New BBB user with FG pool

[gorji]

Thank you;
This whole thing is a great experience for me. It does raise one question: Why not just use bleach from the beginning?

[Watermom]

Why not just use bleach from the beginning?

You can! Many of us do. But, if you use only bleach from the beginning, you will have to add your CYA separately. People who use stabilized forms of chlorine (trichlor and dichlor) that have the CYA in them have to monitor their CYA levels periodically throughout the summer to make sure they don't get too high. The people who just use bleach from the get go and thus have to add the CYA separately, pretty much can forget about CYA testing for the summer after that first week.

[PoolDoc]

To answer a couple of things more specifically:

1. Chlorine, cyanuric acid and around 12 species of chlorinated cyanurates remain in equilibria with each other. For most interactions, the reaction kinetics are VERY fast.

2. Chlorine is not volatile in a chemical or physical sense; only figuratively. Rather chlorine undergoes rapid hydrolysis in water, forming HOCl <=> -OCl, with both species subject to rapid photolysis when exposed to solar UV. Chlorinated cyanurate species are NOT subject to this photolysis, but remain in equilibria with those species. HOCl is the primary actor in most sanitation and oxidation; -OCl is not as active. But even though the presence of CYA greatly lowers the HOCl present, the chlorinated cyanurates form a LARGE reservoir of instantly available HOCl, so that stabilized chlorine appears more active in practice than the absolute level of HOCl present would suggest.

-- membership upgraded.

[gorji]

I appreciate your comment and those above.
I turned off my Chlorinator yesterday and added the appropriate amount of Clorox I got from BJs. BBB method. I find this forum great and I am also reading the Taylor Guide that came with my kit which IMO is also feature and fact rich.

[Watermom]

We don't really care for that book in the Taylor kit. Don't go by their tables and chemistry guides.