Short answer: yes. Longer answer: it depends on the formulation. The label on every bleach bottle should tell you the ratio of sodium hypochlorite (and available chlorine) in the bottle to everything else. A higher percentage is generally better, as you'll need to use less bleach to treat your pool.
Household bleach, Clorox and liquid chlorine can all be used to sanitize a pool. They are all types of chlorine. Household bleaches such as Clorox usually contain about 5-6% available chlorine, about half that of pool liquid chlorine. Household bleaches often have unwanted fragrances and colors.
WADING POOL DISINFECTION
When chlorinating wading pools, use 1/8 cup per 100 gallons of new water. Mix required amount of Clorox® Regular Bleach2 with 2 gallons of water and scatter over surface of pool. Mix uniformly with pool water. Empty small pools daily.
The main difference between bleach and chlorine is their strength. Chlorine is much stronger than bleach. To get your pools chlorine level to the point it needs to be to keep the pool looking clean and bright; you will need to use more bleach than you will chlorine.
High concentrations of chlorine (above 1.5 ppm) will attack the liner and bleach it, thus damaging it. Any level below this range will weaken its ability to kill off bacteria. The addition of chlorine to your pool water has to be done in a careful manner.
Therefore, a lot of people keep away from ever using a drop of bleach near their pools. Bleach is safe and the only chemical you should be using in your pool unless cleaning pool tile with baking soda. So yes, you can use bleach to keep your pool water chemistry balanced.
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.
Depending on how much you have added and the size of your pool, it is generally safe to wait about 4 hours after adding liquid chlorine or until levels reach 5 ppm or lower.
Green algae, unlike its black counterpart, is a true algae; it isn't resistant to chlorine, so you can control it by shocking the pool. If you don't want to spend a lot of money on expensive pool chemicals, you can shock with household bleach.
Answer: It is true that pool chlorine is stronger than bleach. For bleach and water to be the same strength as pool chlorine and water, you would have to adjust the ratio, increasing the bleach and reducing the water.
But excessive exposure to chlorine can cause sickness and injuries, including rashes, coughing, nose or throat pain, eye irritation and bouts of asthma, health experts warn. Instructions for safely chlorinating a pool usually call for a maximum of four parts per million when people are in the pool.
I think the answer to your question is about 3-6 days. The problem is that the chlorine that you need to keep the bacteria in check is used up more quickly as the temperature rises, the activity increases, and as sweat and other body stuff is put into the pool.
Generally, pool water needs to be replaced once every five to seven years. This should be done during mild weather so that your pool surface is not at risk from strong sunlight and heat. Your pool maintenance company can recommend when it is time to drain your pool.
Any form of chlorine can damage the liner if it is added incorrectly. Full strength bleach poured directly on the liner can damage the liner if you do it often enough.
When water sits in place for too long and is exposed to an unsterile environment, it becomes contaminated. Swimming in stagnant water can expose you to serious health hazards. Stagnant water becomes a breeding ground for parasites, mold, and bacteria.
To clear cloudy water, you may need to run the filter 24 hours for a day or so to expedite the clean-up. For sand filters, adding a small amount of Alum acts as a filter aid, and flushes out with a backwash. Both sand and cartridge filters benefit from a chemical cleansing, using a filter cleaner.
Let the pool water evaporate for 1 to 3 days. If the water inside the bucket is higher than the pool water, you have a leak.
*1 gallon of chlorinating liquid delivers the same amount of chlorine as 2 chlorinating tablets.
It is possible use use the tablets in your large wading pool. However, this is not economical and it will take a large amount of tablets to clean your pool. Unless you have a major supply of these tablets on hand, I would not suggest using them to clean a pool.
Clorox is a bleach product from a company by the same name having its headquarters in Oakland, California. Though the company makes several chemical products, it is its bleach that is most popular.
Myth #1: Bleach contains free-standing chlorine.
There is no free-standing, or elemental, chlorine in bleach. Bleach is manufactured from salt and water to produce sodium hypochlorite, the active ingredient in bleach. Bleach is simply a water solution of this compound.
Once the bleach is added to water, the hypochlorous acid molecule turns into a negatively charged hypochlorite ion and goes to work killing microbes and sanitizing your pool.
Baking Soda to Raise pH and Alkalinity in Pools
But adding too much chlorine can lower your pool's pH as well as its total alkalinity.