switch to BBB from bromine

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WolfFromNorth

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Jun 4, 2013
7
newbie to the forum. So exited to found out this forum, and the BBB method. Tied of spending too much on bromine tablet but stil l don't get good result. I plan to open the pool this week. It was closed last September with cover.

I saw only a few posts on this topic, such as,
bbb-bromine-bleach-borax-t33767.html
bromine-chemistry-bleach-t55106.html

I don't want to drain my pool. If I switch to BBB, it sounds like I still need to use bromine tablet regularly, with less amount. Right?

Or maybe I can use less and less bromine tablet, and gradually the pool became a chlorine pool.

Another question is on testing. The recommended testing kit only measured chlorine, not bromine. On my testing strip bromine number is half or double of the chlorine number (I forgot which one). Is it also true with the testing kit (K2006).

Thanks a lot in advance for any advise.
 
From what I have read on the subject is that the Bromine compounds and Chlorine compounds will react with each other, and Bromine does not outgas in the same way Chlorine does, so you are effectively trapped with Bromine unless you do a full water replacement. Hopefully someone else will be along that can explain this better as I am going on memory of stuff I read a year or two ago.
 
After reading many posts I believe bleach does the same thing as my ca-hypo shock, which I did weekly before. The pool was closed early September last year. So I think the DMH might be already very low.

Another thought is that if there is extra bleaching in the pool than needed to active bromine, the pool will become a chlorine + bromine pool. If I don't add bromine tablet anymore, the pool might be at that chlorine + bromine state forever.

My test kit didn't arrive yet. Would the reading correct in this case where I have both chlorine and bromine?

THanks.
 
Converting from chlorine to bromine is easy, just add bromine.

Converting from bromine to chlorine is difficult. Once you have bromine in the water, any chlorine you add will simply reactivate the bromine. Bromine does break down and get splashed out, but that process is very slow. The only practical way to convert is to replace nearly all of your water.

You can stop adding bromine and simply use chlorine to reactivate the bromine. Over the course of a year or two the bromine will slowly go away. After a while you will have a mixed bromine/chlorine pool and eventually someday you will have a chlorine pool. You won't really get any of the advantages of having a chlorine pool for a lone time, but eventually it will get there.
 
Thanks for the replies.

After I stop bromine tablet, would I follow the BBB numbers/procedure or there would be different somewhere? Since the pool has both chlorine and bromine, when I use the testing kit, the testing result is still correct? I thought it only measures chlorine. I didn't receive the testing kit yet so I am not sure if the instruction mention this chlorine + bromine case.

Thanks.
 
For the first long time, at least a year, possibly two, you treat it as a bromine pool. Then you can start treating it like a chlorine pool.

The test kits are the same except for one detail. Chlorine and bromine tests all test for the total of both chlorine and bromine, but they measure on different scales. The bromine level is 2.2 times the chlorine level.
 
The Pool Calculator does not support bromine calculations directly. Everything else is the same however. You will need a little trial and error to figure out what amount of chlorine to add to get your target bromine level.
 

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it is about 2 weeks after opening the pool. Now it is clear and I can see the bottom, even the deep side. However the color is still not blue. It is kind of aqua or torquoise. I forgot what it looked like last year. Is the color normal? The background picture of http://tftestkits.net/ has the same color as my pool.

Here is the test result today.
FC: 1
CC: 1
PH: 7.6
TA: 160
CH: 340
CYA: 0 (not tested today, tested 2 weeks ago), since it was bromine pool before, CYA was never used.

During the last 2 weeks I only added bleach daily, and ph reducer once.

If the color is normal, I don't need to add bleach to shock level anymore.

Thanks.
 
I read little more on the internet. It looks like the pool color is related to the liner/plaster color. My plaster is some kind of white, not pure white for sure. Maybe that's the reason my pool does not look like blue.

I just realized that the pool on the right top corner of this page has quite similar color as mine.
 
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