I had an ozonaotor installed with my new pool

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along7474

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Mar 16, 2018
9
China, Tx
My pool builder sold me on a small ozonator to supplement my chlorine. It is a clear O3. I am curious if this was a waste of money that I should stop using when the bulb burns out or is it worth the small cost?
Thanks in advance.
 
Hi Along7474 :) Welcome to TFP.

I'm afraid to say it was sort of a waste of money. The light only disinfects the small bit of water going directly over the bulb, but not the rest of the water in the pool at the time. It won't do squat to prevent person to person transmission of cooties.

Many folks find that when the bulb dies, they don't notice any difference.....so what was it doing in the first place?

Have you read our Pool School article on how to chlorinate your water? --> Pool School - How to Chlorinate Your Pool

You might also want to start using muriatic acid instead of dry acid, as the dry acid isn't so good for the plaster.

Have you a test kit??

Maddie :flower:
 
I should have said compliment my chlorine, not supplement. I have read the pool school once and I have a taylor 2005 test kit. I decided to use the dry acid because I buy online in 25 lb pails and to take up less space since I am going through 25 lbs of acid a month while my plaster is curing. I've heard from multiple people the curing/leaching/acid demand could last up to a year. Yes, once I saw the ozonator I immediately thought to myself what could that be doing?
 
I can't say about the price comparison, sorry.

Sulfates why so bad?
Sulfates - what's the problem?

If you were to obtain a FAS-DPD test kit ( TFTestkits.net ) your K-2005 test kit would be the equivalent to the K-2006 we recommend. That FAS-DPD test is very important because it measures your FC up to 50ppm. The block you're using now only measures to 5 or 10ppm, right?

Maddie :flower:
 
The bigger problem here is you are using NoMor Problems Algaecide by United Chemical Corp. I believe that contains sodium bromide (please check the bottle). NaBr is really not a good idea to use in a chlorinated swimming pool as you are adding bromide to the water. Chlorine will react with bromide to form sanitizing bromine. The bromine can not be stabilized against UV loss line chlorine can with cyanuric acid and so you are slowly creating a mixed chlorine/bromine pool. That will eventually become a HUGE headache as bromine loss to UV is very fast. So as the bromine builds up, you lose chlorine stability and the pool will eventually have zero sanitizer in it because of the chlorine/bromine interaction.

If you haven’t used much of the NoMor (Money) Algaecide, then stop using it and toss it out. It will only cause you problems.
 
That's correct, it goes up to 10ppm FC.

The bit about the No Mor Problems actually answers another concern I have. I cannot keep a chlorine reading, even though my water looks fantastic. I keep adding enough chlorine to give me 5ppm but usually in less than 24 hours it is gone. So thanks for the response. I have used a little over half a gallon of the stuff in ~3 months.
 
At half a gallon of the product which looks to be 33.3% NaBr, your concentration of bromine in the pool water will be ~ 11ppm. 11ppm bromine will consume nearly 5ppm free chlorine. So even if you add chlorine to the pool, it likely all oxidizes the bromide to bromine (chlorine gets reduced to chloride in the process) and then the bromine is quickly spent by sunlight and sanitation reactions. This is why your pool is remaining clear because the chlorine is creating bromine which unaffected by cyanuric acid and so you are creating very high bromine sanitizer levels for a short period of time. It’s sort of like shocking your pool everyday.

The only way to get rid of bromide is by draining the pool and refilling with fresh water. It can, very slowly, be oxidized by high levels of chlorine to form bromates which will no longer react with chlorine. If you backwash your filter frequently, the backwashing process will slowly reduce bromide levels as well.

Sorry, there’s no good answers here. Bromide algaecides are a terrible product to use in an outdoor swimming pool but they are very effective against algae. So pool builders and service companies like to use them as a quick-fix. They also make a pool appear to be a “low chlorine” pool but all you’re really doing is shocking the pool and then leaving it unprotected for most of the time between chlorine doses. It makes their lives easier because you rarely see algae but your pool becomes more complicated and expensive to operate.
 
Thanks man, that's good to know. I hate that though because I feel like that stuff puts an extra sparkle to the water (may just be the placebo effect). In the mean time, do you think increasing the CYA level help hold any extra chlorine longer?
 
Can you post up test results? Do you have a one the recommended test kits? Most folks around here use either a Taylor K-2006(c) OR a TF-100 from TFTestKits.

The sparkle you’re seeing could possibly be from the fact that the NoMor Problems has a clarifier. You could easily achieve that same clarity by using a simple polymeric clarifier, or better yet, adding DE to your sand filter. Using DE in your sand filter is covered in Pool School.
 

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I have a taylor 2005. I put some DE in already, we use it where I work so lets just say I don't have to buy any. The last results I have are:
FC-1-went to 7 after I added cal hypo
CC-0(I think)
pH-7.2-went to 7.4 after I added cal hypo
TA-80-result from last monday
CH-300-result from last monday
CYA-40-result from two weeks ago-also I'm not sure if I am proficient in this test yet.
 
Adding more CYA will do no good. The bromide is consuming all of the chlorine no matter what form it is in (hypochlorous acid, hypochlorite or chlorine bound to CYA) as it is a cyclical process - the bromide gets oxidized by chlorine to bromine, then the bromine reacts with something (UV light, organic compound, algae, etc) and converts back to bromide where the remaining chlorine just reactivates it again. This happens until all of the chlorine is spent. Your ozonator is also acting as an oxidizer that is converting bromide to bromine (although it is very weak so it's not doing that much). This is probably why your sanitizer level never quite hits zero.

Please note - the DPD test reacts with any halogen (chlorine or bromine). So, when you are testing, your DPD indicator is really showing a bromine level, not a chlorine level...actually, you really have no idea which because it reacts with both. There is no test outside of an analytical chemistry lab that can distinguish between bromine and chlorine. So, when you get a result from your DPD test, it is almost always going to be Total Bromine, not Free Chlorine.

If water is cheap where you are, I would suggest you consider draining some of the pool and then rebalancing the chemistries towards the recommended levels here. It will take several partial drains to get the bromide levels down but, with each drain, it will be easier to maintain chlorine. One can certainly maintain a bromine pool, it just takes a lot more attention because when the daytime UV is high, the sanitizer level will drop very fast.
 
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