Why Is My Pool Still Cloudy After Shock
Is your pool cloudy after a shock treatment? If the answer is yes, the culprit may be algae, chloramines, or issues with unbalanced water, such as high pH levels or calcium hardness levels. If you shocked the pool using cal hypo, its also possible that the cloudiness is chemical residue.
You can fix the issue by simply running your pool filter and allowing the residue to gradually dissipate. If the water is cloudy for other reasons, such as a damaged filtration system, you should contact an expert for assistance.
When Should You Shock Your Pool And How Often
These are probably the two most common questions that swimming pool owners have about pool shock. And, like many pool-related questions, theres no single right answer.
The short, simple answer to both questions is, it depends on several factors, like how much you use your pool and if it has been exposed to any contaminants. The guidelines below should help you decide when to shock your pool:
Chemical Shock Is Important For Pool Water Maintenance
Adding chemical shock to your pool is an important part of maintaining safe and healthy pool water. Shock is especially important to add to your pool before and after it has been heavily used. Adding chemical shock to your pool is essentially tripling or quadrupling the regular amount of chemicals in your pool water. This process keeps your pool water clean and safe by raising overall chlorine levels which kills bacteria and other organic materials in your pool while simultaneously increasing the effectiveness of the chlorine in your pool.
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Why Is It Done
Pool shock is done when you lag behind your regular schedule of pool maintenance, or when your pool was used extensively by many people for several days. These conditions leave behind organic waste and contamination, binding chlorine molecules and rendering them inactive. Correcting this involves performing shock treatments in the pool that will help remove organic matter and other contaminants, leaving behind water that is clear, soft, clean, and safe for swimming.
Signs You Need To Shock Your Swimming Pool
Any pool owner will likely agree, the installation of a swimming pool can help to improve the quality of your health and lifestyle. To continue using and making the most of your pool, clean and safe water is essential. Keeping the water sparkling is as easy as regular maintenance, monitoring and the occasional shock.
In this article, were going to take a closer look at pool shock, including how often to shock your pool, the best day and when. To begin, lets take a look at some of the tell-tale signs that your pool needs to be shocked.
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How To Shock A Swimming Pool For Beginners
You might have just installed a swimming pool, moved into a rental property with a pool or purchased a new property with a swimming pool. Either way, now you need to know how to maintain it. One important pool maintenance requirement is to shock your pool. But how do you do that and what does shocking your pool even mean? In this article, well find out how to shock a pool for beginners.
What Is Shock Dosing For A Swimming Pool
Shock dosing your pool refers to a stronger concentrate of swimming pool sanitiser that instantly impacts the water and provides a deeper clean when compared to general maintenance. In most cases, shock dosing is related to concentrated chlorine, but chlorine-free shock alternatives can accomplish a similar result.
A shock dosing chemical, chlorine or otherwise, differs quite significantly from general day-to-day sanitisers. This is important to be aware of, as you will need to ensure that you’re purchasing the correct chemical and using it appropriately. However, shock products are usually labelled as such the most common version is a chemical called Sodium Hypochlorite.
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Sounds Electrifying What Is Pool Shock
Basically, pool shock is an exciting term for oxidation. Its technically a type of chlorine, but dont let that fool you. Despite its categorization, it enacts a more specific function than simply sanitizing your pool waterthough it does that, too.
Here are the facts: after a chlorine particle attacks and kills bacteria or another organic material in your pool, it creates what is called a chloramine. This is an inactive particle that floats along in your water until it can be broken apart. And the only way this happens? You guessed it: pool shock.
Pool shock is the only kind of jolt your pool should be getting. Keep it warm and relaxed with the Energy-Saving ComforTemp Pool Heat Pump. As customer Angela G. notes, It runs great and looks impressive. A good valueeven our electrician was impressed.
Should I Add Chlorine To A Saltwater Pool
Before I changed my non-saltwater pool to saltwater two years ago, I used to shock regularly.
Basically, a chlorine-based pool needs more maintenance than a saltwater pool. Unless there is an algae outbreak or a build-up of contaminants such as oil and soil, a saltwater pool does not need much treatment. This is because saltwater pools use chlorine generators to produce a chlorine compound similar to the chlorine in shock treatments.
Chlorine generators can be adjusted to increase the amount of chlorine in the pool, for instance, before heavy usage. However, this technically isn’t shocking. It is just a way to maintain chlorine at the recommended level.
This article is accurate and true to the best of the authors knowledge. Content is for informational or entertainment purposes only and does not substitute for personal counsel or professional advice in business, financial, legal, or technical matters.
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Why Shock A Pool
Chlorine levels will fluctuate depending on the bather load and contaminants in your pool water. Pool chlorine is engineered to attack and kill bacteria so the pool is safe to swim, but will also bind to ammonia in water, forming chloramines. This type of wastes come from swimmers, fertilizers, bird droppings, sunscreen lotions, etc. The only way to release the bound chlorine is by shocking the pool.
After A Storm Spill Or Other Unexpected Event
Shock treatments can definitely help with the day-to-day maintenance of your swimming pool. But these super-powerful sanitizers really shine when it comes to cleaning up after the unexpected or totally-not-routine stuff. This could be anything from a thunderstorm to a super-crowded pool party .
Its a good idea to shock your pool after any event that can potentially leave your pool water contaminated. Youll kill off all harmful particles, organic matter, and bacteria before they have a chance to affect your water quality.
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What Is A Pool Shock Treatment
Shocking your pool involves the process of superchlorination, which is adding large quantities of chlorine to a pool based on the condition of the pool. Types of shocking agents to choose from include:
- Calcium hypochlorite
- Di-Chlor
- Potassium peroxymonosulfate
The type of agent used for a swimming pool in Melbourne shock treatment will depend on the type of pool as well as the lining for the design.
What Does The Shock Pool Do
The use of the shock pool is generally applied after the use of areas such as sauna and hammam. In addition, the temperature of the water in the pool can be lowered even more so that it can be used alone without entering the hammam and sauna beforehand. The temperature of the shock pool water, which is usually kept at a temperature of 15-16 °C, can preferably be lowered to lower temperatures. Basically, the working principle of shock pools is based on stimulating the nerves in the body with the help of cold water. When the water in the shock pool is kept at very cold temperatures, first the nerves in the skin and then the muscles and joints are stimulated. As a result of stimulating the nerves through cold water, the body secretes many hormones, especially endorphins. Endorphins, also called happiness hormones, are hormones that the body releases to deal with pain and stress.
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Clorox Pool& spa Shock Xtrablue
This pool shock is perfect for removing the algae from your pool, no matter if it is green, black, or mustard. Plus, it works perfectly well with bacteria therefore ensuring that you are stepping into a nicely sanitized pool.
Unlike other solid pool shocks, this one does not require pre-mixing. To be on the safe side, you may dissolve it in a bucket but according to many that have previously used this product, it can dissolve fairly quickly and efficiently. It is a hassle-free way of maintaining your pool over the summer, but it may also be a good way of opening your pool after winter has passed.
Pros
Hth Pool Shock Super Shock Treatment
If you are looking for a chlorine shock treatment for your pool that can give you immediate results, then you might want to look into this treatment. With a 52% chlorine level, its all that you need to give you a very strong chlorine boost and everything can be performed in as little as 24 hours.
The package is very easy to open which is something that cannot be said about many products of this kind. Since it takes away the hassle of opening, not only can the process be gone through much quicker, but it is also safe to utilize.
This pool shock includes a test that you may use to check the levels of your water pH, alkalinity, the whole package. This way, you will know for sure when it is safe for you to get into the water.
Pros
- A high concentration of chlorine
- Fast-acting, with crystal clear water in 24 hours
Cons
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Can You Swim In A Pool Without Chlorine
The Bottom Line about Pools and Chlorine
As mentioned above, you could probably swim in a pool without chlorine without any major health issues. However, long-term use of a pool lacking chlorinated H2O could make you sick or, at the very least, contribute to rashes and other types of skin irritation.
What Should The Shock Pool Dimensions Be
One of the most important features to be considered in the construction of shock pools is the size of the pool, especially the depth. As a result of the use of such pools, body temperature drops rapidly. Depending on the rapidly falling body temperature, the user may begin to flutter and have difficulty staying on the water. For this reason, the depth of the shock pool should not exceed a certain size in order to prevent accidents. However, if the depth of the shock pool is too low, it will be difficult to enter the water completely. In terms of both ease of use and safety, the ideal depth of shock pools is between 1 meter and 1.5 meters. A depth above or below these dimensions may cause problems in terms of safety and ease of use.
Another important factor in the dimensions of shock pools is the total volume of the pool. Shock pools, which do not have the condition of being suitable for swimming activity, are not expected to be very large. It will also be easy to enter and exit a small shock pool. For this reason, the volume of an ideal shock pool should be around 2-3 m³. The small size of the pool also facilitates operations such as maintenance, cleaning and cooling.
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What Is Shocking A Swimming Pool Or Spa
Shocking, sanitizing, or chlorinating a swimming pool or spa is a regular process of adding chlorine to your pool or spa water, to raise and maintain free chlorine at the recommended level of 3ppm for a swimming pool and 3-6ppm for a hot tub.
Shocking a swimming pool can also mean SLAM , which is adding chlorine in your pool and maintaining very high FC levels between 12ppm to 24ppm for a non-salt water pool and 28ppm to 31ppm for a saltwater pool, to kill algae or ammonia that come as a result of poor sanitization of pool and spa.
Adding chlorine in your pool or spa on a daily or weekly basis is vital since chlorine sanitizes your water by eliminating harmful germs and bacteria causing algae and ammonia in swimming pools.
Chlorine also eliminates chloramine or combined chlorine , which is formed as FC level in your water depletes due to pool usage or as a result of UV light from the Sun.
Combined chlorine turns pool water cloudy, smells chlorine, and cannot sanitize your pool or spa water to keep away harmful bacteria and germs.
If you don’t have a saltwater chlorine generator, you need to add chlorine manually to your water at least once a day or a week depending on which chlorine shock you are using to maintain recommended FCL in your pool or spa.
You can later check out a spa or hot tub maintenance guide to know more on how to maintain your spa at a very minimal cost, the best sanitizer to use in your hot tub and more on spa maintenance, for now, let’s do the shocking.
When Free Chlorine Levels Drop Below 3 Ppm
Let’s first talk about the differences between free chlorine, combined chlorine, and total chlorine.
- Free chlorine: The chlorine that’s actively cleaning your pool, “free” to do its job. Be sure to use cyanuric acid to stabilize the free chlorine.
- Combined chlorine: This is the chlorine that while technically still in your pool, is mostly “used up” and not able to clean your pool. High levels of combined chlorine mean there is less free available chlorine to do its job.
- Total chlorine: This is simply the sum of free chlorine + combined chlorine.
Generally, the goal is to raise your free chlorine to about 10x the level of the combined chlorine .
Most pool test strips won’t be able to measure combined chlorine and total chlorine, so you’ll have to use a pool test kit to do this job.
When your free chlorine levels drops below 3 ppm, it’s time to shock your pool.
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When The Pool Is Used Heavily Or Frequently
Chlorine levels reduce more quickly when many swimmers use a pool on a consistent basis. You should measure levels of free chlorine and chloramine after heavy swimming, especially in commercial or public pools, and shock the pool as required.
To find out what amount of free chlorine or any other chemical to add to a pool, I use this pool calculator to help me find the correct amount of chlorine to add. All you have to do is enter your chemical and pH readings.
Controlling the chlorine levels in saltwater pools is easier. All you need to do is raise the saltwater chlorine generator to boost free chlorine prior to and after heavy usage.
What Are The Different Types Of Pool Shock
With different pool shocks or shock products are available, how do you know which one is best for your pool?
Heres a breakdown of the top 3 pool shocks.
- Calcium Hypochlorite: Commonly referred to as cal-hypo, this shock is the most popular option, and contains 70% chlorine for killing algae and contaminants. Its unstabilized nature means the sun will burn it off and it wont increase cyanuric acid levels in your pool.
Cal-hypo has a high pH and will temporarily raise those levels, so its a good choice for pools that test at a normal or low pH level. Of note, your water may become temporarily cloudy, and cal-hypo may also increase your waters calcium hardness.
- Dichlor: Sodium dichlor is 55% chlorine and stabilized, which means it contains CYA. This makes it last longer in your pool water than cal-hypo, and the lower pH level and lack of calcium will keep the pool from getting cloudy.
However, because it contains CYA, CYA levels can increase. This has to be carefully monitored otherwise you may need to invest in a CYA reducer, or even drain/dilute your pool.
- Non-Chlorine Shock: Also known as Potassium Monopersulfate , this is a chlorine-free shock that oxidizes contaminants, but wont rid the pool of bacteria. Compared to chlorinated shock, you can use MPS shock at any time of day and be swimming in the pool 15 minutes later. Its pH neutral so your level wont fluctuate, and by focusing on oxidation, it frees up the pools chlorine to be more efficient at sanitizing.
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You Can Smell Chlorine
Pools that reek of chlorine are trying to tell you something: they are lacking in chlorine. This may seem counterintuitive as theyre giving off a pungent chlorine pool smell.
But what youre actually smelling are chloramines. Chloramines are created when free chlorine reacts with ammonia in the water. This mixture is also known as combined chlorine, which gases off and floats on the surface of the water.
Chloramines are an irritant and hazardous to humans causing red eyes, itchy skin, nasal and lung irritation, and respiratory issues.
So if your pool is really stinky, its also really dirty. Shock it ASAP!
Best Choice Vs The Cheapest Choice
You can compare the Pros/Cons, ratings, reviews, and prices of each product listed above to find the best pool shock or the cheap pool shock treatment. As you see, both choices are listed.
But my mind is made up and my favorite is Clorox Xtra Blue with the easy-to-open-bottle because, after years of testing different pool chemicals, Ive learned to get the best price and products for my DIY swimming pool needs.
And thats not all, another benefit I discovered along the way is how easy it is to buy pool chemicals online and get supplies delivered straight to my front door in 2 days or less by using my Amazon Prime account
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