Dave,
I absolutely agree with you -- chlorine is the first and primary way to clear a pool. There is one situation, however, where it seems a floc is called for and that is when there is a LOT of algae (i.e. a full-fledged bloom) AND the circulation is very poor in the pool, typically in an above-ground pool without a floor drain. In such a situation, a floc just helps you dump a lot of junk to the bottom that you then vacuum up (to waste). I agree that you could also just manually aid circulation by brushing or running a pool cleaner, but getting everything into the skimmer so it can get filtered out when there is no floor drain can sometimes be difficult. At least this is the sense I get from reading many users experiences -- the ones that seem to take a very long time using chlorine alone are the situation I described -- for everyone else, chlorine gets you there in a reasonable time.
Richard
I absolutely agree with you -- chlorine is the first and primary way to clear a pool. There is one situation, however, where it seems a floc is called for and that is when there is a LOT of algae (i.e. a full-fledged bloom) AND the circulation is very poor in the pool, typically in an above-ground pool without a floor drain. In such a situation, a floc just helps you dump a lot of junk to the bottom that you then vacuum up (to waste). I agree that you could also just manually aid circulation by brushing or running a pool cleaner, but getting everything into the skimmer so it can get filtered out when there is no floor drain can sometimes be difficult. At least this is the sense I get from reading many users experiences -- the ones that seem to take a very long time using chlorine alone are the situation I described -- for everyone else, chlorine gets you there in a reasonable time.
Richard