Can I empty frog chlorinator and only use liquid chlorine?

[snuggler]

I moved into a home that comes with a 23,000 gallon inground chlorine pool. We just opened it, and I'm planning to maintain it myself, except for professional opening and closing.

The past owners installed a Frog branded chlorinator system that is somehow hooked up to my filter pump. My pool opener told me how to add more "tab packs," but I've been reading on here that it is easier to use liquid chlorine to avoid CYA issues. So I'm hoping to stick to liquid chlorine, baking soda, and muriatic acid for most of my pool maintenance needs.

To that end, do I need to do anything, other than not refill with another tab pack after this one is done? Do I need to, for example, remove the last tab pack, or bypass this chlorinator entirely, to avoid other problems? Or is it ok for me to just ignore the chlorinator and start balancing with liquid chlorine?

 

[magiteck]

Great choice on ditching the frog. If there’s a mineral pack in there, I would remove it. Otherwise, just ignore it and carry on if/until you decide you want to re-do some plumbing and take it out. Like when you decide to put in a SWG.

 

[snuggler]

Great choice on ditching the frog. If there’s a mineral pack in there, I would remove it. Otherwise, just ignore it and carry on if/until you decide you want to re-do some plumbing and take it out. Like when you decide to put in a SWG.

Ha, you are probably good at predicting my future. I am already thinking about how an SWG might make maintenance even easier.

If I am interested in an SWG, would it make sense to wait until my current pump kicks the bucket? I think my pool is about 9-10 years old, and believe I was told during the inspection that it was probably nearing its end based on average life spans.

And how much is an average SWG conversion costing these days? Do you have to add salt regularly instead of chlorine, or how does the salt get supplied to the pool? I may have nightmares of lugging 50 pound bags of salt into the basement of my former home for our water softener that needed frequent refilling.

 

[woodyp]

Your pump doesn't have anything to do with your possible SWG decision as long as it's kicking out enough water flow. Typically add enough salt at early spring before it starts to kick in and check levels once a month in summer. They won't run below 60 in the winter....add some bleach.

 

[magiteck]

The cool thing about the salt for the SWG is that it’s not consumed. The SWG converts the salt into chlorine, which eventually breaks down back into salt. So once it’s there, you only need to add more when you lose / replace water due to draining, backwashing, splash out, etc.

So like woody said, you’ll need those big salt bags to get the water to the right level in the beginning, then you’ll infrequently need to add a bit dependent upon how much water you lose.