How Often Should I Shock My Pool? Shocking your pool regularly will help to keep the water clean and free of contaminants. You should aim to shock your pool about once a week, with the additional shock after heavy use. Some tell-tale signs that your pool needs to be shocked are cloudy, foamy, green, or odourous water.
It's often recommended to shock your pool once a week. If you don't do it every week, you should at least do it every other week. This is necessary to maintain your pool's water chemistry. If you have a lot of people over in your pool or have a party, you may want to shock your pool more frequently.
If you don't shock your pool, the chloramines may increase in your pool water and if this level continues to rise, you would have to replace a part or all of your pool water. Having more chloramines will also make your pool water cloudy.
Shock is chlorine, in a high dose, meant to shock your pool and raise the chlorine level quickly. Chlorine tabs (placed in a chlorinator, floater, or skimmer basket) maintain a chlorine residual in the water. You do need to use both tabs and shock.
Shock-chlorination is an essential and effective method of cleaning the pool. But you need to have the pump circulating the water for this to be effective.
It's pretty tough to over-shock your pool; shocking your pool two days in a row with the proper dosage for your pool volume shouldn't be a problem – and in fact, is sometimes even needed to rid your pool of algae and other contaminants.
In this case, you should double shock your swimming pool water. To double shock, you will need to add 2 pounds for every 10,000 gallons of water. For instance, if you pool is 20,000 gallons, you will add 4 pounds of shock.
Although, if you overdo the shock treatment, you risk getting green hair from chlorine due to the excess chlorine oxidizing the copper in the water. You can execute a shock treatment with a few different types of pool shock, just be mindful of how much you're using.
You cannot overshock a swimming pool or add too much. Adding too much shock or overshocking your pool will kill off algae. The negative of adding too much shock is it will upset the chemical balance of your pool.
After Shocking Your Pool
It is safe to swim once your chlorine levels are around 5 ppm or after 24 hours. It is always best to test first!
Before you start pouring shock in the pool, the first step is to brush the sides and floor of your pool to loosen all the algae. Doing this breaks the skin and allows the pool shock to more easily kill the algae. Once you've done this, it is important to make sure you have the proper pH level in your water.
High doses of chlorine, like pool shock, can cause temporary cloudiness as it kills contaminants. High levels of pH, alkalinity, and calcium hardness are more likely to cause cloudy water.
Give the shock a good 12 to 24 hours to work it's magic. If the algae hasn't cleared up after 24-48 hours, clean and brush the pool and add another shock treatment.
It Should Not Be Done Together
This is because when you mix chlorine and algaecide together, it renders both of them useless. Hence, you should first shock the pool and wait for the chlorine levels to fall below 5 PPM. Only then should you introduce algaecide to get the best results.
After you shock the pool — As soon as your chlorine levels reach 5 ppm or lower, it's officially safe to swim. Depending on the type of shock used, as well as the amount used, it can take anywhere from 24 hours or even up to a couple of days.
A pool filter should be run for a minimum of 6 hours after shocking a swimming pool. This is to allow the filter to clean the water and give the shock enough time to fully mix with the pool water. Running the filter after shocking for 24 hours to 7 days is necessary if the pool has a large amount of algae.
If the chlorine smell is very strong, however, you may soon spot “red-eyed” swimmers emerging from the pool. That's when the pool water is assumed to have “too much chlorine” in it. Ironically, a strong chemical smell around the pool and “swimmer red eye” may be signs that there is not enough chlorine in the water.
But is it safe to swim in a pool with algae? Whether mild or severe, it isn't recommended. Significant amounts of swimming pool algae welcome a breeding ground of harmful bacteria that feed on algae. These bacteria pose health risks to swimmers, most commonly resulting in a skin rash.
Cloudy or milky swimming pool water is caused by seven main issues: improper levels of chlorine, imbalanced pH and alkalinity, very high calcium hardness (CH) levels, faulty or clogged filter, early stages of algae, ammonia, and debris.
How Often Should I Shock My Pool? Shocking your pool regularly will help to keep the water clean and free of contaminants. You should aim to shock your pool about once a week, with the additional shock after heavy use. Some tell-tale signs that your pool needs to be shocked are cloudy, foamy, green, or odourous water.
The month of March is the BEST time to open your swimming pool. If you wait any longer for the temperature to rise higher than 65 degrees algae and other organics will start to grow.