How long until you can swim??

[Andiejj]

When you start adding chemicals, how long until you are able to swim? Such as I just added CYA last night, when can we swim? I am about to add CH... Anyone able to give a brief run down of times???

Also curious about the time between adding chemicals. If you have some tweaking to do and you have to add a couple things, how long inbetween things do you wait before adding another one?

Thanks!

 

[JasonLion]

For most chemicals it is a question of how quickly they mix into the water. Most things will mix in within a few hours, some are quicker than that. Muriatic acid mixes very quickly. Bleach is faster than average, but not as fast as muriatic acid. CYA in particular is special. CYA is normally added to the skimmer or in a sock and in that case it is safe to swim right away, even though it won't full disolve for some time.

CH shouldn't be added on the same day as anything that raises the PH (borax, baking soda, soda ash, bleach, etc). You might not be able to help adding bleach, but try to add it before the CH and give it a little time to mix.

PH adjustments and chlorine can usually be added at esentially the same time, though not calhypo (because of the calcium).

If you bring the chlorine level up to shock level some people like to wait till it comes back down before swimming. It isn't celar if this is important or not.

There are other exceptions, though I think I got the major ones.

 

[Andiejj]

Thanks so much!