OVERVIEW. Clorox® Pool&Spa™ XtraBlue® Chlorinating Tablets go the extra mile to help maintain healthy pool water. These multi-functional tablets work hard to keep your water clear from both bacteria and unsightly algae. Each tablet dissolves slowly and contains stabilizer for a long lasting clean.
This package of trichlor chlorine tablets can treat pools, spas, and hot tubs that have up to 5,000 gallons of water. Due to the stabilizer in these tablets, the chlorine released into the pool water is resistant to UV radiation, slowing the production of chloramines.
It's also included in chlorine tablets or sticks (called trichlor) or shock (called dichlor). When they're mixed together in shock or tablets, the resulting product is called stabilized chlorine. Typically, pool owners won't need to add any extra stabilizer separately if you're using one of the combination products.
Normal Granular Chlorine
Normal Chlorine can be called Granular Chlorine, Pool Chlorine, Powdered Chlorine or Unstabilised Chlorine, it's all the same thing. Unstabilised doen't mean it is dangerious and may blow up. It simply means it does not contain Stabiliser (cyanuric acid) or UV Blockout as it is commonly known.
The biggest difference is that they're either stabilized chlorinating tablets or unstabilized: Stabilized tablets contain Cyanuric Acid (CYA). This protects the chlorine from dissipating in sunlight, but can also be a problem if the stabilizer level becomes too high.
The issue is that most chlorine pucks that are sold are stabilised. Stabiliser is a pool chemical that protects the chlorine in your pool water from the sun. The sun rays evaportate the chlorine just like it would do with water, so by adding stabiliser we ensure that the chlorine can stay longer in the water.
Shock XtraBlue® dissolves fast without raising pH levels, and you can swim 15 minutes after treating when chlorine levels are between 1 to 4 parts-per-million. All Clorox® Pool&Spa™ Chlorine products contain stabilizer, to ensure long lasting sanitization, reducing your need to add more chlorine than necessary.
3" Stabilized Chlorine Tablets are a 24 hour Chlorine residual for slow dissolving round the clock product that releases sufficient chlorine to reduce the growth of harmful algae and micro-organisms in your pool. This product needs no filters and has 90% available chlorine.
Because of the importance of stabilizer, there are unfortunately no alternatives. If you stopped using it, you would continually struggle with chlorine levels, bacteria, and algae. We understand that all the chemicals needed to keep a pool looking healthy can add up and become costly.
You can either add the stabilizer to a pool skimmer box sock and hang the sock in front of the return jet or place it in the skimmer box. Or you can simply mix it in a bucket of water first and dump it into the skimmer box. Either method is fine to dissolve the stabilizer.
Unstabilized chlorine is just chemical chlorine with no additives. The common additive in stabilized chlorine, cyanuric acid, is not present in unstabilized chlorine. This means that if the pool gets exposed to direct sunlight, the chlorine inside will react to the sunlight and break down.
Calcium Hypochlorite is the most common, strongest and cheapest pool shock, available in two strengths, Shock and Super Shock. Dichlor is a stabilized granular pool shock, made with stabilizer to protect it from the sun and keep it active longer during the day.
Open your pool under normal procedures, and let the filter run with its normal amount of chemicals. When all the other chemicals, such as chlorine. pH and alkalinity, are balanced, add the chlorine stabilizer. Add the stabilizer only after the filter has been backwashed to ensure it is cycled through a clean filter.
Cyanuric acid (CYA) is one of the most important pool chemicals. You've probably heard it called “pool stabilizer” or “pool conditioner”. It comes in either liquid or granular form, but often is mixed in with chlorine tablets or sticks (also called trichlor) and in chlorine shock (called dichlor).
When chlorinating outdoor pools, stabilized chlorine is going to be best. You will need the stabilizer to protect the chlorine from degrading in the sun. If you are chlorinating an indoor pool, cyanuric acid won't be needed to protect the pool from the sun's UV rays, so unstabilized chlorine would be best.
Regular bleach, or sodium hypochlorite – contains no cyanuric acid. Household bleach is normally a 5% or 6% strength, while commercial strength bleach for pools is generally 12.5% strength, and delivered by truck and hose.
It does this by stabilizing the chlorine molecule that would otherwise breakdown in direct sunlight. You should only add stabilizer if your levels are below 30ppm. Usually, all you have to do is check the level of stabilizer (cyanuric acid) in your pool every week to judge whether it's doing the job or not.
If the stabilizer level is too high in a pool, it will lock the chlorine molecules, rendering them ineffective as a sanitizer. This usually happens as a result of using chlorine tablets that contain cyanuric acid.
Baking soda, also known as sodium bicarbonate is naturally alkaline, with a pH of 8. When you add baking soda to your pool water, you will raise both the pH and the alkalinity, improving stability and clarity.
Baking Soda is used for raising the total alkalinity of the pool, which is the key to keeping the ph in balance. It's not a stabilizer.
Water moving over chlorine tablets, as happens in a chlorinator or with tablets designed to be placed in the skimmer, causes them to dissolve more quickly.
Small 20g chlorine tablets will dissolve slowly over a period of 3-7 days depending on water flow, water temperature and hot tub usage.