What does ammonia do to a pool?

[cygnusecks]

I had a spray bottle filled with ammonia that I wanted to use instead for spraying bleach. In a moment of stupidity, I briefly considered dumping the ammonia in the pool to get "rid" of it. I ended up not doing it but was wondering what is the effect of ammonia on a pool maintained with B, B, & B.

[waterbear]

It would form chloramines.

[chem geek]

It would form chloramines.

which, if there wasn't too much ammonia overwhelming the chlorine, would continue to combine with chlorine to reach breakpoint and produce nitrogen gas. Either that, or the chloramines would sit around until sunlight hit them at which point they might breakdown, again producing nitrogen gas. Until all of this happened, your test kit would show an increased Combined Chlorine (CC) level (actually, your test kit would show a Total Chlorine level greater than the Free Chlorine level, the difference being Combined Chlorine). If this CC persisted, you'd have to seriously shock the pool to get rid of it.

Now, aren't you glad you didn't dump the ammonia into the pool?

Richard

[Simmons99]

My answer would be - "pretty much the same as peeing in it ... so... not good"

[waterbear]

I came across an 'old time pool guy' recipe for reaching breakpoint. Not recommending you try this it and Richard (chem geek) or Ben might want to comment on this.
(Ben, feel free to move this to china shop if it really should be there!)
For each 20000 gallons add 1 gallon of anhydrous ammonia and 8 gallons of 12.5% liquid chloine (this will raise the FC 50 ppm!) with pump off for 24 hours. Turn pump back on and let chorine levels drop to normal.

Seems like overkill to me!

[chem geek]

I'm moving this to a new thread in The China Shop called Breakpoint Chlorination. Follow me there...

[cygnusecks]

My answer would be - "pretty much the same as peeing in it ... so... not good"

Well, how much damage can one "#1" release really do to a, say, 15000 gal pool. I mean with 5-6ppm of cl, 30ppm of CYA, and one bladder full of pee, I bet it wouldn't even register on the CC scale, right? How much pee would it take to be detectable (.5ppm of CC or more) in 20000 gal with 5-6ppm of Cl and 30ppm of CYA? I'm guessing *several* bladder-fulls.

[Simmons99]

Don't know - all I know is that is what usually causes "cloudy water" after a kids pool party - which requires a shock to get rid of.