Alternative to Chlorine in Swimming Pools

http://www.houselogic.com/home-advice/pools-spas/swimming-pools-alternatives-chlorine/#.

No.

Not really.

It's cheap and effective. And if used properly it is almost imperceptible to eyes and skin.

Salt Chlorine Generators for Swimming Pool Water are popular with some.

I've owned a pool for over 35 years, and just use 3" tablets in a floating dispenser, and liquid pool shock periodically.

My pool is trouble free, except for having to remove leaves and vacuum it after dust storms.

fresh water worked for Hearst

It is unlikely to actually be chlorine in your pool water. It is almost certainly sodium hypochlorite so I would say this is a good substitute to chlorine.

Pendantic.

Lest you correct me too, "I use 3" tablets in a floating dispenser <cyanuric chloride>, and liquid pool shock <calcium hypochlorite> periodically.

It's all chlorine to me and the guy at the pool store.

Maybe I'm now being pedantic but Calcium Hypochlorite is a powder not a liquid (it can be pre-made into a solution but it is generally pretty weak). If you are using a liquid it is likely Sodium Hypochlorite. You would be better off using the powder as it is far stronger and therefore more effective as a shock treatment, and cheaper to boot. The powder is typically around 65% Chlorine, whereas the liquid starts out from the factory at around 13% but is typically only about 8% by the time you get it.

Be aware also that those 3" tablets (most likely Sodium Trichlor) are very low in pH (around about 3) so you need to constantly adjust your pH upward if using them.

A better alternative would be Sodium Dichlor tablets which have an almost neutral pH and also a lower Isocyanuric acid level, so they don't contribute so much to "Chlorine lock" which can prevent the chlorine from being able to function in the pool.

My mistake. Sodium, I guess.

The round pucks I add are:

whatever that is.

The liquid is whatever they put in those white bottles at my pool store. Nothing on those that I could see to take a picture of and it's dark here.

Like I said I ask for chlorine and I get some stuff that seems to work.

Fluorine

!!!!!!

.

It's reasonably common in Australia to find Salt based swimming pools. I would think it would be a little hard on the pump etc. unless designed for it.

The Salt base is still a Chlorinated pool. The electrolytic cell converts the salt into Sodium hypochlorite (liquid Chlorine) which then converts back to salt in the pool.

Some alternatives to chlorine are UV sterilizers and Copper/silver ionizers. Both work well, but it is generally a requirement to keep a free Chlorine content in your pool for safety sake when the sterilizer is not in operation, so chlorine is still required as a backup.

Ozone, and or salt …Our gym pool uses an Ozone / chlorine system, with the chlorine salt being very small in percentage---They are large, heated, outdoor pools, and the Chlorine is barely perceptible.. Water is always clean and clear, and we are in So. Cal….If this helps….

Why do you want or need an alternative? Is it an allergy or the Chlorine smell?

Bromine stinks, indistinguishably from excrement.

A good answer. The only bit that I would take issue with is this "The chemical is unpopular because it has a strong odor, reddens eyes"

A properly maintained Chlorine pool will have no Chlorine odour or red eyes.

It is a fact that using too little Chlorine in the pool allows Chloramines to develop, and it is those that cause the smell and irritate the eyes of swimmers.

Regular shock treating with higher than normal doses of chlorine in the swimming season (even in pools sanitised in some of the other ways mentioned on this thread) will totally eliminate the smell and the red eye.

To assist the Chlorine to do its job and also to reduce the incidence of redeye, it is also important to keep the ph as close to neutral 7 as possible with due regard to the pool's surface coating (6.8 for fibreglass and vinyl, and 7.4 for marble sheen, painted and pebblefinishes). Unfortunately, Chlorine works best at low pH levels, but this is not a comfortable zone for swimmers.

I would also add that Bromine is better suited for hot spas than for swimming pools, and it doesn't produce the Chloramine smell in spas as does Chlorine, which is due to the constant release of body oils caused by the hot water.

Hot spas??? Consider having a bath after 4 others have used the water before you and you have the same environment as you do in a medium sized spa with 10 people aboard...Yuk

I once repurposed a marine aquarium ozone generator, less the ORP controller, on screened in swimming pool and only ran the generator with the pump on its normal schedule. It reduced the need for chlorine considerably. The generator only lasted about year probably because it was never intended for that high a duty cycle. I would use a proper set up again if my current pool didn't collect so much leaf debris.

I used the softswim brand of PHMB and it was an improvement over the chlorine system. It was much less work maintaining the correct levels, didn't smell, didn't burn the eyes and nose (as much), and didn't fade bathing suits. I did twice run into a problem where the water became very cloudy, requiring the use of a flocculant. I never experienced that with chlorine.

Ok so my last response may have been pedantic but I'll tell you how we used to treat sea water when I worked in the aquaculture industry.

First pump sea water into a 150 micron drum filter then collect in a header tank with air stones in the bottom. This would have a flocculation effect to get rid of some colloids. From here pump through a 50 micron bag filter, the 10 micron bag filter then 1 micron bag filter in series. From there pass through a UV sterilizer and collect in another header tank. Allow suitable mixing in this tank and pass through another UV sterilizer.

This is the water which the fish would swim in but for the lab work they added various chemicals depending on what they needed to do. I didn't get involved in that. However, sodium hypochlorite was widely used because of its effectiveness and it is relatively cheap. I would suspect that if there was a better and cheaper alternative they would have used it so this is not a definitive answer but I would say stick with it.

And by the way, I did manage not to open this one with a more pedantic answer which Fredski has already mentioned. Chlorine being a highly toxic gas heavier than air would be the last thing I would want in my swimming pool. I'd change it out for water.

Hydrogen peroxide is another option, although more expensive and likely less effective than chlorine. However, it will not react adversely with amines etc. and will actually remove residual hypochlorite.

may be you use biodegradable elements to clean the swimming pool.