Chemistry Advice

If you use any form of liquid shock or oxidizer, never leave it in your trunk on a hot day.  Remember, liquids expand as they get warmer.  If the vented cap does not work, the pressure builds up and cracks the bottle open.  If the vented cap works, the liquid overflows and bleaches out the carpet in your trunk – or the really expensive thing next to it (why is it always a brand-new $80,000 car?).        

Does your pool run on a salt-to-chlorine generator?  Remember, your generator really works poorly at a water temperature under 60°, and not at all under 50°.  The sensor on your generator that tells you if you have enough salt also doesn’t work right then.  So, you need to run on chlorine tabs or powder (dichlor powder is the best) at the beginning and end of the season.  And, take a water sample, let it warm up to room  temperature, and we’ll test the salt level for you.    

Did you use Winter Green 12 last fall to help prevent algae with your safety cover?  Remember to add a dose on April 1, May 1, and June 1 if your pool is not already opened or won’t be opened within ten days of that.  And, if you have a mesh pool cover (the bolt-on-type that lets the water, air, sunlight and algae go through) find out about it!  You’ll save a week of clean-up in spring.

We have a big change for some Baquacil users.  About 7% of them are already using CDX.  We’re now going to start every brand new Baquacil user on the Baquacil CDX Program.  If you have been using it for 20 years without CDX, and don’t want to change, be my guest – and I don’t blame you.  However, Baquacil wants to see the 93% of users who don’t have bioslime in their filter add CDX before they ever do.  So, their new water lab program will assume it, all of the test strips have an oxidizer test, and the Pool Care Guide now assumes you use CDX.  Of course, if you’ve been using Baquacil for ten or twenty years, you probably haven’t looked at a Pool Care Guide or paid much attention to your test strips in years!