3" tabs in floater or skimmer?????

[chem geek]

My own personal experience is that neither the skimmer nor the floater work well unless you follow certain precautions. Here's what happened to me:

1) Floating feeder. It is absolutely true that the floating feeder will have the Trichlor tablets dissolve MUCH more slowly, even when "dialed up" to maximum, at least with the feeder I used. In fact, it is likely to be TOO slow in many cases. As for tethering, do not do that near any metal. I tethered my floating feeder onto a stainless steel bar (that's just under the water) and the feeder parked itself close to the bar. When the pump turned off, the Trichlor released chlorine and acid (remember that Trichlor is highly acidic) and ended up rusting the two (steel?) mounts closest to where the feeder parked itself. Other mounts did not rust so I know the cause was the Trichlor in the feeder.

2) Skimmer. There is no question that the tablets dissolve somewhat quickly in the skimmer, especially compared to the floating feeder. However, here again when the pump turns off the buildup of chlorine and acid corroded my thermometer which was in the same basket as the Trichlor pucks. When the pump turned on, who knows what this high chlorine/acid combination did to my equipment, though clearly the "blast" would be very, very brief so may not have been a problem (I just don't know -- I suppose I'll find out when I replace my heater which I plan on doing to upgrade to a more efficient type).

The above problems plus some others are what got me started investigating pool water chemistry. So I suppose in some sense they were a good thing.

So I would say there are two rules when using Trichlor in the pool, rather than in an inline feeder. First, keep the pump running if you use it in the skimmer. Second, keep any floating feeder away from any metal in the pool and probably away from the sides just to be safe (if the pump is always running and the feeder is put near a good water flow then that is probably OK). I would think that some sort of contraption that would have the Trichlor in a mesh near a return flow (but out into the pool a bit) would work well to inject it faster and with less risk, but the comment on running into it while swimming would apply (perhaps it could be moved to the skimmer when using the pool).

Richard