Bleach or Dichlor?

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KansasGirl000

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Mar 25, 2013
11
Wichita, KS
Our pool is being installed in the next few days so I am reading and rereading pool school. :-D
I do have a question... Under the Seasonal Pool Section there is a are that addresses the First four days of opening your pool. Step 5 - the first four days
The first few days will be spent using dichlor to add chlorine while also raising your CYA level to help protect the chlorine from the degrading effects of sunlight. If you want to be able to jump into the pool as soon as it's full, use the Pool Calculator to determine the amount of bleach needed to raise your chlorine level to 6 ppm. Add that amount of bleach while the pump is running. Wait an hour to let it circulate before you use the pool.

The first four days, you will use dichlor to both chlorinate your pool and raise the level of CYA (chlorine stabilizer). The first evening, after you're finished swimming, turn the pump back on, test and make any adjustments to pH. Let the pump circulate any chemicals added to adjust pH (30 minutes or so) and then add one ounce of dichlor for every 500 gallons of water. To add the dichlor, add it first to a bucket of pool water and let it dissolve, and then dump that into your pool. Let the pump run overnight. This dichlor addition will raise the chlorine level to about 8 (assuming no chlorine was added prior . . . if it was, the chlorine level will be a little higher, which is fine), and the CYA level to 8.

Repeat the above procedure each evening for four nights total. At the end of four nights, your CYA level should be around 30, right where it should be. After four evenings of adding dichlor, STOP USING THE DICHLOR.


So I am not sure what to do when my pool gets filled. Do I add the dichlor for four days or do I just add household bleach or both?

Also, can you swim during these forst 4 days? Can you swim ever during shocking?

Thanks to all of you! I am so excited to get started! :whoot:
 
If it is a new fill, you do not need to go through the shock process.

Using dichlor is a short-cut, and being new, I would suggest you stick to the "pure" chemicals. Buy stabilizer and add it separately and stick with liquid chlorine.

Have you ordered one of the recommended test kits yet?
 
Welcome!

Take a look at the ABCs of pool chemistry in pool school, that will help. I'll try to clear up a little here as well.

Stabilizer (or CYA - cyanuric acid) is needed to keep chlorine from burning off in the sun too quickly. Dichlor has chlorine and cya in it, bleach has only chlorine. The water out of your hose does not, so you need to add it. Dichlor is used at first because it adds both. At some point though, you need to stop using dichlor and switch to bleach, because too much cya is bad as well.

Yes you can swim right away, and with a fresh fill and properly maintained water, you shouldn't have to shock it.

Read all of pool school and it explains this in more detail.
 
Both ways will work, one is just more stuff to juggle, let me add a little more to that, if you want to use dichlor (or even trichlor) there is no reason you can't you just don't want to overdose on it before you switch to bleach / liquid chlorine for long term use. The dichlor instructions are mostly a cheat for people with seasonal pools that will be drained at the end of the season that don't have good test kits that include the CYA test. Personally when my pool needs a CYA boost I switch to using dichlor for a few days then back to bleach, it just means keeping track of how much FC as well as how much CYA each pound of dichlor adds.
 
It is by far simpler to understand and verify the results of the chemicals you add by sticking with the separate chemicals.

Now if you had some experience already, then the use of some of the combined chemicals is fine. But, you need to understand ALL the effects of each chemical you are using.
 
I agree that since you are new, you should use bleach and stabilizer separately. If you were to use dichlor, you would be raising CYA and CL, and also lowering pH. You have much more control by using single chemicals.
 
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