Help treating water in childs pool

[chris_c]

I just bought an 8'x30" pool to get the 5 and 7 year old grand kids to get them through the last month of their summer vacation.
I just completed setup yesterday filling it with the hose. I found this site to help me understand the water treatment, but never having a pool before I'm not sure where to begin. I purchased HTH 1" chlorinating tablets for bow up pools, ph minus because ph reads 7.8, and algecide.

Not sure where to begin. Tthe pool only holds 650 gallons of water. Chlorinating tablets said to use 4 per 10,000 gallons so I just put 1/4 of a tablet in the floating skimmer to give it some chlorine. I'm wondering if I should have used the HTH stabilizer first but I wasn't sure and that was one chemical I had not bought. Since I can't even get it until tomorrow and the chlorine gage did not even register I figured I should at least give it a little chlorine until I can go to the store tomorrow.

Can someone help me with the order to apply chemicals and how far apart to do them. I appreciate any help or advise. Thanks

[Watermom]

Hi, Chris, and welcome to the Pool Forum! There is a thread that would probably be helpful to you but until your registration is complete, you'll need to log out to be able to read it. From the homepage, go to the sub-forum called Pool Chemistry for Intex-Type Pools. There is a thread called "Super Simple Recipe for Intex pools" or something similar. Read that and then come back here if you have further questions.

I would also like to ask you to put your pool's information in our pool chart. It helps us to be able to better advise you in regards to your pool.

Pool Chart Entry Form (http://goo.gl/cNPUO)

What type of test kit do you have? What are the ingredients of your chlorinating tabs? Anything in them besides trichlor?

[AnnaK]

I used to have a very small pool like this when my kids were little. I can steal hear their squeals of delight when they and their friends played in it, great memories!

All I ever did was to add 1/4 cup of bleach in the evenings and swished it around with a soft household broom. The pool didn't have a filter or a pump. When the water got muddy from little feet I dumped it and refilled it with the hose. The sun heated it up very quickly.

[chris_c]

Thanks, I have read the Super Simple recipe for Intex Pools. My ph is ok but I cannot get the bleach to even register. I filled the pool Saturday and we have had very little sun until today. Last night I put 1/4th of a HTH 1" chlorinating tablet in a floating skimmer (active ingredient 92.4% Trichloro-s-Traizinetrione, available chlorine 84%, purchased at Walmart). This morning it was still in there, I had thought it would dissolve.
Then I read this post so I removed the skimmer and tried the generic bleach. I kept adding periodic amounts of 1/8th cup and testing about 1/2 hour later, it did not register so I added 1/2 cup. If it registered at all it was so slight I wasn't even sure there was a yellow tinge. At 9pm this evening I put 6 oz of bleach and stirred water up, filter has been running since about 4pm. Can I add too much bleach? If I do will it lower itself just sitting in sun with no swimmers?

I have purchased but not used the borax and the recommended algaecide.
I realize this is just a cheap pool set up but I just wanted something for the grand kids to enjoy the last 4-6 weeks of hot weather, I'll be happy if it lasts that long, I just need to make sure I am doing the chemicals right. I'm sorry I did not come to this forum before I bought and filled!

[aylad]

As long as you stay with 1 cup or less at a time of bleach, you won't be adding too much...but without stabilizer in the water, whatever you add will be gone in less than an hour's time, which is why you put in a reasonable dose (1/2 cup) but it wasn't there when you re-tested.You're right that the sun will degrade whatever bleach you put in, so you actually could put in 1-2 cups at a time (2 cups would take your FC to 12 ppm temporarily), and the sun would burn it down pretty quickly. I would probably put in 1 cup, stir it around, let them swim, then follow that with another cup after they got out.

Keeping the trichlor pucks in the pool will help--just don't let the kids play with it and I would remove it from the pool while they're swimming. It can take a few days for the pucks to dissolve--they don't normally dissolve in just one day's time.

Janet

Janet

[chris_c]

Thank you! Would you use both bleach and floating tablet at the same time? As long as ph stays OK is that all I need to do?

[Watermom]

You can do both at the same time but just do NOT pour the bleach near the tab and you'll be fine. Many people do use both. Just make sure that your trichlor tabs do NOT have any copper in them.

[chris_c]

How do you know if there is copper? It is not listed in ingredients but all is says is active ingredient 92.4% Trichloro-s-Traizinetrione and the other percentage just says other ingredients.

[aylad]

If there were copper in them, you would see it listed on the ingredient list as "copper pentahydrate" or something of that nature.

Janet

[AnnaK]

Copper is not always required to be listed as an ingredient, depending on how much or how little is in the product. Per the MSDS the ingredients for HTH Dual Action 3" chlorinating tables are:

TRICHLORO-S-TRIAZINETRIONE 90 - 96 %
Copper Sulfate pentahydrate 1.4 - 1.55 %
Aluminum sulfate 4.5 - 4.9 %

[Watermom]

YIKES! That is what I was afraid of and why I asked you to check!

[chris_c]

I'm sorry, I have 2 more questions. After having trouble keeping the bleach to register on test kit I went to the local pool store and they gave me a granular stabilized chlorinator for pools and spas, it says Sodium Dichloro-s-Triazinetrione....100%, provides 56% available chlorine. I asked if it contained any copper and he emphatically said no. Finally my chlorine level is registering good and holding well. I have noticed the past few days the ph level has gradually going down and is now reading 7.2, is that when I add Borax? How much do I add?

I have noticed when I take a reading the chlorine gets darker after it sits a few minutes, why would it darken? Are you supposed to read immediately and empty? or wait a few minutes? The test kit does not say much.

[Watermom]

How much dichlor did you add? Dichlor is fine to use for a short while. It has CYA in it along with chlorine. All pools need some CYA in them but too much will cause a problem. Can you see if your pool store does the disappearing black dot test to test for CYA. If so, let them test it every few days because you do not want your CYA to go over 40-50ppm. (If your Walmart sells an HTH 6-Way test kit (not test strips), it has the CYA test in it so you could do it yourself.

I think the reason you were having trouble keeping chlorine in the pool before was that you didn't have any CYA in there. CYA is kind of like sunscreen for your chlorine. Without some in the water, your chlorine is quickly lost to the sun.

Dichlor is very acidic and will drive your pH down as you have found. Your pool is really small so it is hard to recommend how much Borax to add so I'm going to suggest a little dose and then you can retest the pH after a few hours to see how much it raised it and then adjust and redose with more if needed. Maybe start with 1/8 of a cup? That's a guess on my part. Best I can do.

When reading your chlorine test, read it immediately. The initial color is the result.

By the way, no need to apologize for more questions. That is why we are here!

[chris_c]

Thank you Watermom, I so appreciate your help, afterall these are my grandbabies!!!

The dosage on the dichlor said to add 2oz per 1,000 gallons for startup. Since I had been using bleach for a few days I only added 1oz and I only did this one time.
At this point would you go back to just using bleach? Should I add a dose of algaecide?

Thanks so much!

[chris_c]

My Walmart does have a 6 way tester so I'm off to get one, thanks!

[Watermom]

You don't need the algaecide. Whether to use the dichlor for a little while or the bleach instead is up to you. I am more familiar with using bleach and just adding CYA separately because that is what I do in my pool. But, in these little pools (or any new pool for that matter) using dichlor is a good way to add both at the same time. Either way is just fine. Since you already have the dichlor, maybe just go ahead and use it for a bit but just watch your CYA level and when it gets to around 40-50, switch to just plain bleach.

[PoolDoc]

membership upgraded. -ben