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Changing Pool Chemicals


londoneye
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We finally have our pool up and running.    Its been a little traumatic and very frustrating, but ultimately we got there, with a little (very good as it happens) assistance from the WaterAir technical team.

Currently I am using the Waterair EasyPool2 system because basically we got two months supply with the pool.   So far so good, water is lovely, clean and clear, pH bang in the range where it should be.     Downside, of course, is that it is a tad expensive.    I may decide to carry on using it, but would like to explore other options.    The issue I have is that the EasyPool is (ha ha, as the name suggests!) incredibly easy to use, so for me right now its just ideal;  however, because its so easy I am not actually learning a lot about pool chemicals and what I need.   So if I were to change to another system would I just need:

Chlorine tablets

pH plus and minus (which I have not got yet as I haven't had to use)

Shock (chock, whatever its called, you know what I mean)

or am I missing something else I should have.    What are flocculents, and do I need those also?   I have a sand filter if that makes a difference?

Any advice, or recommendations would be much appreciated.

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Although there are lots of cheaper options about I started with Easy Pool and switched to Easy Pool2 when it was introduced, purely for the convenience - particularly for the house sitters when we are on holiday. 
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i was on easy pool, then when re ordering they sent me easy pool2. more expensive, i'll be switching back to easy pool next yr. what i like about easy pool is it really is idiot proof.

I'm hoping to go for a fully automatic system in the future.

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Please take care! Easy Pool (if still available), Easy Pool 2 and Easy Quattro contain stabiliser. The buffer solution of Easy Pool 2 seems to contain copper (it’s a nice cupric blue), while Easy Quattro seems to contain copper chloride particles. Copper is toxic to algae, but also to plants and humans, depending on the accumulated dose. If you have a Waterair liner then their recommendation is to limit the stabiliser content to 25 ppm. Excess levels of stabiliser will damage the liner. The only way to reduce stabiliser content is by dilution, which entails removing water from the pool.

Once you have stabiliser in the pool at 25 ppm you could follow Poolguy’s recommendation and use eau de Javel which is a solution of sodium hypochlorite in sodium hydroxide (no stabiliser). This has the advantage of being cheap and fairly easy to automate, depending on your pool configuration. The disadvantage is that it has a fairly high pH (about 13) so you will use more pH minus or acid. Also, because of the sodium content, it is not so plant friendly in case you recover pool water. The alternative is to use calcium hypochlorite (e.g. Waterair Easy Clear C). This is in granules, which need to be dissolved in warm water before being added to the pool, so is not an automated process.

However, it is also possible to buy calcium hypochlorite in compressed stick form, which you put in the skimmer and allow to dissolve by erosion. Each stick, about 300 g, seems to last about 6 days at a water temperature of 28˚C. The pH of calcium hypochlorite is about 9 so you will use less acid than with eau de Javel, and calcium is more plant friendly. You will also need calcium hypochlorite granules for adjustments

I would suggest that you buy a Cool Pooltester which, with the appropriate tablets, will allow you to measure pH, chlorine and stabiliser with accuracy and repeatability. It might seem an expensive investment, but you would be able to control most of the pool chemistry and probably use less chemicals.

Using calcium hypochlorite, I am not sure about an upper calcium limit, since I think that at high concentrations it might start to precipitate out and scale up parts of the pool. I am still investigating a possible limit. Maybe Poolguy can offer some advice?  JB

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Auxadrets

Thanks for your excellent and informative post. Certainly I am not familiar with the waterair product - Easypool 2 but if it contains Copper oxides as you say, then I would council pool owners to use a great deal of caution using this product especially for long periods unless a comprehensive testing regime is in place to track the build up of copper. Its not only very hard to control the water quality but also, as you say highly toxic to humans in high concentrations. It can be evidenced by black for brown spots appearing on the liner that do not appear to respond to choc treatment or scrubbing.The only way to remove it is to use sequestering agents or to renew the water. But caution again - for it is against the law to evecuate that contaminated water into the environment.

Stabilizer (cyanuric acid) is safe for humans up to a limit of about 50ppm which is the health department recommendation, above that and you are running into difficulties again and as has been reported above the only remedy is to dilute by renewing water in the pool. But some stabilizer is essential to fix the chlorine in the water (as the name suggests), against UV light burning off. All of these levels are easily controlable by an accurate tester such as the Cool Pool tester or the Scuba Plus.

On the use of Calcium hyprochloite, as I understand it, there is no real effective stabilzer, and so like Bromine is most suitable for indoor pool where UV is less of a problem. In addition I would be cautous about using it in areas of hard water as the water is already loaded with Calcuim and will therefore be hard to keep free for scale, especilly if the pool owner employs a heat pump or a salt eletrolyzer. These devices are particularly prone to problems as a result of the build up of scale. For the upper limit I understand that 10ppm is about the maximum acceptable but I fear that might be hard to maintain in an out door pool. That being said, it would therefore not be a problem but in fact a benefit in areas with particulaly soft water.

 

Andrew

 

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Now I am feeling nervous after the last two posts - don't misunderstand me, they were very informative, but my forehead started pulsating like Stressed Eric (remember him?) after reading both.

I suppose what I am looking for is an easy life, if there is such a thing with a swimming pool, not because I am lazy but because I don't want to mess up.   So, if I were to change from Waterair cleaning system, would there be any  issues in changing to some other commercial brand, or would the copper oxides in Easypool 2 preclude the use of any other commercial brands.    Waterair do say in the literature that it is necessary to check the levels of copper in the water periodically (once a month I think, without checking) and if the levels go above a certain limit, as you say, to drain some of the water from the pool and re-fill.   And are there other commercial brands which would not create the same issue with copper build up ?

In a couple of years I am sure I can move to a more technically demanding system (you wouldn't believe but I did actually do three years of chemistry as part of my course at Uni, but it was a long time ago !), but right now I just don't feel confident about the whole chemical thing.   In my mind, I see Jaws in the water, ready to leap up and bite me, ruin my liner, turn my pool a lurid green, and kill anyone who goes in it.     

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Londoneye

Do not despair!!

There are safer and simplier ways to sanitise your pool. What you ask...?

Well I've been talking about it for ages, Direct injection with Liquid Chlorine (sodium hypochloride(javel)) and pH moins (sulphiric acid)- these are the most basic, least toxic and by far the cheapest water treatment chemicals to be found on the market today. There is nothing really for you to do as the computer does it for you, and might I say much better, as it is continually test to 1 part per billion (very very small) and the control is very accurate.

Those who have it, talk of release from toil and confidence, and a result that cannot be matched by other systems. However there are some little things to remember, and I urge caution to all, avoid systems which use peristaltic pumps to inject the liquids as they are unsafe in my opinion. For if one of the feed tubes were to come off (not uncommon) with these systems then the pump will distribute javel or acid or both around the pump room with very expensive consequences. I prefer and recommend to anyone who is considering this option that systems which employ vacuum to inject the liquids be prefered as this is perfectly safe from the above problem.

If you have been using treatments like the Copper oxide in the Waterair offer, then it is imperative to a comprehensive test of the water to determine the saturation levels of these and other counpounds in order to decide what to do about returing to a clean water system. The same applies to hydrogen peroxide, ozone, UV, bromine or salt. In many cases (but by no means all) a complete change of water is required .

If you need some specific help on this then PM me.

Andrew

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got me worried to, but on the waterair products it does say they are compatable with all other products exept a few, can't remember what, i'll have to look on the box.

i will say my pool is always crystal clear, has never been green, even when i hadn't ran it for months due to being hit by lightining and the pump not working. when poolguy delivered the zelbrite for my filter he checked the levels of whatever needed checking and all was ok.

 

i will definatly be going for an automated system possibly next yr. 

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I shall ponder on your post Poolguy and look at the costs etc involved.   Many thanks for your response, as I know from reading other posts that you really do know what you are talking about.   It's just getting the courage to change to another system !   What is a rough cost for the direct injection system you refer to please?

In the meantime, have other WaterAir chemical users found a problem with the build up of chemicals and had to regularly empty water from pool?   I confess that I haven't yet tested  the cyanuric acid levels, as we haven't yet had the pool operational for a month.   I would have thought that we may not get too much build up as we of course do (or will) be regularly emptying some of the water when we back-wash, or am I deluding myself?

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never found a problem with any build up of chemicals. had our pool 4yrs now using waterair products.

the only thing i didn't like was the filtration system that came with it, cartridge needed cleaning twice a week. poolguy set me up with the mother of all filtration systems and needs backwashing every 3 - 4 weeks, great setup.

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Thanks Mikey - I need a little breathing space to think things through (and get out of 'pool panic' syndrome!).

So will continue with waterair products whilst i research best alternative.   Now just need to find kit to test the cyanuric acid to put my mind at rest, then I can start reading ref automatic injectors etc.

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Thanks Mickey for your kind words once again, glad that the 'monster' is doing it job well.

Londoneye

If you PM me your details I'll give you all the data you need on Water testing using Scuba + reactive photometer and Auto Dosing systems.

Andrew

 

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[quote user="londoneye"]

In the meantime, have other WaterAir chemical users found a problem with the build up of chemicals and had to regularly empty water from pool?   I confess that I haven't yet tested  the cyanuric acid levels, as we haven't yet had the pool operational for a month.   I would have thought that we may not get too much build up as we of course do (or will) be regularly emptying some of the water when we back-wash, or am I deluding myself?

[/quote]

I have been using the Waterair chemicals for 4 years now with no adverse effects to either pool or users. I do replace 1/3 of the water each season to dilute the cyanuric acid build up.Whilst appreciating all Poolguy's advice surely if there was a major problem with Waterair products it would have come to light by now. They are after all quite a large international company. 

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So, this thread is producing some interesting comments!

I think the Waterair chemicals are fine, provided that you control the levels as recommended. As I said before, the copper problem is an accumulated dose problem, and there is plenty of information about it on the Internet (copper toxicity). The cyanuric acid effect on the liner is also long-term, depending  on concentration, temperature and exposure time.

Waterair recommends removing one third of the pool water on an annual basis, but how do you legally dispose of this water? You still won’t know the actual concentrations of chemicals.

When I first operated our pool (50 m3) the cyanuric acid concentration rose from zero to 75 ppm in 4 months, using Easypool 1 and 2  without backwash. This is what prompted me to change to the Poolguy regime of eau de Javel and sulphuric acid, while keeping the stabiliser concentration at 25 ppm.

This season I am using calcium hypochlorite and sulphuric acid, with the cyanuric acid at 25 ppm. I am experimenting with this combination because I think there is less of a problem with water disposal.

So, to answer the original londoneye question, it is possible to change from Waterair chemicals, but be careful, as supermarket/brico hypochlorite brands also contain stabiliser, and there are various other chemical regimes which, as Poolguy indicates, are not compatible with the Waterair system.

 

Poolguy – calcium hypochlorite is stabilised by cyanuric acid, so it can be used in an outdoor pool.

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Interesting point Jonzjob because its is meant to be replaced every two weeks, but I checked today, and after only 10 days there was absolutely no sign left of anything in the skimmer basket.   I have added more, as if it were the normal 'dosing day' but this makes it work out even more expensive.

I have a couple of other questions now actually, so I will try to tag on here and see if anyone can help.

1.    Our sand filter pressure never seems to rise.   We have back-washed nonetheless after two weeks, but does this mean we are likely to have a problem with the sand filter?

2.   Our skimmer doesn't 'float on the surface of the water' as the literature suggests it should.   It seems to float about a centimetre below the water.   Is this right, ie am I being too literal in my interpretation of 'float on top of water' or have we perhaps put it in wrong (surely not from such a competent-sounding person I hear you all exlaim !!!)?

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If I remember correctly Easy Pool 2 comes as a 2-box pack. Each box contains 8 sachets and a container of buffer solution, For a 50 m3 pool the dose is 2 sachets. In our pool (50 m3, 30 deg C, pump running for 16 hours/day) each dose lasted approx. 10-11 days. So the total pack would have lasted for about 3 months under the above conditions. I only used one box because around that time I also ran into pH problems. The lack of proper analysis prompted me to buy a Cool Pooltester with which I found that the cyanuric acid content was 75 ppm. So I then changed to the Poolguy regime after draining water to dilute the cyanuric acid.

 Londoneye – your usage seems to be about the same as mine. Please check your pH regularly, every couple of days, during the start-up period. Check your stabiliser content every month. If I assume a 50 m3 pool then I would estimate your stabiliser level might exceed 50 ppm after 3 months, depending on the amount of dilution due to back-washing.

 The water flowing over our skimmer flap is also about 1 cm deep.

JB

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Blimey Aux, in 3 months  would recon to use about 40 litres of javel and 4 litres of 37% sulphuric acid and the pump runs 2 2hour sets, 8 till 10 in the morning and 2 till 4 in the afternoon. It also goes on when we are in the pool so probably a max of 6 hours a day. Not every day though.

The javel is 12€ for 20 litres and the acid is about 2€ for a litre bottle from the bricos. Each to their own I suppose?

We also have an auto chlor/PH system so it's as easy as filling  the 20 litre container with 50/50 water javel about every 3 weeks and a 10/1 water acid mix about the same time. If I need to shock the pool, as I did after a particular recent storm sent it green, then I just up the chlor setting on the controller, brush the pool and let the pump run.

If you are using javel or acid where you have to dilute them always put the water in first and then the chemical, carefully. I use one of the syphon tubes that the French use to fill their parafin heaters in the winter. A red barrel thingy on the top, a stiff tube that goes into the javel and a flexie tube that goes into the pool container. I don't even see the javel in the open, so no problems. I also always have a bucket of water by me when I am doing the chemicals, just in case. It also allows me to take the syphon out of the containers and straight into the water, so no spills!!! It then gets washed thoroughly. Safety is always my main priority...

Never ever mix javel and acid it is likely to kill you!!!

Edit :- Blimey, changing the size of the text don't arf muck about with the following stuff dunit [8-)]!

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