How Long Do I Need To Wait Before Swimming After Adding Swimming Pool Chemicals?
How long do I need to wait before swimming after adding swimming pool chemicals after each of the following: 1. total alkalinity and pH increaser 2. calcium hardness increaser 3. swimming pool shock and chlorine 4. pristine products...pristine power, pristine blue, pristine clean, pristine clear? Thanks for your questions To increase your swimming pool total alkalinity level you can use sodium bicarbonate which is nothing more than baking soda. It's safe to swim immediately after adding but you'll want to see these links on how to raise your pool alkalinity. Pool Alkalinity Adjust Your Total Alkalinity To increase calcium hardness you'll need calcium chloride. Calcium Hardness You can swim 2 hours after adding, but if you can, allow for one full turn-over of the water. A turn-over is a full and complete filtration of all of the swimming pool water, normally about 10 hours. This is why you'll want to make any adjustments at night. A pool shock is a different story. It's not necessarily a time factor but when the pool chlorine level gets down to a safe level, about 1.5ppm - 3.5ppm. Swimming Pool Shock The swimming pool chlorine level normally takes a few days to reach a safe level. If you need it faster you can use a product called Thiosulphate which is a pool chlorine neutralizer. You can get this at any pool supply store. For other chemicals a 2 hour wait should be fine but for the best water quality, one complete turn-over. Hope this helps All the best with your pool Robert Comment Date: May 22, 2011 THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE ANSWER TO MY QUESTION. YOU WERE VERY VERY HELPFUL. Question: Black Stains That Won't Go Away Date: Jun 27, 2011 I have black stains on the bottom of my vinyl liner. They are mostly at the bottom of the deep end, but appear around the sides of the shallow end as well. They look like black clouds, really. I tried metal treatment (after $200, no help) and also superchlorinated with no luck. It doesn't appear to be algae (no black dots, no slimyness). I've even scrubbed it with a Mr Clean magic eraser with no luck. When we opened it this year, we didn't realize that the filter had holes in it, so we added a lot of shock to clear it up. Once we fixed the filter, it cleared up nicely but now we have the stains. Please help! Answer By: Robert Date: June 27, 2011 Thanks for the question First thing you need to do is determine whether the stain is mineral or organic. Brown Algae Won't Come Off Of A Vinyl Liner Vinyl Liner Has Dark Stains On Bottom The above posts will walk you through a series of steps to see if the stains are organic or metal. They will also give you the information you need to take care of both issues. If it is organic you'll need to do an Ascorbic Acid Treatment. This is powdered Vitamin C. Add 1 lb. of granular ascorbic acid per 10,000 gallons of pool water. Pool Liner Stained From Acidity Too High Black algae is pretty uncommon in vinyl pool liners. Not that it can't happen, but it happens more often with plaster pools than vinyl. You're situation is very common and the posts above have what you need. As is says above in the first section, it also could be a fungus growing under the liner. If it's that, you'll need to drain the water and remove the liner. Then you'll treat the ground with a fungicide and maybe have to get a new liner. Hopefully this won't be the case. Good luck and let me know how it turns out for you. Robert |
