kjmelak
05-30-2006, 10:39 PM
The BBB method seems interesting to me. My main concern however is, how easy is it to maintain a fairly steady free available chlorine level if you are dumping in liquid chlorine periodically, rather than a slow release tablet by feeder?
Kevin
chrisexv6
05-31-2006, 08:50 AM
Best way is to try it out and "learn" your pool. For instance, I know in the first month of opening, my pool doesnt use very much chlorine at all (April/May in CT is rainy and fairly cool and cloudy, so very low sun and heat load). On the initial opening shock, I was able to not add chlorine for almost 2 weeks, because it used that little (was very cool out and no sun).
Test your pool daily for a little while (maybe not a full Ben test, but at least a color comparitor test), and you'll get the hang of how much chlorine it uses and when it uses it. If you worry about not having enough chlorine, you can always use an inline chlorinator as a backup (but watch out for CYA levels), or I suppose you could add a slow release tab to your skimmer every now and again (I never liked doing that, worried about the concentration of chlorine eating thru things). Walmart has 3 qt and 1.5 gallon jugs of 6% bleach ("Great Value Ultra"....Walmarts brand). Start with a 3 qt and see how long you can keep a chlorine level in your pool. Also try that with different types of weather, pretty soon you'll get the hang of it.
At the height of the seasons heat/sun/bathing load, I usually dump in a 3 qt bottle of 6% bleach every other day. Keeps it on the high end of the recommended 1-3ppm, but its perfectly safe and I feel better with the higher level (my pool gets a LOT of sun, so if I forget one day with the level a little high, I might be able to get away with it).
As far as baking soda and borax, Ive never seemed to have a problem bringing up the pH with Borax, and then locking it in with the correct amount of baking soda. Once the alkalinity is correct, my pH rarely moves a whole lot. That is dependent on the fill water you use (if you need to top off the pool from evaporation) and how acidic the rain you receive from the sky is. But a good alkalinity level seems to buffer both of those things very well, so two of the "Bs" arent that hard to keep track of.
I forgot to mention, search these forums for "bleach calculator". VERY handy, it will tell you how much bleach you need to keep a certain free chlorine level in your pool (you need to know the dimensions of the pool, or how many gallons of water are in it).
Good luck!
-Chris