shock

[rob]

How long till you can swim after adding 1 bag of chlor-brite shock to 10,000 gal. pool? I found a dead gopher in the skimmer, is shocking it good enough or what else do I need to do??

[chem geek]

Chlor-Brite is Dichlor so using that as shock is not a very good idea. Using chlorinating liquid or unscented bleach (e.g. Clorox Regular) is far better. The reason is that with Chlor-Brite (or Dichlor in general) for every 10 ppm Free Chlorine (FC) you add, it also adds 9 ppm to Cyanuric Acid (CYA).

If you bring the pool to shock level and if the FC holds, then after an hour the water should be fine (actually quite a bit faster than that, but I'm being conservative in case you have a higher CYA level). Just make sure the pump is running and that you thoroughly clean the area where you found the gopher, including the sides above the water line.

Richard