I afraid that the electricity going to my salt cell will shock my small dog. I also fear that the chlorine will damage his coat.

how hard is it to switch to baquacil???

There isn't really any chance of either you or your dog getting shocked from the SWG. The voltages involved are very low and are contained entirely in the SWG cell. Any properly installed pool will have several different features, any one of which is sufficient to prevent shocks from the SWG from ever happening.

Chlorine is not a problem if it is maintained at the correct levels. Indoor pools sometimes cause hair damage because the FC level gets too high and they don't have any CYA. When an outdoor pool is maintained properly, appropriate CYA levels and appropriate FC levels, there will not be any hair damage at all. The CYA level normally used with an outdoor SWG pool buffers the chlorine so much that it is practically impossible for there to be hair damage. There is also some risk to hair from improperly maintained PH levels. Again, if the pool is properly maintained there won't be any problem.

It is very easy to switch to baquacil. It is far more difficult to switch back to chlorine. Baquacil tends to work well for the first year, but after that the number of complaints gets to be very high.

Just an initial comment. If YOU are not getting shocked, your small dog should be well OK. If you ARE getting a jolt, it's time to investigate and bond or ground what's causing it!

As to switching to a biguanide...be aware that such products are on the downturn, and even Chemtura (BioGuard), who spent so much time and legal energy (and $$) getting hold of a biguanide formula, is going to discontinue it.

I'm not a biguanide fan, in that it's expensive, proprietary (you'll have trouble finding anything generic), and has a useful run in most pools of 3-5 years.

True! I wholeheartedly agree!

This smells suspiciously like advice from a dishonest pool store... a salt water pool generally requires very little in the way of chemicals to maintain... Baquacil on the other hand (from what I understand) requires frequent and expensive trips to the pool store for chemicals. MrJames, what gave you the impression that the two items you mentioned could be a problem?

Hi, I am new here and actually came to get help converting my Baquacil pool to a saltwater/chlorine generator. I would recommend staying with the salt water generator if at all possible. I thought Baquacil was great - for the first few years. I don't know if Baquacil changed their formula or what, but the past couple of years, and especially last year, we were adding Baquacil Oxidizer every week. We also had problems with cloudiness. But worst of all was the expense. We also developed some kind of brown stuff on the bottom of the pool. So suffice it to say, we were not happy at all with Baquacil. I can't wait to convert the pool.