Chemical Treatment For (very) Small Temporary Pool

[medgen]

Hello,

This past weekend I purchased a very small 'pool' for my children. It is 8 feet in diameter and holds water about 36 inches deep (total volume ~ 1100 galons/4200 litres). It also comes with a small filter unit that we can run for several hours per day.

We filled the pool yesterday and our young kids are loving splashing around in it. Unfortunately it is already taking on an unmistakably cloudy appearance. We are of course concerned about the health of our kids but do not want to be continually replacing the water in it every couple of days.

Instead we thought perhaps adding a very small amount of pool chemicals (chlorine/bromine?) might be a good idea. However, we have no idea where to start. If anyone has any suggestions for such a small pool please let me know.

Thanks in advance!

[quantumchromodynamics]

The main issues you need to be concerned about are filtration and chemical balance. You should run the filter as much as possible. The chemicals that are most important are chlorine, pH and alkalinity. You can purchase a cheap test kit that will do these tests at most pool, hardware or general stores. You should maintain about 2 to 4 ppm of chlorine, a pH of about 7.3 to 7.7 and an alkalinity of about 70 to 120. You can use bleach for your chlorine. Be sure to use only original unscented bleach such as regular Clorox. Use about 2 ounces of bleach to provide 1 ppm of chlorine. You can use baking soda to raise your pH or alkalinity. Use about 2.5 ounces of baking soda to raise your alkalinity by 10 ppm. You can use muriatic acid to lower pH or alkalinity. Use about 2.5 ounces of muriatic acid to lower total alkalinity by 10 ppm. You can buy a quart of muriatic acid at any hardware store. Be very careful with acid as it is very dangerous. Pour the required amount of acid into a plastic cup (not Styrofoam or paper) and then pour it into the pool. Only add one chemical at a time. After adding any chemical wait several hours and retest all chemicals before adding the next chemical. You should also buy a skimmer net and brush to remove debris and keep the bottom brushed.

[PaulR]

This is an Intex Easy Set, probably? In a small pool like this, I would recommend "dry acid" from the pool store rather than muriatic. Dry acid is easier to handle in the amounts you might need.

Because of the very small size, I would suggest handling this more like a spa than a pool; check out Nitro's Approach to Water Maintenance which has really good tips. For your pool, I would say buy 1 lb of "dichlor" at the pool store, use that as your chlorine source until it's used up, and then switch to bleach. That will put your stabilizer level in about the right place.

I wouldn't worry about the alkalinity measurement unless your pH tends to go up pretty fast. Even then, if you just stay on top of the pH, the alkalinity will come down over time and the pH won't rise so fast.

Whenever you're adding a chemical, I would dilute it in a bucket of pool water first, then pour it slowly in front of the return jet while the pump is on. This will help distribute the chemicals faster and avoid any potential problems from dripping something too strong on the liner.

Have fun!

--paulr

[quantumchromodynamics]

The cheap test kit that I mentioned in my earlier post will only test for total chlorine. It should be sufficient for your purposes. However, I should mention that there is a more advanced test that can test for two components of total chlorine. The two components are free chlorine and combined chlorine. Free chlorine + combined chlorine equals total chlorine. The free chlorine is the good, active chlorine. The combined chlorine is the type of chlorine that produces that objectionable "chlorine smell". Combined chlorine is chlorine that combines with organic contaminants such as urine from kids peeing in the pool or other such organics. Combined chlorine is also known as chloramines. Even small amounts of chloramines can produce the "chlorine smell". If you do get chloramines, the way to get rid of them is to "shock" the pool. Shocking is simply adding an extra dose of chlorine to oxidize the chloramines. Overall, you will achieve better results if you test for free and combined chlorine instead of just total chlorine.