody glasses)