How long do you wait between adding different chemicals?

[Jeannie]

Hi everyone

When I was buying my pool chems at a pool store I was told to wait 2-4 hours between each chemical I was adding. With the BBB method do I still have to wait that long??

Thanks in advance for your answers! :-D

Jeannie

 

[Swimgirl]

At least wait 1 hour between adding bleach and muriatic acid. Otherwise, you can make chlorine gas. That's bad news. Other than that, I don't know of any wait times between adding chemicals.

 

[JasonLion]

The only time you need to wait longer than an hour, with the pump running, is when adding calcium. You don't want to do anything that raises the PH for 24 hours after adding calcium. So no borax, PH Up, soda ash, washing soda, baking soda, cal-hypo, or bleach for 24 hours after adding calcium.

 

[Swimgirl]

The only time you need to wait longer than an hour, with the pump running, is when adding calcium. You don't want to do anything that raises the PH for 24 hours after adding calcium. So no borax, PH Up, soda ash, washing soda, baking soda, cal-hypo, or bleach for 24 hours after adding calcium.

Why's that?

 

[JasonLion]

Combining calcium additions and PH increases tends to lead to calcium clouding. If your calcium saturation index (CSI) is very low this is not a problem and there is no timing constraint. But as the CSI increases it is more difficult for calcium to remain dissolved in the water. As you add chemicals, they don't mix throughly all at once. There can be spots in the water that have locally high CSI values for a period of time, which will precipitate calcium particles, which can cause white clouds in the water or calcium scaling on the pool surfaces.