Pool Water Chemistry
How To Shock Your Swimming Pool |
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There are so many different kinds of pool shock on the market including
Calcium Hypo
Lithium
Non-Chlorine
BaquaShock
These are the 4 basic kinds of pool shock 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 pool shock. The difference between the two is that calcium you have to pre-dissolve for liners and lithium you do not. Non-Chlorine pool 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 pool shock in its own bucket of water. This stops the pool shock from laying on your liner and bleaching it.
- 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 pool 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.
- 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 pool 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 pool shock
This one is easy. Just sprinkle the bag of pool 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
