BioLab's BioGuard line of chemicals is a master work of 'up-selling' ordinary chemicals as something special.

- Balance Pak 100 *is* baking soda.
They usually package the coarser industrial grade and call it "sodium hydrogen carbonate", but that's a synonym for sodium bicarbonate, which is the chemical name for baking soda. Ironically, the cheaper grocery store stuff is higher purity!

- Balance Pak 200 is sodium carbonate. The old trade names are "soda ash" or "washing soda". Arm and Hammer brand of washing soda is sold by Walmart for 1/3 the price of the BioGuard product.

- Balance Pak 300 is calcium chloride dihydrate. It's sometimes sold as deicing salt, but with additives, so don't use that form of it. It's NOT needed on vinyl or fiberglass pools, contrary to what the BioGuard "Alex" program prescribes.

- Slow 'n' Go is sodium bisulate, which is the partially neutralized form of sulfuric acid. But, sulfates are bad for concrete. Muriatic acid is cheaper and better for your pool, though it's a bit harder to handle safely. Read http://pool9.net/muriatic/

- Shock - like most pool chemical makers, BioGuard has a bunch of products that are called shock. The principal ingredients are one of these: trichlor powder, dichlor granules, calcium hypochlorite granules, lithium hypochlorite granules or potassium monopersulfate. Until you *know* what you need, bleach is a safer and often cheaper option.

- Chlorine pucks are usually trichlor, but more rarely, calcium hypochlorite. By the way, these two chemicals are not at ALL compatible with each other, at least until they are fully dissolved in the pool.

-Algicide (this seems to only be when opening/closing the pool) - There are a variety of algaecides, though the only one we ever recommend is polyquat (http://pool9.net/polyquat/). But the STRONGEST algaecide, by far, is chlorine.