My SWG is no longer working and i've decided to just go to Chlorine rather than fix it. I have been using bleach when SLAM my pool. I don't want to constantly have to run to the pool to buy bleach. What is the cheapest and easist way to add chlorine? Are there long lasting, time -released tabs and how well do they work. What brands do you guys like? any input would be helpful
switching from Salt to Chlorine
- Thread starter whodat?2
- Start date
Solid chlorine is going to either add calcium or CYA to your pool. So, you either use liquid chlorine (bleach) or SWG. There are a couple of ways to feed liquid into the pool, Stenner and Liquidator. Keep in mind that you still have to go to the store and buy lots of bleach and add them to the feeder though. Your pool is pretty big, I can tell you from my experience it was a major pain to buy all that chlorine and keep feeding, even with a feeder like I had. After going to salt, I'll never go back to bottles.
stay away from any dry forms of CL.
Household bleach daily with a measuring cup out of your cabinet is the cheapest. A stenner pump with a bleach tank is the easiest.
I would recommend starting here:
ABC's of Pool Water Chemistry
and
How to Chlorinate Your Pool
Household bleach daily with a measuring cup out of your cabinet is the cheapest. A stenner pump with a bleach tank is the easiest.
I would recommend starting here:
ABC's of Pool Water Chemistry
and
How to Chlorinate Your Pool
With my big pool in Texas, I didn't use a measuring CUP. It would have been futile. After a few weeks of experience, I simply checked FC and was able to determine how much of a bottle, or the full bottle, to add each day, per guestimates. When pools are this big, a few ounces either way don't matter. 
Now salt never liquid again. Once liquid-NEVER solid again!!! What happened to your SWG? If it's just old, it might be worth fixing or replacing. Last year, I was pouring about $100/mo worth of bleach all summer long.
Well ****... I'm not sure how old it is. I bought the pool last year with it. The digital reader crapped out and it just doesnt seem to generate chlorine anymore. I feel like i can maybe take it off and clean it but the way the pipes are, there is no way to get a wrench in there. i'll take a pic and upload it later
I shock the pool, keep enough salt in it have the CYA correct and the chlorine still drops to 0. I have been through half a dozen shocks or so with the same result
I plan on trying the pucks. I understand that they mess up the CYA but i have to try it. My question is how long does it take to mess up the CYA. Are we talking years or weeks?
Something is missing here! I don't see any test numbers. What/who are you using to get your numbers? You mentioned shock-- using what? Going to tabs with your big pool could take weeks to add too much cya. If it isn't already too high.
I may be wrong but that sounds like you raised the level of your chlorine once and called it a shock. If that's the case, that won't work. As stated above, need numbers.
Waldog
0
It sounds like your CYA is already too high! If you've added bleach and your FC is 0 or low, that's not good!!! (I say this because maybe the CYA is causing it to not be effective.) Or yes, it could be organics eating it up.
Get a test kit and give the xperts some results, maybe they can help you then...
Get a test kit and give the xperts some results, maybe they can help you then...
I'm sorry, that could have been misleading. When I say that i shocked the pool, i mean over the last two years. Basically i have been adding bleach this summer bc my SWG doesn't work anymore. I simply don't have the time to keep buying dollar general out of bleach every other weekend. I want to try the pucks. My plan would be to shock one last time using 10 gallons of bleach a day until shock is complete (i just know from doing it that it takes about 10 to get me around 28ppm). Then when my Chlorine drops to 5, start using the pucks.
anyway, don't get caught up in all that. My question remains. Is the harm caused by using the pucks something that occurs over years or over weeks?
Depends entirely on what your current CYA level is. Starting from zero you will be in a world of problems in about 2-3 months. Using a trichlor puck for every 1ppm of CL you add you will be adding 0.6ppm of CYA, use poolmath and you can figure out just how fast you will be in an unmaintainable situation.
forgive my stupidity but you are saying that it Raises the CYA right so wouldnt it be better if my CYA was lower to start?
Do you think its possible to use the pucks for a month, then use liquid for a month and alternate?
Yes it would.
Anything is possible. It really depends on how often you want to do the drain and fill dance.
I would suggest taking a long hard look at the CYA/CL relationship chart in pool school as well as the ABCs of Pool chemistry. I don't think you fully grasp the implications of what you are asking, if you did ... you wouldn't be asking.
Short verison - the higher your CYA the more CL you need to effectively sanatize your pool. The more pucks you use to get your CL up the more CYA you have causing you to need more pucks. ... its an arms race. before long you need a CL level of 20 or 30 or 40 just to be at a base "safe" level of sanitation (imagine having a full feeder and 2 or 3 floaters in your pool.)
the TFPC method is about understanding. If you understand what the chemistry does you can use it to your advantage. I actually had a bit of an algae bloom happening after letting my liquid CL tank run dry. I chose to use trichlor to start my SLAM becaus emy CYA was a bit lower than I like it due to rainwater harvesting.
You won't likely find much support here for using pucks as a primary or secondary chlorination method, we know it doesn't work long term and we don't endorse it.
IMHO - get your SWG fixed.
CYA is cumulative and the only way to get rid of it is to drain the water and replace. So you'll end up with your CYA too high regardless of how you try and use the pucks. I think it's been stated but the two best ways of maintaining proper FCL levels is either liquid chlorine or a SWG.
Better in the long run to get the SWG fixed. I switched to salt this year and except for a little lag in getting the SWG to catch up with my zero chlorine , I'll never go back to bleach, pucks, new water cyclers , etc.