When do you need to shock your pool??

[human]

What determines whether you need to shock your pool or not?

Do you shock it only if something goes wrong (chemically), or is it like a maintenance routine that you do once a month or so??

Thanks in advance for any insight you can share with me.

[aylad]

Most will tell you that you only need to shock it when you have CC of higher than .5. I personally shock it after a large bather load, after a large storm, or anytime it begins to not have the same "sparkle" it normally does. For some, I recommend shocking once weekly. It's not that it necessarily needs it that much, but if you're at all lazy about testing your water, weekly shocking can help head off problems before they start.

Janet

[peachfuzz]

We put up a vinyl pool about two weeks ago. We just got around to getting chemicals. The pool is slightly cloudy and a bit slimey with algae forming. (I know--were very bad to wait.)]

I was going to start on addressing the problem tonight but now a storm is coming, so I have time to learn a bit more.

We figure there is about 4500 gallons of water.

Do I use shock or chlorine? And is the start up dose the same as the clean up dose?

Thanks,
peachfuzz

[Watermom]

Just use plain unscented bleach to shock and for your daily chlorination. In your pool, each quart will raise the cl by about 3 - 3.5 ppm. We need full set of water testing results to be able to give very specific advice. (Use a test kit that uses drops, not teststrips.) Have you put anything chemical-wise into the pool yet? If not, my advice for now is to add 2.5 quarts. Get us some numbers and we'll go from there.

[peachfuzz]

Just use plain unscented bleach to shock and for your daily chlorination. In your pool, each quart will raise the cl by about 3 - 3.5 ppm. We need full set of water testing results to be able to give very specific advice. (Use a test kit that uses drops, not teststrips.) Have you put anything chemical-wise into the pool yet? If not, my advice for now is to add 2.5 quarts. Get us some numbers and we'll go from there.

I have not put anything in at all.
I have the bleach and will try to add it tonight.
Thanks for the start-up help. :)

[peachfuzz]

Okay, here's what I did so far. Last night I added bleached and washed down the sides and bottem as best as I could. I used the pump for a few hours to clear out any fine particles. This morning I put in the borax and bleach as directed in the "kiddie-pool" section. Did a test and the numbers looked great. If memory serves me correctly the chlorine was 3.0 and ph was around 7.8. Then I added the algeacide.

The kids swam in it a lot today--I did a chlorine test tonight and it didn't even register. Do I add chlorine tonight? I know I should test before each use--but then do I use chlorine and borax or the shock, or .....I looked on the website and either I am missing it or just dense. (You don't have to answer....;) )

Thanks again for the help. This pool stuff is totally new to me. I remember having a pool as a kid and swimming in the green water....yish!

[Watermom]

Add chlorine (bleach) tonight. Bring it back up to 5 or 6. Your ph is OK at 7.8. Don't add any more Borax. We still need a complete set of water testing readings so we can look at the whole picture.

[aylad]

Until you get some stabilizer in it (cyanuric acid), your bather load and the sun are going to deplete all of your chlorine on a daily basis. So follow Watermom's instructions to add the bleach at night, but you also need to go to WalMart/HD/Lowe's and get some stabilizer.

Janet

[peachfuzz]

Okay. I didn't buy any of the cyanuric acid, so will need to do that.
Thank you.

[peachfuzz]

This morning's numbers:

Chlorine is 1
pH 7.8
Brom. 1.7

I do have the cyanuric acid--I forgot that I bought it.

[aylad]

You don't have Bromine in your pool, so you can disregard that reading. Just read the Chlorine side. When you put the CYA into your pool, either add it though the skimmer, or put it in a tube sock in the skimmer or tied in front of a return. Either way you add it, follow the label directions to get up to about 20 ppm for your side pool, and don't backwash or re-test for it for at least a week. It takes a LONG time to dissolve. In the meantime, you're going to have to keep adding chlorine nightly so that the sun doesn't wipe out all of your Cl while you're waiting on your stabilizer to dissolve.

Janet

[peachfuzz]

Edited--
Never mind. :)

[peachfuzz]

I don't think I bought the correct chemical. What I have is Shock Plus by Aqua Chem.
Ingredients are:
sodium dichloro-s-triazinertrione, 58.2%
Other ingredients, 41.8%

That isn't the right thing, is it...?

There wasn't a lot of pool chemicals left, and I was thinking this was the right one.

[gerri]

It sounds like what you have is shock, not stabalizer.

CYA is cyanuric acid, stabalizer.. at my pool place they called it water conditioner... it goes by different names on the bottle but what you are looking for is cyanuric acid. You may need to go to a pool place to get this one chemical for the pool. Look at the BBB pool thread, there you will find out what you do for your pool.

[peachfuzz]

Look at the BBB pool thread, there you will find out what you do for your pool.

I live in a small community and the nearest pool place is quite a drive. I'll check all of the stores here and see if I can find the right chemical.

Can you provide a link for that particular thread? I would appreciate it.

I have been using the website's directions on Kiddie Pool care. Along with the help I've been getting here the pool is a lot better.

[gerri]

Here you go:

The BBB thread
http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthread.php?t=1652