Sodium Bromide in a Pool

[TFP_Addict]

Moved from here.

Adding more bromide to a pool with an already considerable bromide bank would do precisely nothing. Throw whatever you have left away.

If you insist on managing your bromine pool for the rest of the year then you need to treat it as a pool with no CYA because the bromine is not affected by it. That means bromine will burn off quickly, you'll need to keep the Br levels between 3-5 ppm and check it every day at least once. To perform the SLAM Process your target Br level will be 20 ppm and perform the process as otherwise indicated substituting "FC" for "Br". You can use bleach or cal-hypo to brominate the water, preferably bleach but if you're soon replacing the water then the CH level isn't much of a concern.

So if your pool is a bromine pool, there is literally no reason to ever add CYA to your pool anymore? Can you explain this a bit more?

 

[Donldson]

So if your pool is a bromine pool, there is literally no reason to ever add CYA to your pool anymore? Can you explain this a bit more?

CYA has no effect on bromine. That's why they sell this junk as an "algaecide", because if your pool is overstabilized and chlorine isn't effective then adding bromide means the chlorine and bromide will react to make bromine which isn't affected by CYA. So the algae finally goes away. It creates a permanent bromine demand issue since there's nothing to protect the bromine from the sunlight, and a CYA problem is easily solved either by lowering the CYA level or raising the FC level to compensate, so it works but it's an incredibly dumb way to go about it. (NOTE: it is a dumb way to do it, but that's a judgement on the people recommending and selling the product and not those using the product based on that bad advice.)

A bromine pool is not ideal for any residential pool. CYA can be used outdoors to regulate the strength of chlorine and protect from the sunlight, and indoors in smaller amounts just to regulate the strength of the chlorine (I say residential because some commercial indoor pools are forbidden by archaic regulations from using CYA). As such the use of sodium bromide isn't recommended.

 

[TFP_Addict]

CYA has no effect on bromine. That's why they sell this junk as an "algaecide", because if your pool is overstabilized and chlorine isn't effective then adding bromide means the chlorine and bromide will react to make bromine which isn't affected by CYA. So the algae finally goes away. It creates a permanent bromine demand issue since there's nothing to protect the bromine from the sunlight, and a CYA problem is easily solved either by lowering the CYA level or raising the FC level to compensate, so it works but it's an incredibly dumb way to go about it. (NOTE: it is a dumb way to do it, but that's a judgement on the people recommending and selling the product and not those using the product based on that bad advice.)

A bromine pool is not ideal for any residential pool. CYA can be used outdoors to regulate the strength of chlorine and protect from the sunlight, and indoors in smaller amounts just to regulate the strength of the chlorine (I say residential because some commercial indoor pools are forbidden by archaic regulations from using CYA). As such the use of sodium bromide isn't recommended.

Yea, this is where you are losing me. And I've spent the last few days reading up on PCTI's website about this topic. And he's basically saying the same exact things you are. I'm not sure if you are the same person, or you're getting the info from him or vise visa. Regardless...

Okay, So sodium bromine gets dumped into the pool. And you are stuck with ... lets say 5 PPM of it. Let's say you dump 40 PPM of chlorine and that raises the FC in the pool.

How much chlorine gets converted to bromide in this example? Does all the chlorine get converted to bromide instantly? or does it slowly happen? Does it eat 5 ppm of chlorine, do some work then eat another 5 ppm of chlorine and do more work?
If only a small percentage of the 40 PPM chlorine gets converted to bromide, what happens to the rest?

I keep reading that you have to put in A lot more chlorine when your pool becomes a bromine pool. I feel like the two of you are only discussing people that trying to maintain their pool. What about in a situation where you are shocking your pool? And dumping a lot of chlorine all at once?

"You will continue to have a bromine pool until the bromide level gets below a few ppm." What does this mean exactly? Why does it no longer become a bromide pool when it drops below a few ppm?

I understand that bromide is not protected by CYA. But in my example, if I'm dumping 40 PPM chlorine, how much of that chlorine is going to be protected by CYA? "CYA problem is easily solved either by lowering the CYA level or raising the FC level to compensate" <- I don't understand what you mean by this.

And you didn't really answer my question... So if your pool is a bromine pool, there is literally no reason to ever add CYA to your pool anymore? Meaning, in what situation when you are adding chlorine to your pool, does CYA play a role in a bromine pool?

He also discussing a real life way to detect bromine in your pool with a 5 gallon + ammonia experiment that seems to never get discussed here. He even claims that the method came from chem geek @ TFP. Why doesn't this get discussed?

 

[onBalance]

No, not all of the chlorine (hypochlorous acid) gets immediately converted into bromine (hypobromous acid). Only a portion of it (with 5 ppm of bromine, or even much less). But once sunlight (or algae, bacteria if present) quickly reduces the available bromine (because it is not protected by CYA), another portion of the remaining chlorine becomes converted to bromine. All of the chlorine being converted to bromine happens fairly quickly, at least much faster than would if the water only contained chlorine that is tied up with CYA (and no bromide). Therefore, it doesn't matter how much CYA there is in the water. It becomes somewhat ineffective.

CYA plays a major role when only chlorine is present and without the presence of any bromine/bromide. When bromide is present, it doesn't make much difference how much CYA is present. That is why there is no point in adding more CYA for stabilizing effects.

Shocking the pool with bromine/chlorine is fairly effective because all of bromine (hypobromous acid) is immediately available to sanitize.