Question on adding calcium chloride or calcium chloride dihydrate

[gundan]

Hello All,

This is my first year and first time pool owner. I have been testing my pool reguarly for the last few weeks, I missed out on the Calcium Hardness test and my plaster/gunnite pool(24700 gallons) is at 150 PPM. The rest of my #s are fine(CYA slightly lower at 20-30 ppm, but I am going to use tablets when I go on vacation in a few weeks).

As per the calculator for me to bring up my level from 150 to 250 ppm I need to dump about 23 lbs of the Calcium Chloride in. The pool school says I need to spread this on the deep end of the pool. That is a pretty significant quantity of this stuff and my children are using the pool everyday, should I do 4-5 lbs/day over the next few days to bring it up or can I just dump it all in 1 shot. Will it disolve that quickly or should I mix it in a bucket before pouring it in to make it quicker.

Thanks for all your help.

Gundan.

 

[Patrick_B]

I'm sorry I don't know how fast it dissolves, but I see no problem adding it in slowly spread out over time. I would certainly do that if the pool was in heavy use, and it dissolved slowly.

Someone will be along that knows more about how it dissolves. Me, I have the opposite problem, too bad we cant just trade some pool water.

Welcome to TFP by the way. Enjoy the forum.

 

[JasonLion]

Calcium chloride dissolves very quickly. It should be dissolved before it falls to the bottom. If you try pre-dissolving it in a bucket it tends to get very hot, which is a mild safety concern.

Adding in batches of roughly 50 ppm at a time is a good idea for other reasons. If you do add a lot fairly quickly it is good to brush the pool right away after adding just in case any of it made it to the bottom. The pool should be fine to swim in less than an hour after adding (with the pump running).

 

[gundan]

Thanks all for your comments. I greatly appreciate it.