The Right Way to Shock Your Pool

There are so many different kinds of shock on the market inlcuding

-Calcium Hypo ( the active ingredient )

-Lithium

-Non-Chlorine

-BaquaShock and More

These are the 4 basic ones out there. If you have a vinyl liner above ground pool or in ground pool and you are using chlorine then you are probably using calcium or lithium shock. The difference between the two is that calcium you have to pre-dissolve for liners and lithium you do not. Non-Chlorine shock you probably use if you are using bromine or some other sanitizer for your pool. And your using baquashock if you are using baquacil as your main sanitizer.

How To shock your Pool Using Calcium Hypo If you are using a vinyl liner pool then you must predissolve each bag of shock in its own bucket of water. This stops the shock from laying on your liner and bleaching it.

Note: Always Use Gloves

Take one 1lb bag of shock and pour it into a warm or cold 5 gallon bucket of water about

3/4 full.

Note: Always add shock to water not water to shock. Wear clothes you don't care about cause they might get bleached. Warm water dissolves shock faster than cold, its your choice.

Use a wooden stick and stir around the shock making sure it gets all dissolved or as much as your can. Pour the bucket of shock all around your pool or heave some in the middle. You may have some undissolved shock at the bottom of your bucket. In this case just dip your bucket in some pool water give it a swish around and pour it back into the pool to help dissolve some of that shock.

If you have a bigger pool or a problem and you need to add more bags of shock repeat this procedure for as many bags as need. DO NOT mix all the bags together in one bucket.

Tip: Always Shock At Dusk or Nighttime. This allows the shock to reach breakpoint oxidation. If it were during the day the sun would burn off

1ppm of shock every hour causing it only to reach breakpoint for an hour instead of 8-10 hours.

Note: most shocks require at least 8 hours with no one in the pool read the label before adding shock. Also some dealers will tell you to add shock directly to your skimmer. This is not a good idea especially if you have chlorine or an automatic chlorinator. Reason being is because calcium hypo and tri-chlor, which can be found in chlorine tablets, creates a harmful chlorine gas. To get to the point, your automatic chlorinator could explode. It's happened.

Shock should also be added every week to ensure a clean and green free pool.

How to shock a pool with lithium or non-chlorine shock This one is easy. Just sprinkle the bag of shock all around your pool as many times as needed. These two kinds of shock do not require a pre-dissolve and do not require them to be put in at night. But they aren't as effective at killing algae and are more expensive per bag than calcium.

How to Shock a Pool with Baquashock Again this one is easy too. Just pool the gallon bottle into your pool. You should do this once a month but more is required if your pool test shows otherwise.

Reply to
Your Local Pool Guy
Loading thread data ...

Does more include 240V AC?

Reply to
Joseph Meehan

It took me a second but I got it. Funny!

Reply to
Your Local Pool Guy

More WRONG information as usual.

Reply to
Steve Barker

All Steve Barker can do is criticize. That's his contribution to the group. He's good at it to. I say we make him a moderator. Can he handle it? Please Reply

Reply to
Your Local Pool Guy

Ah the beauty of Usenet. No control over the speaker OR the audience.

I've been adding the calcium shock to an above ground pool by just spreading it around the pool. It doesn't seem to be hurting the liner.

I think I've seen the recommendation to add the shock in the evening a couple of times. I'm hesitant to do that since my pump is on a timer. I don't want to add the stuff and just have it lie on the bottom all night.

Reply to
Dan Espen

This seems useless, it's always the same guys commenting on my post. Like they have nothing better to do during the morning hours. Anyway...

You are suppose to shock your pool every week or every other week, would it hurt to take the timer off that night you shock it. No, I'm sure it wouldn't and guys, these are recommendations. I have been advising people about their pools for over 12 years, of course some people disagree with what I say, its the nature of the business. But it's the same guys. The Same Guys.

Let me post my messages so that people who would like to use it are not subject to your useless comments. Please comment on something you know about. And not just from your own pools in your own backyards. I've been doing this a long time and have dealt with tons of people like yourselves. Get over it.

Reply to
Your Local Pool Guy

The SAME IDIOT SPAMMER. Over and over again.

CWM

Reply to
Charlie Morgan

Hot tub water question here- My TA is fine, I have a ozonator as well as one of those silver water treatments. My chlorine level is usually fine, even though my hot tub place says not to worry so much about that since I am using the other two sanitizers. But I'm baffled because the pH is consistently low and even after adding "pH increaser" repeatedly, it barely comes up to a decent level. Daily use. Advice appreciated :)

Reply to
Goomba38

Ok I'll give you a rundown Your ozonator is a tube that has a ultraviolet light in it. Once water passes through it, it kills bateria. Once it's out of the tube its back

again. So ozonators work but not very well

Silver sanitizers are great. they dispense silve particles in your water. Most bottled water companies use the same type of sanitation method. Infact ships in history use tubs with silver coins in them to kill baterica. It's proven to sanitize but not completely Lets say, God Forbid, You get ecoli in the water. yes the silver sanitizer will kill it but not instantly. That's why it is recommended to use some chlorine, to instantly kill bacteria like that or other harmful strands of bacteria. So you should worry about your chlorine level. and it should be at

0.5pmm or higher. Which is low, but it is a backup sanitizer.

TA is a pH buffer and you say its fine. What TA is suppose to do is balance the level of pH to keep it from moving all around. Now if you use a type of shock, most shocks have a very low pH and in a small body of water can bring it down dramatically. You should also be aware of the difference between the two types of chlorine readings. Total and Free. The free is the active chlorine and the total is the used chlorine. In most cases the total is

higher than the free but they should be the same number. if total is higher its a sign that it needs to be shocked with a non-chlorine shock. What that does is gases off that used chlorine. having those numbers too high or different from each other can cause your pH to drop. but in most cases will cause both your pH and TA to drop.

My suggestion is tricky but may do the job. Lower both your ph and TA by just adding pH decrease. Then once your TA has dropped add TA increaser. This should raise both levels. Once they are both stable you shouldn't have to worry about adding pH increase. pH increase in a spa is very rare to use since like I said TA Brings up both pH and TA and pH decrease brings down both TA and pH.

I know this can be confusing but try dropping both and raising it back up. Here is where your levels should be Total Chlorine: 0.5 - 1 ppm Free Chlorine: 0.5 - 1 ppm pH: 7.4 to 7.6 ppm TA: 100 to 150 ppm

They are the only things you should worry about. There is also a chemical called calcium hardness that can be increased but since you are supposed to drain your spa every 4 months its not that important.

That reminds me, of course, you could also drain your spa if it has been 4 months and start over, that usually solves most chemical problems.

Reply to
Your Local Pool Guy

... actually "shocking a pool" is more of a verb than a product. You do not need to buy "shock". "Shocking" a pool involves raising the free chlorine level to about 10 times (7.6 actually) the combined chlorine level.

Use whatever unstabilized chlorine form you have handy, just put more. Don't go out and buy "pool shock".

Breakpoint chlorination occurs instantly. This thing about burning off

1 ppm of "shock" every hour depends on the level of CYA present.

Shocking a pool is like rebooting a computer. Usually not needed but it doesn't hurt.

Reply to
giroup01

Remember Goomba38, I had mentioned in an email and a post that you should stick with only one pool company. This gentlemen with the post above me isn't wrong, it's just his way of taking care of a pool. Everybody in all different parts of the nation give different advice when in comes to pool chemistry. There are so many different types of chemicals out there. Where I live they sell shock, that is what it is called. There are no stores in my surrounding area that sell any type of unstabilized chlorine in large amounts. Every type of granular chlorine in my area of NJ is stabilized, its Tri-Chlor. So Shock is what they call it. The biggest manufacturer of swimming pools chemicals in the nation, Bioguard, calls their shock BURNOUT. It is simply a calcium hypo cut different to help dissolve faster in pools deeper than

4 foot.

Reguardless if shocking is a term or not, the true word for it is oxidation.

PS. Breakpoint oxidation occurs when chlorine reaches 10ppm over the normal reading of 3ppm. That equals 13ppm. And yes cya helps during the day. But just do it a night and save yourself the trouble, people are not usually in the pool at 9pm on a sunday night. It's an ideal time to shock it.

Reply to
Your Local Pool Guy

Yes, but you only need about five "products" for proper water balance, the rest is marketing. And there's only one chemistry.

Really? You can't get a bucket of cal hypo at your local Walmart or a few gallons of bleach at your grocery store?

Sorry, granulated stabilized chlorine is dichlor, trichlor are the pucks. And beware Biogard, the worst crap out there, their Burnout 35 is actually lithium at 29%, their Burnout WP is 67% cal hypo (along with calcium carbonate and hydroxide) and their Burnout Extreme is really quite extreme at 47% cal hypo. If dissolution is your biggest worry then use bleach from your laundry room.

And besides, you told us earlier to dissolve the thing in a bucket of water.

Well, ummm, no. Oxidation and chlorination, breakpoint or otherwise, are different things.

Ummm no. The actual number is 7.6, 7.6 times _combined chlorine_, the

7.6 refers to the chlorine to ammonia-nitrogen molar ratio of 3:2, do the math, and google breakpoint chlorination curve to see what the breakpoint bump looks like.

Agreed.

Reply to
giroup01

HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.