Why dichloor of trichloor.

Aug 14, 2015
109
Arnhem/Netherlands
Hello i have 225 gallon spa Kauai from Caldera with ozonator and frog capsule for mineral.
no bromine iT is forbidden in The netherlands.
i use Some water softner O care, and chloor despencer trichloor.

my TA is always low sometimes 0.
chloor is 3,5
and Ph 6,5

I have also chloor granulate (not in use) on this moment.
hth chloor granulate (red) Calciumhypochloriet, chem geek give me à warming for this.

And i have euro choc .

but what is The best to use in my situation.
And what is dichloor and where to Sell, in The netherlands iT is diffecult for chemicals.

thanks
 
Welcome to TFP! :wave:

Chlorinating granules from HTH brand are calcium hypochlorite (Cal-Hypo). For every 10 ppm Free Chlorine (FC), they will also increase Calcium Hardness (CH) by at least 7 ppm. You would only be able to use this in your spa if your CH were low in your initial fill water and you changed the water in your spa when your CH got to somewhere above 150 ppm. How much above 150 ppm would depend on the pH and TA you were able to maintain. The combination of pH, TA and CH and higher spa temperatures drives the Calcite Saturation Index higher and you can get calcium carbonate scaling.

The Trichlor would not add to CH but it would increase Cyanuric Acid (CYA). For every 10 ppm FC added by Trichlor, it also increases CYA by 6 ppm. Also, unless your chlorine dispenser for Trichlor is explicitly made for spas, the Trichlor will dissolve too quickly in hot water and it will be too difficult to control dosing from it, assuming its in tablet form.

What is "euro choc"? Are there any ingredients listed on the label or is there a website that shows the product in detail?

I think that if you look for other brands of "chloor granulate" (chlorinating granules) other than HTH that they may be Dichlor. Again, look at the ingredients.

There are some threads you can look at from fellow TFP members in the Netherlands such as Help with chlorine source in Netherlands that talks about Melpool 55/G or 63/G both of which are Dichlor products (the first is dihydrate, the second is anhydrous -- both are OK to use but you use less weight of the second product and PoolMath assumes dihydrate). Melpool also makes cyanuric acid. As for 12.5% bleach and Muriatic Acid, they are available in diy store.

See Taylor kit, impossible to buy in the Netherlands about PMing mvoorn who may be able to get you a kit and you can reimburse shipping costs from the U.S. The other alternative is to use Palintest SP 315C and if you can get the Palintest FAS-DPD then you would have everything.

See Is there any difference for poolcare for Europe for info in this post on getting borax, baking soda, and muriatic acid. For spas, if you can find boric acid instead of borax, that would be better/easier than the combination (back and forth) of Borax and acid.

See Starting with TFPC in the Netherlands for info on getting Cyanuric Acid. However, for your spa if you can get Dichlor then you won't need the Cyanuric Acid. You would instead just use Dichlor initially and then switch to using bleach after you've built up enough CYA.

I believe you can get Aquafinesse in the Netherlands in which case their spa cleaning tablet can be used in place of Ahh-Some and they may have chlorine tablets though I believe they are Trichlor in special feeders. That would be OK to use instead of Dichlor and will more slowly build up CYA, but at some point you'll want to switch to using bleach once the CYA has built up.
 
Thank jou Chem geek,

The Euro choc that i have is.
99% aktiv stof/dust
Dichloorisocyaanzuur, natrium, dihydraat, Aktiv chloor 56%.
(is it better to use this?)

And this????
H319 warning for eys.
H335 warning for airways, throat
P261 warning for danger chloor

PS
I have PM Mvoorn for test kit.
 
Ahh, that Euro choc is Dichlor dihydrate (Dichloroisocyanurate, sodium, dihydrate, active chlorine 56%) so is the Dichlor that you could use to initially chlorinate your spa until you've added around 33-44 ppm FC cumulatively. After that you can switch to using bleach. This assumes you want to use the Dichlor-then-bleach method. As to whether that makes sense to do it would be good to know more about your spa and your anticipated usgae. Does the spa have an ozonator? How often do you plan to use the spa -- every day?

As for the warnings, that's for the concentrated chemical. I wouldn't worry about it if you are careful handling it as you would with any concentrated chemical that you don't want to ingest or put into your eyes.
 


This is it

Thx chem geek.

Can/wil jou explain this (33-44 ppm FC cumulatively), i now it is parts per miljoen but further????

Chem geek,
When i put out my trichloor tab (in despencer).(take it out the pool)
Can i use the euro choc
(weekly or daily?), till this 33-44 ppm FC cumulatively
 
So you would NOT use the trichloor tab in your spa. Trichlor dissolves too quickly in hotter spa water. Instead, you would use the Eur-O-Choc daily. You add whatever amount is needed so you always have a chlorine residual. Most people like having only 1-2 ppm FC at the start of their soak. You then add enough chlorine after your soak so that you start your next soak at 1-2 ppm FC. If you don't soak for a day, then you still need to add chlorine or need to add enough from the previous day to make it through two days. Figure you will be adding chlorine every day or two to your spa.

Keep track of how much you add and using PoolMath with the quantities you add you can calculate how much FC equivalent that is based on your spa size and cumulatively add this up and when you get to between 33 and 44 ppm FC, you switch over to using bleach instead of Eur-O-Choc. If you use the spa every day then this will probably be around one week.

As for how much Eur-O-Choc you add after a soak, every person-hour of soaking in a hot (40ºC) spa with no ozonator needs around 16 grams of Dichlor (Eur-O-Chok). You'll need to let me know the concentration of bleach you get and I can tell you how much you'll need to add for that. Also tell me how many liters your spa has. And again, how often you plan to use the spa (i.e. every day?) and whether you have an ozonator (ozone).

You first need to decontaminate/flush your spa. Since you can't get Ahh-Some where you are, you can use AquaFinesse Spa Clean.
 
Chem geek, (thanks).

I will use only.
Euro choc. (possible)???
99% aktiv stof/dust
Dichloorisocyaanzuur, natrium, dihydraat, Aktiv chloor 56%.

I put the trichloor TAB out of the spa.(
throw away)

My spa has 850/900 ltr water.(3 persons)
I and my wife soak 4 times a week (approximately 30 min).
My spa is 38ºC.
And yes it has a ozonator.

(the water in my spa is 2 weeks old)

i have use now 2 Times 800 ml of O care.
i thinkt iT is The same als AquaFinesse but one difference is They have split iT in 2 bottels.
aquafinesse have always à residu unther in The bottle, that is The reason that always most shake The bottle before use.

if jou Search on YouTube O care Then jou see The product.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koidDOrklcU


 
Is this correct???
One ppm is equivalent to 1 milligram of something per liter of water (mg/l)

So 1-2 ,ppm is (1-2 miligram) 1ltr water for example.

Jou guys use a lot of abbreviation and that is sometimes difficult.

I don,t now exactly what 1-2 PPM is, how much mili gram, or ltr.
 
Yes, 1 part-per-million (ppm) = 1 milligram per liter (mg/L).

You should use PoolMath to go from desired ppm changes to weight of product in grams because the weight used for mg/L or ppm is NOT the same as the weight of the product. For chlorine, for example, it's the weight of molecular chlorine (Cl2) while for Total Alkalinity (TA) and Calcium Hardness (CH) it's the weight of calcium carbonate (CaCO3). This has nothing to do with us, but is how the pool/spa industry defines these things.

So if I set PoolMath "Units" to "Metric" and put in 875 liters for "Size" then if on the "FC" line I put in 0 for "Now" and 10 for "Target" and select "dichlor" in the pulldown menu, I get 16 grams. So every ppm FC in your spa is 1.6 grams of dichlor. If I put in 8.25 for the % for bleach, then I see it is 101 ml so every ppm FC in your spa is 10.1 ml of 8.25% bleach.

Having an ozonator will be good in roughly cutting in half the amount of chlorine you would otherwise need after each soak, but ozone also reacts with chlorine so that in between soaks your chlorine usage will be roughly doubled. So an ozonator works best in a chlorine spa when you use the spa frequently which fortunately you will be doing.

Two people soaking for 30 minutes is one person-hour of soaking which in a hot (40ºF) spa with no ozonator would normally need roughly 9 grams of chlorine (Cl2) which is 16 grams of Dichlor or 104 ml of 8.25% bleach. In your 875 liter spa it's 10.3 ppm (mg/L) Free Chlorine (FC).

So with your ozonator you should be able to add roughly half these amounts after each soak to get you to the next day, so around 8 grams of Dichlor or 50 ml of 8.25% bleach. In between soaks your FC may drop in half each day due to the ozonator. The real rule to follow is to add enough chlorine after your soak so that you end up with around 1-2 ppm FC for the start of your next soak. You'll need to fine tune how much you add to figure out what that would be, but once you figure this out for your spa it should stay fairly consistent.

The difficulty will come if you ever want to take a vacation or not use the spa for more than a couple of days. You could get lucky where enough ozone gets into the water to keep the spa OK, but we've seen plenty of reports of spas with ozonators that turn bad if the chlorine level drops to zero. If you can figure out a way of temporarily disconnecting your ozonator, then that would have the chlorine last at least twice as long and if you lowered the water temperature you should easily be able to go away for a week and have the chlorine last if you boost it (say to 10 ppm FC) when you leave. For longer than that, you'd probably need someone to add chlorine once a week. You should find out what kind of chlorine bleach source you will be using so that you know its concentration -- I assumed 8.25% but that may not be what you get.

So now that we've talked about chlorine, we need to talk about adjusting your other water parameters. Once you get a proper test kit then post the pH, Total Alkalinity (TA), and Calcium Hardness (CH) numbers so we can go through how to adjust them as needed. You should also see from the threads I referenced earlier if you can get boric acid. 50 ppm of it in your spa will be used for additional pH buffering. Using PoolMath entering 0 for Now and 50 for Target, that would be 250 grams for your 875 liter spa. As was mentioned in an earlier link, you can get boric acid from the UK via eBay (see this link for a listing) or you can get it and other U.S. items shipped to you from mvoorn whom you PM'd. If you are interested in why it is so hard to get in Europe and about its toxicity you can read Are Borates Safe to Use? where basically the EU is regulating it on the basis of its concentrated form rather than on its concentration on use. You won't be using the powder in a manner where you would inhale or ingest it and it will be very diluted in the water which you aren't going to drink in large quantities for a lifetime (and it is not volatile nor does it absorb through the skin).

If you follow the Dichlor-then-bleach method, you should be able to go at least twice as long between water changes compared to using Dichlor-only. Though there is some work to get the spa set up after a refill of water, it's pretty easy after that just adding Dichlor after each soak until you build up CYA, then switch to adding bleach after each soak. Once a month you'll use Dichlor for one day (i.e. for one soak) to restore CYA that slowly gets broken down by chlorine. That's it for disinfection. The only other periodic adjustment would be for pH, but we can go over that once you get a test kit and numbers. Once you get your TA lowered and add the boric acid, the pH may be pretty stable. If it rises too much, you add some acid to lower it.
 
Chem geek , thank jou verry much.

I have send a mail (to TFTestkits.net) for test kit and this was the answer.
Unfortunately, due to each countries regulations regarding shipping chemicals we do not ship internationally. Some customers have used a forward or to have it shipped to them. You can do an Internet search for a forwarder You would have to use the forwarders' address as your bill to and ship to address and pay using PayPal.

I have also send a PM to a forum member i hope they wil do it.
 

Enjoying this content?

Support TFP with a donation.

Give Support
Yes, that was just an example. 10 is a large enough number to get more digits for the result and it's easy to divide by 10. As you've read from my posts, you add a fixed amount of chlorine in proportion to your bather load (how many people soaking for how long) independent of volume of water in the spa. The PoolMath calculations for FC would be more about maintaining an FC level in between soaks, but I don't think you'll have much time in between soaks so you don't have to worry about that. For you, the basic rule is to add whatever amount of chlorine is needed after a soak so that you start off with around 1-2 ppm FC for your next soak.
 
Thread Status
Hello , This thread has been inactive for over 60 days. New postings here are unlikely to be seen or responded to by other members. For better visibility, consider Starting A New Thread.