What's the BEST CHLORINE for Your POOL?

Swim University makes pool and hot tub care easy for millions of homeowners. Each year, we continue to help more people with water chemistry, cleaning, and troubleshooting. We know taking care of a swimming pool or spa can be difficult. And it’s hard to find a trusted source of information. This is the reason we created Swim University.

There are a lot of different types of chlorine you can add to your pool: tablets, granules, and even household bleach. And some kinds of chlorine work better than others, depending on how you add it to your water. So here’s everything you need to know about choosing the best chlorine for your pool.

⏰ Timestamps:
00:00 - Introduction to What's the Right Chlorine for Your Pool
00:35 - What are the Different Types of Chlorine?
01:21 - Right Chlorine Levels
01:40 - Granules vs. Tablets: Which One is Better?
03:09 - What's the Best Way to Add Chlorine Tablets?
04:37 - Is Liquid Chlorine or Bleach a Good Option?
05:11 - How to Use Less Chlorine in a Pool

[ryanr]

I use liquid chlorine, stabilizer, and muriatic acid. The chlorine is put in a tank and sent to the pool via a Stenner pump. My pool never turns green and I never need to shock it. I have complete control over FC, CYA and PH levels.

[booobtooober]

Trichlor tablets worked great in my round above ground because there was significantly more splash out thus fresh water replacement thus keep CYA at nominal levels but since moving to a new home with inground pool it is difficult to keep CYA below 100 ppm even though I drain close to half the water yearly for winter closing.
I am seriously considering a switch to the 4th unmentioned option, A salt water chlorine generator.

[RangerScarable]

Big thanks. First stop for all my pool Q’s

[warriorlink]

I have a 17, 000 gal pool. So, I assume I would need 4 three inch tablets (up to 5, 000 gal each), correct?

[bradleymoore]

Wasted so much money on chlorine last year what are your thoughts on a ionizer and what type of chlorine should I use with it

[ni_wink]

Liquid and adding my own stabilizer will always be my choice to avoid chlorine lock, stabilizer doesn’t go away as fast as chlorine. There for causing chlorine lock and a nasty smelling over chlorinated pool like tablets cause, test your water every couple days, use Muriatic acid to control PH, and a stabilizer you add as needed, that’s it 3 things and pool is ideal

[jesssimpson]

If you live in a drought area where you shouldn’t do a water dump every spring using the tablets only can cause a lot of trouble with high CYA levels. I’m using a combination method of one chlorine tablet to get some conditioner in my pool but supplementing it with liquid chlorine, it’s working ok but there doesn’t seem to be a perfect solution.

[Lt.Spicey]

I have an automatic chlorinator and the 3in tablets but how often do I add tablets to the chlorinator? It is always suppose to be full? Do I just add just 2 per week? My chlorine runs on the higher side it seems and I have no idea about my CYA levels, etc. or how to test that, I do have test trips. I’m new, just bought a house with a pool this year 😅

[larrysmith]

Continually using tablets will push your CYA levels to the point where the chlorine becomes ineffective. Your only choice then is to drain the pool and start over. Use tablets until the CYA level is acceptable then switch to liquid chlorine. If you keep the CYA level stable, add liquid chlorine as needed and keep the PH balanced, your pool water can last up to 5 years.

[izabellaseabourn]

So I bought 1" tablets but have Approx 4, 000 gallon pool so how many tablets should I put into the floater?

[SalProcopio]

which chlorine/shock affects PH and up or down? i need to increase PH often.

[aronvic]

I would like to know your opinion on pool ionizers. I recently bought one (solar coil that floats) and it has reduced the amount of Chlorine needed by about 80%. Pool water has stayed clear and no algea... yet.

[AlmightyPyro]

another question. should you shock even with stabilizer is high or in range? How long will it take for chlorine to go back to normal?

[jacquelinegeorge]

How can I increase my pool chlorine and ph

[yazer]

When I add house hold bleach, the pool turns green after. What am I doing wrong? I am just raising the chlorine level with it, and already using stabilized chlorine tablets and ph is 7.6 or 7.4

[ashlynnantrobus]

I made the mistake of buying chemicals before I knew what I was doing and now I have those tiny 100g trichlor tablets, and I can't find anything that provides a conversion. How many of these asprin sized chlorine tablets are needed to be the equivalent of a 1 inch puck?

[faamecanic]

It should be said that you really shouldn’t rely on triclohr Tablets as a primary sanitizer. It will cause your CYA Levels to rise too high unless you have a lot of splash out or evaporation. Most pool builders/ pool service companies won’t tell you that.

[AlmightyPyro]

question, what if you have the stabilizer in the recommended range but your chlorine levels are low, do you add unstabilized chlorine?

[nadiacoffey]

My husband and I are new to pool ownership. We’ve been struggling so much with keeping chlorine in our pool. No matter how much shock we use, the free chlorine level is almost always 1 or zero. The people at the pool store keep telling us to add hundreds of dollars of pool chemicals and nothing is working. It’s been very stressful so far and no one is helpful to us. 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️It’s sad because I wanted to enjoy the pool but I don’t even want to swim in it because I’m so stressed about it.

[alancotaes]

Thank you for all the effort you put in to deliver great content all the time. I’ve read that the CYA and FC levels are related and that the FC must proportionally increase based on your CYA level. For example, my 11k gallon pool has a CYA level of 70ppm and because of that the FC must match that, which is actually 8ppm (my pool) instead of 3. What do you think about that? Thank tou!