Baquacil to Chlorine Conversion Procedure

[Watermom]

Keep hammering it with bleach! You're on the right track!

[Thissenw]

Day 3. Total bleach so far = 27.5 gals 6%. Added 76 oz borax this morning to raise the pH. Headed outside to vac and backwash. Pump pressure shows slight rise. Pool is beginning to clear. I'm encouraged!!!

Current eadings:
11.5 ppm FC
2.5 ppm CC
7.0 pH

[Watermom]

Good progress! Just think, it a few days you'll have a beatifully clear pool. Have you been taking pictures along the way to document your conversion?

[Thissenw]

Day 4: Pool is crystal clear. Toal bleach so far = 33.1 gals 6%. Pump pressure unchanged. I think I'll call it done, and replace the sand today.

Chlorine disappears quickly due to low CYA. Leslie's recommends their Instant Conditioner, instead of cyanuric acid. It looks like the big advantage is it disolves quickly. Any comments on this product?

Current readings:
2.5 ppm FC
1.5 ppm CC
7.2 pH
0 ppm CYA

Thanks for all your help!!!

[Watermom]

Post the ingredients on the Instant Conditioner. Don't add it or cya yet.

Also, if you still have a CC reading of 1.5ppm, I wouldn't call it done just yet. Continue for a bit longer until you have a CC reading no higher than 0.5 and until you can go overnight from sundown to sunup without losing more than 1ppm of FC.

[Thissenw]

Thanks for the tip. Leslie's Instant Conditioner is 35% monosodium cyanurate monohydrate.

[chem geek]

The product offered by Leslie's is Natural Chemistry Instant Conditioner (formerly known as Instant Pool Water Conditioner) and is a slurry of sodium cyanurate. A while ago, I had communication with the inventor of that product. It is a faster dissolving form of cyanuric acid, technically a salt of cyanuric acid. It will work as described, but it is about twice as expensive as using Cyanuric Acid itself. So it's a price/convenience trade-off.

Most people are willing to use pure CYA and just wait for it to dissolve which can be forced to happen faster by putting it in a sock and hanging it over a return flow. Personally, I use an old T-shirt in the skimmer and add it there (I also have floor drains and an alternate skimmer port so there is no risk for clogging causing problems).

Another way of increasing CYA quickly that is more economical is to use Dichlor as a source of chlorine since for every 10 ppm Free Chlorine (FC) added by Dichlor, it also increases Cyanuric Acid (CYA) by 9 ppm. Of course, this still takes time to get the CYA to increase by a substantial amount unless one's chlorine usage is high. Other people just start out using Trichlor tabs/pucks for a time. So there are options.

Richard

[Thissenw]

I'm not clear on the differences between Dichlor and Trichlor. In reading the Wikipedia definitions, it looks like Trichlor is a good option to chlorinate a pool that has just been converted from Baquacil. Once the CYA reaches about 40 ppm, revert to bleach. Then, switch between Trichlor and bleach to maintain CYA values. Does this make sense?

[Watermom]

Dichlor is typically a powdered form of stabilized chlorine (which means it has CYA in it) and Trichlor is in puck form.

As far as switching between Trichlor and bleach ----- once you get your cya level where you want it, it is pretty stable and you shouldn't need to use any form of stabilized chlorine any more. If you typically take a vacation during the summer and are away from home for awhile with nobody to add bleach for you, some people like to give themselves a little wiggle room when initially bringing the cya level up. In otherwords, keep it a little on the low side (maybe 30-35ish) so that when you use pucks while you are away on vacation, your cya level doesn't get too high. Just something to think about. I like to keep my cya around 40-45. When I'm away on vacation, I have somebody who will throw some bleach in every couple of days for me, though.

[Thissenw]

Day 5: Pool is still crystal clear. Total bleach so far = 38.7 gals 6%. Pump pressure holding steady since yesterday's backwash.

FC dropped 1.5 ppm, and CC increased .5 ppm overnight. Should I contine to add bleach in large quantities, or reduce to more normal levels? What is the probability the pool may never reach the recommended level (.5 ppm CC, and less than 1 ppm FC loss overnight)?

Here are the overnight readings:

Sun 6:30pm
3.5 ppm FC
1.0 ppm CC
7.2 pH

Mon 6:00am
2.0 ppm FC
1.5 ppm CC
7.2 pH