Anyone else have a bromine pool

Greetings,

I have a 26,000 Gallon IG that I inherited 7 years ago when I bought my house.

The pool was 8 years old at that time and is just now turning 15. We have had very good luck with it and have been using Bromine to sanitize since we moved in.

To me, bromine seems to be more simple to maintain, but higher in cost than chlorine.

we use the BBB method, and buy bromine tabs once a year at Sams for less than 100 bucks.

Any other bromine pool operators out there? Would like to hear your firsthand pros/cons.

We are having our liner replaced this spring and now would be the time to switch if we want to.

Squid

Squid:

Have you ever had any algae issues?

MC

No never had any algea issues.

The only negative that I see to it is the cost of bromine is higher than chlorine.

But using bleach, I consume one bucket of tabs a year for about 130 bucks.

Also with the bromine setup it is easier to measure. pH, Alk and brmn. Do not have to check any other levels.

Squid

Quote:

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Originally Posted by swreeder

No never had any algea issues.

The only negative that I see to it is the cost of bromine is higher than chlorine.

But using bleach, I consume one bucket of tabs a year for about 130 bucks.

Also with the bromine setup it is easier to measure. pH, Alk and brmn. Do not have to check any other levels.

Squid

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I have toyed with the idea of bromine via the two step method (the tabs have something (dimethlyhydantoin) that will build up in your pool and act as a inhibitor to the bromine). My pool is heavily shaded and I use very little CYA for my chlorine usage anyway. FYI, chlorine (w/o CYA) has a UV degradation rate faster than bromine.

The main reason I am looking at it is that my pool pH is constantly moving to 8. The bromine is much more effective at this higher pH than chlorine (83% killing efficiency for bromine at this level and only 22% for chlorine).

I would still use bleach as the bromine activator though as Waterbear has written that it is much better than non-chlorine shock for this purpose. What are you using as your activator (shock)?

I was using bleach for my bromine activator and it worked well.

However, I just was able to buy 100lbs of super sock it powder shock, which is nothing more than powdered bleach.

I got it for less than the cost of regular bleach and will use it till gone then go back to standard bleach.

The biggest drawback to bromine, besides the higher cost, is that it cannot be stabilized against UV light so if your pool gets a lot of sun it can be diffucult to maintain proper sanitizer levels compared to chlorine. Also, bromine is a known sensitizer and many more people exhibit allergic reactions to it than to chlorine.