Can my pool stay home alone for 10 days?

[chem geek]

This is one of the few times I might recommend a cheep prefilled chlorine floater from walmart.
Steve

Steve,

I had thought of the Tri-Chlor 3" tablet floaters, but my recollection was that even putting in a few tablets, they might not last 10 days. I usually went through around 1 every 5 days and with more in the feeder, they might somewhat slow down erosion, but probably not by that much.

So does the prefilled chlorine floater you are talking about last longer?

Of course, I just had the thought of dialing down the Tri-Chlor feeder to slow it down -- DUH! So putting in several tablets (3-4) and dialing it down just might do the trick. Thanks for bringing up the floater idea again. Now Amy's got some options that seem easier than the route I was taking her.

If your feeder is filled with Tri-Chlor, then it will be like my feeder and will be quite acidic so if this is the route she takes, she'll want to raise the pH ahead of time and probably increase the alkalinity as well (to at least 120 if not more) to help buffer the pH swing. Since she plans to cover the pool, outgassing of CO2 is not that much of an issue. Sounds like a plan!

Richard

[medvampire]

Here is the product I spoke of
http://www.aquachem.com/AboutFSet.shtm

Stabilized Floater

• Contains 4 lbs. of chlorinating tablets
• Contains a built-in stabilizer to protect from sunlight burn-off
• Convenient self-dispensing disposable floater
• Ideal for vacation application
• Flips on its side when empty

Steve

[chem geek]

Cool. It does look like it might be Tri-Chlor since that's about the only thing you can get that will be that slow releasing. So putting up the pH and alkalinity is in order, then throw that sucker into the pool, and have a great vacation! Sounds good to me.

By the way, some people have been concerned about operating their pools at higher pH because of the lower effectiveness of chlorine, but in the presence of CYA this effect is reduced significantly (due to a chlorine HOCl buffering effect from CYA). Yet another graph and chart I need to produce! So this is a good example where setting the pH higher to start would make sense so that you don't have a pool of acid when you return.

Richard

[amyinraleigh]

Awesome! Thanks Steve and Richard, this is great! I think it's a plan too - I'm not looking to come home to a perfect pool, just would like to TRY to not come home to a disaster that my Intex pump will take a month to fix!! So:

- Raise pH (do you have a target #?)
- Raise alk (do you have a target #?)
- Get the slow release floater Steve recommends (couldn't find it using the link, but I will google and search a bit later. Should I be able to find it locally? I have a floater....can I just buy the stuff to put in it, or does the prepackaged one contain something special?)
- cover
- How bout the pump? Will I be OK leaving it off? If you don't recommend it, I will follow Karen in Tn's advice and take the skimmer off/replace with the strainer , DUH , that option hadn't even crossed my mind. Thanks, Karen!!
- Anything else?

This is great, I will be worrying about my animals so much it will be awesome to not have to also worry about my blue vinyl bag of water.....

Thanks so much, Amy

[amyinraleigh]

Just reread the replies, and I see the floater Steve recommends is at Walmart.....I will go check it out. It's prefilled, you say? I bought an empty one there (before finding out about BBB ), can I just buy the stuff to go in it?

Thanks! Amy

[jereece]

Here's what I do.

Punch one ~1/8 inch hole in top and one or two in the bottom of a set of bleach bottles and string them out over my pool. I use one bleach bottle for every day I will be gone.

http://www.jreece.com/bleach1.jpg
http://www.jreece.com/bleach2.jpg

The density of bleach is 1.09 (slightly heavier than water) so it slowly leaches out of the bottles. My experience is that it takes 5-7 days to totally get out of the bottle with 1/8 inch holes. I also run my pool pump using a timer.

[poolmom06]

Here's what I do.

Punch one ~1/8 inch hole in top and one or two in the bottom of a set of bleach bottles and string them out over my pool. I use one bleach bottle for every day I will be gone.

http://www.jreece.com/bleach1.jpg
http://www.jreece.com/bleach2.jpg

The density of bleach is 1.09 (slightly heavier than water) so it slowly leaches out of the bottles. My experience is that it takes 5-7 days to totally get out of the bottle with 1/8 inch holes. I also run my pool pump using a timer.

Thank you for sharing this!I wish I had seen it a week ago!

[amyinraleigh]

Just out of curiosity, are your animals staying at a shelter or someone else's home? What kind of animals are they? I can't imagine what sort of pet you could leave for 10 days without needing fresh food or water.

OH MY GOODNESS! Most of my pets have never been alone for 10 HOURS! Here's what I wrote a couple posts back:

I have many pets that are going to be graciously well cared-for by my immediate neighbors, I don't want to dump the pool on them as well. That care and time is taken with my animals is much more important to me than overwhelming the caretakers with "a very complex and intricate" additional burden - which I myself don't even fully understand.

This is the problem, so many people are doing so much for us already I don't feel comfortable loading one more thing on anyone that isn't absolutely necessary....

Between the floater and stringing up bleach bottles though, I think it'll be covered. I'm leaning toward the floater (the bleach bottle string-up is a great idea tho, I'm just too new at this and still don't fully feel comfortable leaving 10 bottles of bleach in my pool, I've only gone through 3 bottles since filling my pool 10 days ago....) - my CYA is still only just at 20, so more probably won't hurt. Is there any way of telling just how much stabilizer is in a floater?

Thanks again!! Amy

[chem geek]

- Raise pH (do you have a target #?)
- Raise alk (do you have a target #?)

- How bout the pump? Will I be OK leaving it off?
This is great, I will be worrying about my animals so much it will be awesome to not have to also worry about my blue vinyl bag of water.....
Thanks so much, Amy

Answering the question of how much to raise the pH and alkalinity gets back to the chlorine demand of your pool, which we do not know. Let's assume that your pool will consume 0.5-1 ppm of chlorine per day (lower than normal due to the pool cover). You didn't say how large your pool was and that will determine how many pucks you would need.

My calculations show that the 0.5-1 ppm per day chlorine introduction by Trichlor and consumption (usage) by your pool would lower the pH by 0.3-0.6 (starting from 7.5) and would lower the alkalinity by 5-10 (starting from 100). Since the alkalinity helps to buffer the pH swing, I would suggest increasing it to 120. As for the pH, I would suggest increasing it to 7.7

Some might be concerned of the lower chlorine effectiveness at a pH of 7.7, but due to the CYA buffering effect on chlorine (HOCl specifically), you only lower your disinfecting chlorine amount by 10% by being at 7.7 instead of 7.4 pH and we want to avoid having you come back to a pool that is too far on the acidic side.

As for the pump, I would recommend keeping it on, even if that means you need to do some work to take the skimmer off and replace with the strainer.

Just out of curiosity, are your animals staying at a shelter or someone else's home? What kind of animals are they? I can't imagine what sort of pet you could leave for 10 days without needing fresh food or water.

Richard