Preferred pump speed when adding chemicals

[Jimharris99]

Good day,

I’m making the switch to liquid chlorine and have been reading a number of posts to better educate myself. I see many apply chlorine in the evening, which I know helps with the effectiveness vs. being in the sun. When you apply, and any chemical for that matter, do you have your pump running top speed for the 30 to 60 min needed to circulate, and then drop back to a lower speed? I have a variable speed pump which usually runs low during the day, and I’ll bump it up on occasion for the Polaris cleaner and such, but curious as to the rhythm everyone uses. Or, is it ok to stay on a lower speed even while adding the chemicals? Seems like most product labels and such say to run on high speed whenever adding chems, but curious if you stay high speed for another 6 hours, or just that initial 30 min period.

thanks so much,
Jim

 

[Texas Splash]

Good morning Jim! We generally ramp-up the speed a little when adding chemicals (especially chlorine and muriatic acid) just to prevent them from settling on the pool surface and to let the moving stream of water from the return jets help take it out and away from where you are pouring. But it doesn't have to be on your highest rpm, nor does it have to run 30 minutes or more either. Once the acid or chlorine hits the water, it disperses quite quickly, so maybe about 5 minutes is all you need if that. Once back to the normal rpm, the chemical(s) will continue to circulate and disperse across the entire body of water, but the main concern for settling at the poured spot in long gone. Hope that helps.

 

[ajw22]

I stir the water with my pool brush in the area where I add chemicals to disperse it around and leave my pump at 1500 rpm.

 

[Jimharris99]

Perfect....this is exactly what I needed....thanks! Yes, back in my prior pool store directed life (haha) when I used cal hypo more often, I could see the granules disperse thru the water, but easily settle at the bottom too, so I got in the habit of brushing when adding chems....but this is a good reminder as sometimes the liquid chems just aren’t quite as obvious.

thank you both very much for the prompt replies