How to properly chlorinate small 12'x30" intex pool? And few other questions.

[aylad]

Thanks for filling out the chart. The 6-way kit you bought only has enough reagents in it to test CYA 2-3 times. We know there's none in your tap water, so don't waste the reagent testing that. We DO, however, need to know the CYA level in your pool water. And.....if you tell us the ingredients in the granules you already have, you might be able to use them, too. In the meantime, stay with the bleach. A little bit of bleach can do miracles in a pool!

Janet

Edit: Need to know CYA in pool, not in fill water!

[Azmp1]

Thanks Janet! Will post the info tonight.

[Azmp1]

Hi Folks,

Just test both the pool water and the tap water with the HTH6 kit here are the results:

Pool water:
Total chlorine/bromine - came out darker then the top window of 5ppm cl/10ppm br). The test strip says i'm somwhere in between of 5 and 10. My kids went in today and their eyes were burning, and the water stinks of chlorine.
Total pH - also came up that looked to be higher then the top window of 8.2.
Total alkalinity - 90ppm
Total hardness - 80ppm
CYA - Solution never turned cloudy. I emptied all 14ml into the view tube and could still see the dot at the bottom...

Tap water:
Total chlorine/bromine - looks to be at 0.5ppm chlorine, 1ppm bromine
Total pH - looked high again close to 8.2 (Is that normal to be high for tap water?)
Total alkalinity - 50ppm
Total hardness - 90ppm

Here are all the chemicals i have on-hand:

Clorinating ganuals by AquaChem:
trichloro-s-triazinetrione - 71.8%
boron sodium oxide - 8.0%
other ingridiant - enhancer/sunlight protector - 20.2%
(available chlorine 65%)

pH Up by Aquachem
Sodium Carbonate - 100%

Algeacide PLUS by Aquachem
copper metallic - 3.3% (active ingredient)
other ingredient - 96.7%

While at Walmart i also picked up a container of HTH shock 'n Swim

That's all

Thanks in advance!

[Watermom]

You need to lower the pH with some muriatic acid. Please read the guide in my signature above about using muriatic acid safely.

If your CYA test never turned cloudy, then you have less than 30ppm of CYA in there. Don't worry about that for now. Let's get the pool cleared up first. Then, you'll want to use some dichlor for a little while to bring your CYA level up to around 50 or else add some CYA separately to get to the level and just chlorinate with bleach.

Your TA and CH are fine.

Take the HTH Shock and Swim back. Also, do not use the algaecide. You do NOT want copper in your pool. Contrary to popular belief, it is not chlorine that stains things and turns blonde hair green, it is copper. Your pH is too high already so do not add the pH Up.

Regarding the chlorinating granules, let me run that past Ben. I'm not sure about the boron sodium oxide in them. Hold off using it for now and just use bleach.

I hope you are ordering a Taylor K-2006 kit. With that kit, you are not limited to being able to only test chlorine levels up to 5. Keep adding bleach tomorrow. Try to keep the chlorine in the dark yellow range on your test block. Tomorrow evening, after the sun is off the pool, test the chlorine level. Add enough bleach to get the chlorine level back up to around 12ppm. Wait an hour or two and then test the chlorine level again. Then, the following morning within two hours of sunrise, test the chlorine again. Note how much the chlorine level has dropped, and report it here.

Until you get the K-2006, you can use a dilution method to force your kit to read chlorine levels higher than 5ppm. It does lose accuracy with dilution, but it is better than nothing. Read about the method here: Testing Without a Good Kit

EDIT: You have a chlorine pool, not a bromine pool. Just ignore that side of the test block.

[PoolDoc]

Pool water:
Total chlorine/bromine - came out darker then the top window of 5ppm cl/10ppm br). The test strip says i'm somwhere in between of 5 and 10. My kids went in today and their eyes were burning, and the water stinks of chlorine.
Total pH - also came up that looked to be higher then the top window of 8.2.
Total alkalinity - 90ppm
Total hardness - 80ppm
CYA - Solution never turned cloudy. I emptied all 14ml into the view tube and could still see the dot at the bottom...

Read the muriatic acid page linked in my signature; then get some, and use it to lower your pH to ~ 7.4

Chlorinating granules by AquaChem:
trichloro-s-triazinetrione - 71.8%
boron sodium oxide - 8.0%
other ingredient - enhancer/sunlight protector - 20.2%
(available chlorine 65%)

OK to use right now; will raise your CYA. Has borax ("boron sodium oxide!), so it won't lower your pH as normal trichlor. Has added stabilizer, so watch your CYA levels.

pH Up by Aquachem
Sodium Carbonate - 100%

Soda ash. Take it back if you can.

Algeacide PLUS by Aquachem
copper metallic - 3.3% (active ingredient)
other ingredient - 96.7%

Use it as fall algaecide; might stain your pool a bit, but you probably won't notice.

While at Walmart i also picked up a container of HTH shock 'n Swim

Bad stuff -- take it back if you can. Non-chlorine ingredients can be VERY irritating in some cases. (There are a variety of shock 'n swim products; not sure which you have!)

[Azmp1]

Good morning folks, again thank you for the great replies. However, my apologies as looks like I've given you guys a bit of dis-info as far as pH levels. I've retested again this morning and in the normal daylight it does look to be be perfectly at the 7.8 level.
Chlorine looks to be at 5ppm or maybe just slightly above.
I did add another quart of bleach in this morning and left pool uncovered for the day. Hopefully chlorine levels will go down enough for my kids to use the pool in the evening. What should be good chlorine levels for them to use the pool and not burn their eyes and stink up everything with chlorine?

As far as the granulating chlorine that I have. How do I get it into the pool? If I just poor the power in it just settles at the bottom and discolors the liner... The box says I can't dilute it before applying either. Is there a method to this I can use?

And one more question. Should I shock the pool in the weekly basis? If so what do I use, since you said to not use hth shock 'n swim...?

Learning a lot here. Hopefully by the time I get a real pool in the spring I will know everything about this!

[PoolDoc]

I think all most of your questions are answered in this recipe:
http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthread.php?17055

But, I'll make some other remarks:

1. Until you get a good test kit, you are -- as it were -- driving with a blacked out windshield, and will only discover that you were going in the wrong direction, when you hear the crunching sound, and feel the impact. Nothing we can do here, can make up for the lack of adequate testing.

2. Chlorine does not cause allergic reactions (ever). Chlorine does not irritate people (usually), even at high levels. BUT, chlorinating inconsistently or intermittently results in the production of some very irritating chlorine compounds. The solution is not LESS chlorine; it's more CONSISTENT chlorination! However, you won't be able to do this, till you have a good test kit. (Notice a theme, here?)

3. The whole "must let chlorine go down to swim" is based on a series of historical accidents and institutional inertia, not on science or health. Dermatologists have for years -- and still do -- treat both adult and pediatric patients with "bleach baths", which involve bathing in 50 - 100 ppm of chlorine for 30 minutes or so. Relatively high levels of chlorine are NOT a problem for people; they may be more irritating to eyes, but I'm not even sure of that. But, they can be damaging to women's fashion swimwear, depending on the stabilizer level. (Of course, to know what the stabilizer level is, you have to have a good test kit!)

4. The major pool chemical companies -- Arch/HTH and Biolab/BioGuard/Chemtura -- have increasingly engaged in behavior I consider predatory, and are selling chlorine blends that I consider to be very undesirable. These blends include compounds that are essentially useless (magnesium sulfate) or not appropriate for general application (aluminum sulfate), or likely to cause problems (various copper and persulfate compounds). In particular, Chemtura -- who is in bankruptcy (www.chemturacommittee.info) -- seems to me to be acting in its own short-term financial interests, in ways that are directly contrary to pool owner's interests. Between them, these two companies control most of the brands available to homeowners, via both retail big boxes like Walmart, and via pool stores. As a result, pool owner's need to be extremely careful about what they purchase, and should avoid 'blended' chlorine products like the plague!

[Azmp1]

Ben, thank you for the reply. I've read the thread you mentioned, great info I will start using.

I just tested again, pH looks good, still at 7.8, but chlorine is just about all gone by now, I guess as expected.
The good news is that the slimeiness is also gone completely.

The only issue I still have as I asked above is I'm still not sure as to how to administer the chlorine granulars into the pool... Can you or someone else please recommend a method? Can I just fill the sock or something like that with it and hang it in the pool?

As for the good test kit, I totally hear your comments and completely agree, but I just can't justify spending close to $100 box on the kit where I only spent $80 on the pool itself haha. The hth-6 kit will just have to do for now. Now once, I get the pool put in next spring as I'm planning, no expense will be spared for sure!