I'm at the end of week 3 of trying to clean my pool and I'm making slight progress. I can now see the third step, a major accomplishment. I've been following the guidelines on this site regarding shocking the pool. Based on the guidelines I'm keeping the FC at 16. I still have an overnight loss of about 2 and CC of about 1. Do I have to wait until I no longer need to shock before I can let anyone swim? Is it safe to swim with FC at shock levels?
Is it safe to swim while still shocking the pool
- Thread starter lapzanpool
- Start date
I'd be more concerned about what is in the water that is making it either green or cloudy than the chlorine level. Very dry skin and brittle hair are the major side effects. Any idea why this has taken 3 weeks???????? Are you backwashing a lot?
Depending on what the water looked like, I would swim in a pool that has FC at the recommended shock levels in the FC/CYA Chart
woodyp said:
The pool was not covered and we've had a warm early summer (for once) her in New England. Not opening the pool until 7/1 gave the algae a wonderful opportunity to bloom. I have 50K gallons of water to clean, so even in a good year it takes at least a couple of weeks to clear up. This year I had some suction side air leaks that were contributing to reducing the water turn over. I replaced some of the plumbing on the suction side and have dramatically reduced the air leaks. Now the pump\filter is operating more efficiently. At this rate I expect the pool to be reasonably clean (free of dead algae and other particulate matter) in about a week.
Since I have a cart filter I do not back wash but I'm cleaning the filter about twice a day. As noted above, fixing most of the air leaks seems to have been the turning point. Now the water is just cloudy; instead having a heavy appearance is now seems pretty inviting, except for the turbidity.
Well, tomorrow is supposed to be a scorcher, so it might be time to take a dip. If the consensus is that FC at the recommended shock level is ok to swim in (consensus of one
) might be time to take a dip.
You shouldn't swim if there is a reason you are shocking the pool, ie: visible algae, overnight FC loss, or CC above 0.5.
What could happen if swimming when there is visible algae, overnight FC loss, or CC above .5? Also, can you clarify: when swimming at shock level (despite your above warning) or even elevated FC over the target (say midway between target and shock), are there special rules to follow -- ie, no kids under "x" age advised or no opening your eyes?? Thanks.
Chlorine up to shock level isn't a problem. But where there is algae, or other organics consuming chlorine, there are most likely going to be places where there isn't any chlorine, and the water in those area will not be sanitized.
CC comes in several forms, some of which are fairly significant irritants and others of which can cause breathing problems at high enough levels. CC at 0.5 or lower generally isn't noticeable, but at higher levels it can be quite annoying, thus best not to swim.
CC comes in several forms, some of which are fairly significant irritants and others of which can cause breathing problems at high enough levels. CC at 0.5 or lower generally isn't noticeable, but at higher levels it can be quite annoying, thus best not to swim.