Powder Power Plus and CH levels

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Ronson_321

Well-known member
May 12, 2020
65
Los Angeles
I fired my pool guy about 6 months ago as he had allowed CYA levels to get too high and the pool was turning green.

I drained the pool and started again and its going quite well (pool water is clear and nice to swim in). I've been using household bleach for chlorination and just add more every time the level gets to 2.5 or so. I have 2 concerns about using bleach. 1) I live in SoCal where the temperatures are in mid-nineties most days (at the moment) and so I get thru a lot of bleach and find buying it from the store and storing it in the house is a bit of a pain and 2) It is very hard to know the strength of the bleach you are buying. Most bleaches don't show their Sodium hypochlorite levels and even when they do you don't the age and storage history of the product. Sometimes I get the feeling I am adding a lot of bleach and its not shifting the Chlorine level much.

For these reasons I have been considering switching to Power Powder Plus/Pro which looks like it would avoid these issues. In addition as you can get 50LBs delivered for $199 my back-of the-envelope calculations indicate its probably cheaper than household bleach.

My concern is about Calcium Hardness levels. Leslie's site says that this product will increase it. I just measured my CH and it came out at about 320. Given that this is at the high end of normal should I avoid Power Powder Plus/Pro and stick with bleach ? Are there any other options ?

Any help appreciated!

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Have you looked at the ingredient label on the liquid chlorine/bleach? A good one always has it, a weak one doesn't.

You do not want to use too much calcium due to your evaporation rate. WIth evaporation the water goes but the calcium doesn't. Soon you'll have enough calcium to start making bricks.

How big is your pool in gallons?? Have you considered a Salt water chlorinator?

Maddie :flower:
 
YippeeSkippy said:
Have you looked at the ingredient label on the liquid chlorine/bleach? A good one always has it, a weak one doesn't.

You do not want to use too much calcium due to your evaporation rate. WIth evaporation the water goes but the calcium doesn't. Soon you'll have enough calcium to start making bricks.

How big is your pool in gallons?? Have you considered a Salt water chlorinator?

Maddie :flower:
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Thanks for the reply.

The pool is about 15,000 gallons. I did in fact get a salt water chlorination system fitted when the pool was upgraded about 10 years ago but i haven't used it for some time. I'll need to check to see if it still works. How does that compare in terms of costs with bleach/liquid chlorine/powder chlorine ?
 
Assuming the SWG cell is appropriately sized (2x pool volume) it comes out about the same as liquid chlorine. The difference is that you're paying for your chlorine all upfront, versus by the gallon at the store.

Maddie :flower:
 
I just looked into the salt water option and suspect that my IntelliChlor chlorine generator was used for 5 or 6 years and probably does not have much life left in it, and I'm a bit reluctant to resurrect or replace it at this stage.

Would you advice against Powder Power Plus? If so, I guess I'll just stick to better know brands of bleach (like Clorox from Costco at $3.99 a gallon, or Leslie liquid chlorine at just over $6 a gallon.

Thanks Again!
 
Ronson_321 said:
Powder Power Plus
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That product should be outlawed in areas of high CH fill water. I suspect your fill water is high in CH - as most of the water comes from the Colorado River. Use liquid chlorine, or plan to drain your pool volume about twice per year.
 
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Those are ridiculous prices! Look for Pool Essentials liquid chlorine at Home Depot or Lowes. Do NOT buy Clorox because of the polymers they put in it. If you're gonna hunt for bleach find the bottom shelf or store generic stuff (usually 6-8%) but no splashless, thickened or polymer technology.

PoolMath tells me that 16 ounces (1 pound) of 73% Calhypo (which is all that Powder Power Plus is) will:
raise your FC by 8.7 / CH by 6.1 / salt by 8.8

If you can account for that much more calcium with use each time...go ahead. But I don't recommend it. Its too easy for you to go too high and cause problems.

Maddie :flower:
 
Last edited:
Ronson_321 said:
Thanks for the reply.

The pool is about 15,000 gallons. I did in fact get a salt water chlorination system fitted when the pool was upgraded about 10 years ago but i haven't used it for some time. I'll need to check to see if it still works. How does that compare in terms of costs with bleach/liquid chlorine/powder chlorine ?
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If the SWCG is operational; it’ll cut your costs to almost zero considering the SWCG is already installed!

Also - FC at 2.5 may be below minimum depending on your CYA. An area to be watchful of and it’d be helpful if you shared your pool math results.
 
YippeeSkippy said:
Those are ridiculous prices! Look for Pool Essentials liquid chlorine at Home Depot or Lowes. Do NOT buy Clorox because of the polymers they put in it. If you're gonna hunt for bleach find the bottom shelf or store generic stuff (usually 6-8%) but no splashless, thickened or polymer technology.

PoolMath tells me that 16 ounces (1 pound) of 73% Calhypo (which is all that Powder Power Plus is) will:
raise your FC by 8.7 / CH by 6.1 / salt by 8.8

If you can account for that much more calcium with use each time...go ahead. But I don't recommend it. Its too easy for you to go to high and cause problems.

Maddie :flower:
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Thanks! I see I can buy liquid essentials liquid chlorine at Home Depot for $4.28 a gallon. I don't see its strength published anywhere - any idea what it is?
 
reggiehammond said:
If the SWCG is operational; it’ll cut your costs to almost zero considering the SWCG is already installed!

Also - FC at 2.5 may be below minimum depending on your CYA. An area to be watchful of and it’d be helpful if you shared your pool math results.
Click to expand...
Good point. I may as well invest in some salt, turn on the generator and see what FC it generates !

Also, I maybe should aim at FC above 2.5 but my pool looks nice and clear, so what would be the benefits of doing so ?
 

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Ronson_321 said:
Thanks! I see I can buy liquid essentials liquid chlorine at Home Depot for $4.28 a gallon. I don't see its strength published anywhere - any idea what it is?
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Oh, I see if I enlarge the picture on Lowe's site is says 10%

So my strategy now is now is to add salt and use my chlorinator until it stops working (as suggested by Reggie). When that stops working (the Chlorinator is quite old so now idea how long that will be) I will switch to Lowe's liquid chlorine as the best value alternative.

Does that sound like a correct path ?

I will check FC daily as I monitor how good the chlorinator still is and add liquid chlorine if it fails to reach appropriate level (2.5, or whatever you guys suggest).

Thanks - this site is awesome!
 
When or if the SWCG is expired, replace it. It is the best way to chlorinate your pool water. All other forms excluding adding liquid chlorine every day means your water will need to be drained off often. You can get Generic cells if you wish to save some money. They cannot be controlled by a Pentair automation system, but you have not mentioned having one of those.

Get a proper test kit so you can proper manage your water chemistry. SWCG cells will last many years if your water chemistry is managed properly.
 
mknauss said:
That product should be outlawed in areas of high CH fill water. I suspect your fill water is high in CH - as most of the water comes from the Colorado River. Use liquid chlorine, or plan to drain your pool volume about twice per year.
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yes, I am giving up on the powdered chlorine idea as too risky. I realize now from this site that 99% of my past problems were from the use of pucks that contain conditioner that raised my CYA thru the roof. Don't want to hit a similar problem with CH!

Thanks.
 
mknauss said:
When or if the SWCG is expired, replace it. It is the best way to chlorinate your pool water. All other forms excluding adding liquid chlorine every day means your water will need to be drained off often. You can get Generic cells if you wish to save some money. They cannot be controlled by a Pentair automation system, but you have not mentioned having one of those.

Get a proper test kit so you can proper manage your water chemistry. SWCG cells will last many years if your water chemistry is managed properly.
Click to expand...
I have a Taylor test kit. My pool looks way better since I started using it regularly and adding chlorine and acid as needed. I do not have a Pentair automation system. I need to get my head around how SWCG work. Do you have any posts on how to replace cells in Pentair Intellichlor with generic ones ?
 
Don't add ANY salt until you test to determine how much is already in there. Every chemical added leaves behind trace salt and it adds up.

Get the Taylor K-1766 Salt Test Kit if you don't have it already.

Maddie :flower:
 
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