The other thing the tabs along with a auto chlorinator is a easy method to keep a FC level. What about tabs without stabiles in them?
There are really not tabs without stabilizer. There are some Cal Hypo tabs out tehre, but they require a special grinder/feeder as they kind of turn into mush when wet rather than the ones you have that stay solid and slowly erode.
In it's natural state, chlorine is a gas. Many large commercial pools actually use gas injection systems to chlorinate their pools.
Now, to change chlorine into something we can use at home it needs to be bound to something to turn it into a solid. The "somethings" that are commonly used are -
- stabilizer (also known as CYA, this is trichlor and DiChlor)
- calcium (CalHypo)
- lithium (hard to find and very expensive)
- water
All of these add a little salt to your water, but they add something else. Cal-Hypo adds calcium, Tri-Chlor and Di-Chlor (tabs and most granules) add stabilizer, Lithium hypochlorite adds lithium and liquid chlorine adds - water.
All of these things can be bad for your pool (except the water) in large quantities. The stabilizer helps shield the chlorine from UV degradation, but at higher levels it also impairs the ability of chlorine to do it's work. The higher the stabilizer level you have the higher the amount of chlorine you need. Too much calcium and you start to get scaling on the walls and floors of your pool.
Now, the last option is a salt water chlorine generator (SWCG or SWG). Contrary to what folks "think", a "salt" pool does not get sanatized byt the salt. There is an electronic device, the SWCG that thru an electrical/chemical process turns the salt into chlorine right in your pool plumbing. As the chlorine is consumed (it happens in your pool now) the chlorine is converted into salt and the process continues.
Liquid or a SWCG are the ways we tend to suggest folks should keep their pools "trouble free"
