Pool questions

Don’t know about question 1, but as far as using chlorox for chlorine, go visit trouble free pools.com. They recommend trying to find a liquid bleach without additives if I remember correctly. It’s been a few years since I have looked on the site though

You want to avoid “splash less” bleach which is pretty much written on the label somewhere on every standard bleach (Clorox) you would find in a grocery store.

As mentioned above Home Depot and others used to stock 10% “chlorinator” bleach under the HDX label but that has been hard to come by over the last couple of years.

If you are in BR or an area that has a Pinch A Penny franchise they still have it at reasonable prices once you buy the container for future refills.

I have gone back to the 3” pucks because I have a slow leak that requires constantly adding CYA but I still keep a few 2 gallon containers of the pinch a penny bleach to add when we get a good rain storm.

A few years ago I had an automated chlorinator using the 3" pucks but my CYA levels kept getting too high forcing me to drain half of my pool once or maybe twice a year. I thought I would try that solar pool ionizer but it didn't do anything for my pool and I trashed it. My pool is only 15,000 gallons and it didn't help. I then switched over to a salt water pool and I have had much better luck at keeping my water stabilized and sanitized.

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Nobody said you don’t use bleach or chlorine without stabilizer at all.

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Easy man. You sound like a TFP member. Quick to bristle. I didn’t say “I love Leslie’s” which is the arch enemy of BBB people. I have zero problems with BBB. Refer to it often. Just forgot they suggest adding CYA. “The only item you’ll need from a big box pool store. “.

I stand by adding bleach at sundown. To do so at noon is foolish. Even with stabilizer.

You can buy 10% bleach in the pool dept at Lowes, Home Depot, Walmart, etc for under $5/gallon. Chlorox is now like 6% IIRC.

The sign at Lowes said 1 gallon is equal to 2 chlorine tablets.

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Easy man. You sound like a TFP member. Quick to bristle

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there are some crotchity old men over there.

i posted a thread asking about the UV system that came with my new pool and started a flame-war about whether or not those systems do anything.

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I stand by adding bleach at sundown. To do so at noon is foolish. Even with stabilizer.

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This for sure. The chlorine stays in the water until the morning allowing the bleach to kill any algae for a longer amount of time. It washes out of the pool during the day, then re-add the next evening.

For 20,000 gallons you'll need about a full gallon of 6% liquid bleach every day or a half of a gallon of 12% bleach every day.

TFP is big on the Taylor K-2006c test kit. It tests for everything you need to monitor. Free Chlorine, Total Chlorine, alkalinity, pH, CYA and a couple of others. They also suggest keeping your chlorine content at 1-3ppm daily. At first, testing daily is a pain, but you soon learn how much you need to add daily to maintain that level so you quit testing daily. For my 15k gallon pool, I add about a quarter of a gallon of pool unless there are a lot of people in it which then I add the full gallon. I did this for a few weeks, then decided to go to granule chlorine because frankly, I don't see any reason to avoid granule.

I used the pucks for the first 3 years I had my pool, and absolutely nothing else. Stayed clear as a bell and I added pucks once a week to the inline chlorinator. This year my CYA spiked to 170. Ended up having to drain it over half way twice (I suspect the pool store phucked up my test after the first refill) and my CYA came back down to 30. 30 is too low to maintain the chlorine level. I've been fighting my pool this year worse than any other year but finally got it clear and it's running good for now. But I've been using the granule chlorine. Thinking about going back to pucks until the CYA comes back up to the 50-60 range.

Sorry for the long writeup, but it's a little bit of a different world going the TFP route. And I'm still a bit on the fence if it's easier to just use pucks, and drain the pool every few years, or maintain a pool daily. There are a lot of smart people on that website, smarter than me, but there's always more than one way to skin a cat.

my new pool eats a tab a day. i'm dropping them into the strainer basket since there's no automated chlorinator on the new pool. i think i paid almost $200 for the tabs but i think they'll last the season and i'm sure i spent at least that much in the past on liquid chlorine (also impossible to find these days).

CYA is still in good shape so if it starts to creep up i'll change things up.

An inline chlorinator is pretty simple to add to your pool equipment. I believe they are relatively inexpensive also. Makes the once a day trip to the bucket and skimmer unnecessary. Might look into it.

I'm not advocating one way or the other for TFP. A lot of those guys seem like maintaining their pool is their primary hobby. There is a lot of logic to what they say, and it absolutely works but the pool is on my mind some days and not on others. If you forget by their method, pool starts to turn into a battle.

I'm sure you know, but keep your CYA around 50-70ish with our heat.

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my new pool eats a tab a day.

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A tab a day? Holy shite.