swimming in high chlorine

[mohawk]

Just wondering: My kids called a want to swim in the pool today, but I have around 14ppm of chlorine with 40cya. I'm trying to get rid of some algae that started growing when I was out to town. Will the chlorine hurt their skin? Any thoughts? Denise

[aylad]

The chlorine probably won't hurt their skin other than drying it out a little, and it'll probably sting their eyes. It will definitely fade their suits. That being said, if you're shocking it to kill algae, then the chlorine has been low enough for other bacteria/viral load to grow, and I wouldn't let my kids swim in it for the reason that it's not sanitized rather than because of the higher chlorine.

Janet

[chem geek]

I believe it will take a lot more chlorine than that to fade the suits. 14 ppm FC with 40 ppm CYA is equivalent in disinfecting chlorine concentration to 0.5 ppm FC with no CYA. My wife swims during the winter at an indoor pool that has around 2 ppm FC with no CYA and most definitely her swimsuits are shot after just one winter of use -- mostly the rubber degrades while the suit itself doesn't fade much since they are "fade-resistant". So I doubt that one day of swimming will do much, at least now while IN the water.

On the other hand, when outside of the water as it evaporates on the swimsuit, then it's possible that the higher chlorine content will last longer in terms of potentially fading the suit. So while it won't fade quickly, it won't "run out" as quickly. So rinsing the suit after leaving the pool should take care of that.

Let us know what you find out, however, because though I'm rather confident about what happens while in the water, I'm not so sure of what happens when one gets out and the water evaporates from the sun.

Richard