shock over chlorine - indoor pool

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pred8er

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Mar 25, 2013
23
Hello All,

I am a owner of an indoor pool which came with the house i just purchased. I have not owned a pool before however I am slowly getting into reading about maintaining the pool myself instead of just having someone else do it for me.

A friend of mine suggested that I simply drop in 1 bag of shock weekly in order to keep it clean and running smoothly.

He also has an indoor pool and this is all he does.

Would doing this on a weekly basis be enough to keep everything OK? Or should I also be using chlorine tablets?

I have a heater that warms the water (common?) and I have read somewhere that using a chlorine dispenser can damage the heater elements - is this true?

Thanks all.

fyi the pool is 20,000 gallons. The pool is fairly long but the deepest area is around 6.5 - 7ft deep only.
 
Welcome to TFP.

I suggest you spend some time reading Pool School here. Suffice it to say, that throwing a bag of so called "shock" in your pool once a week isn't going to cut it. :)
An indoor pool is a little different animal but the same basic maintenance is required. It's fairly easy once you learn the basics.

A good start would be a list of all the equipment.
 
The common kinds of chlorine dispensers all use trichlor tablets, which you do not want to use indoors because they constantly add CYA and you want to keep CYA low in indoor pools. They would only damage a heater if you completely ignored your chemical levels and allowed the PH to get way to low.
 
thanks, guys, any other tips would be helpful, I cannot find much information on maintaining indoor pools on the internet.

Obviously it must be filtered and cleaned and the chemicals maintained, but this for all pools as far as I am aware. I suppose a good starting point is to run a Chemical test (I will get the strips) and see what needs to be done.

I have just recently drained it and the company that drained it is coming tomorrow to balance the chemicals and open the pool. After this I want to take over the general maintenance of the chemicals.

thanks
 
I would request that they not add any stabilizer (aka; CYA, cyanuric acid, conditioner, etc.). You'll need a little in the pool but it'll be much better if you add it yourself. That way you'll know how much is in there and won't have the headache of draining water again because it's too high.
 

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You will benefit greatly from a better kit. Besides that kit having very low amounts of reagents (only able to do tests a few times), it appears to be missing the FAS-DPD chlorine test and the cyanuric acid (cya) test.
 
I havent heard the term "reagents" since my world of warcraft days :p

I will at least get familiar with what I am getting and how to use these testing kits- then upgrade to a better kit!

thanks for a starting point everybody!

Do these kits come with specific instructions - such as if some test comes in low or too high - and what is the best method to get to the correct level?
 
Bama beat me...

By the way, the FAS-DPD chlorine test and the cya test will be very important right away, so I would not wait on those.

pred8er said:
Do these kits come with specific instructions - such as if some test comes in low or too high - and what is the best method to get to the correct level?
Click to expand...
Some do, but often times the methods they use are not what we teach here on tfp. See: http://www.troublefreepool.com/pool-school/pool_water_chemistry and http://www.troublefreepool.com/pool-school/recommended_pool_chemicals
 
There is a lot of good advice here, read pool school, and then read pool school again, sure it is targeted at outdoor pools, but a lot of the same stuff applies. There are a few of us here with indoor pools and we will be happy to give our advice on how managing an indoor pool is different.

Ike
 
I am home from work now and can write a bit more:

Sure you can follow your friends advice, and likely keep anything from growing in your pool, but you will likely have serious corrosion issues, the water will burn your eyes, and you will likely have a strong "chlorine" smell around the pool. A correctly balanced pool should show little or none of these effects.


1st thing, this is a BIG one whoever you have opening your pool, make sure they do NOT add CYA at this time (it is important to have a little, but not too much CYA with an indoor pool, and the only way to remove it is through water replacement. CYA can be added 2 ways, through dry chlorine products that contain Di-Chlor or Tri-Chlor or through CYA "Stabilizer" in powder or rarely liquid form. I try to keep my CYA level at between 20-30 ppm (target is just over 20 ppm) for my indoor pool, the common test for CYA has about a 10 ppm margin of error when reading and only goes down to 20 ppm hence the fairly wide range, outdoor pools often have 40-60ppm of CYA.

Before making specific suggestions we need to know a LOT more about your pool, what material is it made out of, what equipment do you have, etc. But until then I would say your only safe source of chlorine is liquid chlorine / liquid bleach (same thing, just strength is different) Use NO powdered bleach unless you have a plaster pool in which case a limited amount of Cal-Hypo may be appropriate if you need to increase your calcium hardness in your fill water.

Let us know more and we can help, also DON'T trust the guys doing the opening to know what they are doing, it is very easy to end up with a BIG mess and have to drain and refill.

Ike
 
I would also make sure they know CYA is added whenever you add dichlor or trichlor based chlorine "shock" products, again don't assume they know what they are doing. This is one time when micromanaging and reading the labels before they add anything could be a good thing.
 

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