No chlorine reading

[Shandyjo]

A week ago I put up my first pool, it's around 15,343 gal Intex pool. I first started using test strips but have read on this forum that they are inaccurate. I am now using an hth 2 way test kit for now until I purchase the Taylor k-2006. I shocked my pool already once after we had several swimmers within 2 days. We have been using brominating tablets for now in two different small dispensers. I still have not gotten any chlorine reading when testing the pool. I am planning on purchasing the PoolBrand bagged dichlor from Sams Club but am wondering what I can do until then. My ph is reading between 7.2-7.4. Do I continue using the tablets that I already have or take them out and use the bleach and borax recommendations that I have read in other threads? I purchased plenty of Baking soda as well.

[Watermom]

Are you sure they are brominating tablets and not trichlor?

Welcome to the Pool Forum!

[Shandyjo]

No I am sure they are brominating tablets. My boyfriend bought them without consulting me so we have tried using them. My readings today are 0 chlorine again and ph, alkalinity, and stabilizer are all even lower. We brushed the entire pool and are vaccuming it, then going to add bleach but am wondering how much I should use. I seen that you want to add 3.5 cups for every 1 ppm you need to raise but with what is going on now I am wondering if I need to raise it beyond what the tests say you actually need.

[Watermom]

Since you are using brominating tablets, I'm going to ask Ben (PoolDoc) to pop into this thread.

[Shandyjo]

We brushed and vacuumed the pool and added 1 gal of bleach and ended up adding another one. We finally got a chlorine reading of 5 ppm a ph of 8.2 and an alkalinity of 80. I still need to get the stabilizer level up because it's only reading around 0. Not sure if I should keep adding in the brominating tablets and more bleach every night or not. Am planning on getting a stabilizer soon also.

[PoolDoc]

Unless you take the bromine tablets out QUICKLY, there's no point in adding stabilizer!

Used up bromine turns into bromide. But, chlorine regenerates bromide into bromine, just like an SWCG (salt system) regenerates chloride into chlorine. That's all fine, except for one thing: bromine can't be stabilized!

So:

1. Remove the bromine tablets ASAP!
2. Try to figure out how many pounds you have used.
3. Add 1 gallon of PLAIN 6% bleach (4 ppm chlorine in your pool) in the AM, and then start adding 2 gallons each PM.
4. Test with an OTO kit; if the level the following PM is medium yellow, skip that evening's dose.

If you've used more than a pound of bromine tabs, you may need to consider draining and refilling.

Alternatively, you can use the bleach for a week or two, as described above. High chlorine + sunlight can convert a small portion of the bromide into bromate instead of bromine. Bromate is stable and is not regenerated. Once you have converted all of the bromide to bromate, you'll be able to stabilize your pool.

This is not too hard with some of the straight bromide additives. However bromine tablets are bromo-chloro-dimethylhydantoin, and the DMH (dimethyl hydantoin) apparently interferes with the conversion of bromide to bromate. This problem is what led to the "Once a bromine pool, always a bromine pool" page on PoolSolutions.

So, here are your options:

1. You can simply forget about the bromine, and proceed to operate as if it was a straight chlorine pool. You may, or may not, find that you can not stabilize your chlorine, with the result that you lose all the chlorine in the pool on every sunny day.

2. You can do the bleach as above, and see if you can convert bromide to bromate. If you succeed, you'll be able to operate a normal chlorine pool.

3. You can drain and refill.

4. You can operate a bromine pool -- bromine can not be stabilized, but it's not broken down by sunlight quite as fast as chlorine is.

Good luck!