chlorine

[Jyeager]

can I use regular clorox bleach to chlorinate my pool and if so how much? I have a 18' round pool with the inflatable ring on top. not really sure how many gallons it holds. All levels are fine but the chlorine is at zero and I have added granules and also tried dual action chlorinating tabs in a floate, nothing helps. What can I do??

[chem geek]

Yes, you can use Clorox Regular UNSCENTED bleach. It will say 6% Sodium Hypochlorite on the bottle and will also say 5.7% Available Chlorine since it is registered with the EPA as a disinfectant and can be used in pools (and spas, though they didn't register explicitly for that).

If the 18' is the diameter of the pool and if it is 4' deep, then that would be about 7600 gallons. 2 cups of 6% bleach will raise the FC level by about 1 ppm.

Get a decent test kit such as the Taylor K-2006 (which uses a FAS-DPD chlorine test) and make sure you have some CYA in your water. If you used some pucks, you probably have some CYA, but maybe it's not enough or maybe it's too much. You need to keep your Free Chlorine (FC) level at an absolute minimum of 7.5% of the CYA level and should target to have it at around 11.5% of the CYA level. Typical CYA levels are from 30-50 ppm.

[Guest]

also I was wondering if total hardness and calcuim hardness are the same

[chem geek]

There are related, but not the same. Total Hardness includes hardness from calcium, but also includes magnesium and other metals. Usually, calcium is the largest component of hardness (typically about 60-65% of Total Hardness), but this depends on the water source. In pools, we do not care about Total Hardness, only Calcium Hardness since we only care about calcium carbonate saturation (magnesium only precipitates out of water at VERY high levels).