A stabilizer helps prevent your chlorine from going to waste, at least immediately. It prolongs its life span in the pool a little bit longer compared to if it was just the chlorine. If you’re new to the concept of a stabilizer, you might wonder how it’s possible. Or how does it prevent chlorine from going to waste and help it last longer? Here’s how it works:
Chlorine goes away very fast or finishes in your swimming pool due to the temperature of the pool. If your pool’s temperature is very high or there’s a massive amount of sun reaching your pool’s surface, your chlorine will easily get finished.
So the work of a stabilizer now is to maintain the chlorine a bit longer. The stabilizer helps serve as a chlorine preserver against the sun and high temperatures. This is not like the chlorine will never get finished; it will, but the stabilizer helps it last longer.
If you added the stabilizer to your pool through the skimmer, it is now okay for you to swim immediately. However, if you add it directly into your swimming pool, you will have to wait for twelve hours until it dissolves.
At what time of the day do you add stabilizer to a pool?
A stabilizer is a popular solution among pool owners, especially with the high cost of pool maintenance. Making the chlorine administered in your pool last longer by adding stabilizer is the surest way to go.
If you are wondering the best time of the day to add stabilizer to your pool, there really isn’t any accurate time specified that you add stabilizer to your pool. Rather, you should add your stabilizer immediately after you administer the chlorine into the pool to help it last longer.
Now, the level of stabilizer in your pool should be between 30 parts per million and 50 ppm. This means that it is necessary to add stabilizer as soon as it drops anywhere below 30 ppm.
Another reason why you should add stabilizer to your pool is when you find that your pool is beginning to look unhealthy, maybe a bit green and dirty. This is mostly because there’s not enough sanitizer to sanitize the pool properly.
The sanitizer breaks out too quickly because there’s no stabilizer to help it last longer. So, when you add chlorine and back it up with stabilizer, it enables the sanitizer to work effectively in your pool.
Can you swim in a pool with too much stabilizer?
A pool with too much stabilizer renders the chlorine useless. It sounds confusing, right? Yes, I know, you’d wonder how a stabilizer that’s supposed to keep the chlorine in the pool active for a longer period of time could be the same thing to render the chlorine useless.
Well, this is so because the stabilizer has a specific amount it needs to stay in order for it to do the right job it is meant to do. The stabilizer level of your pool is supposed to be at 30 parts per million. Anything higher or lower than this becomes a problem. Too high and it renders the chlorine useless. Too low and it can not help the chlorine last longer.
In situations where your stabilizer level is too high, the best thing to do is to dilute your pool water with fresh water. There’s no chemical available to lower cyanuric acid, so the only solution is to dilute the swimming pool.
If diluting the pool is somehow impossible, the next best option is to completely drain it. After draining, you can fill it back up with fresh water. The only trouble with this method is that it can affect your pool by cracking, and you’ll have to start treating the pool entirely again.
Do you add stabilizer before or after the chlorine?
Chlorine stabilizer, as you know, is used to help chlorine last longer and prevent it from breaking down too fast, making it more effective.
Your chlorine stabilizer should be added to your pool after adding chlorine, not before.
Meanwhile, here are some steps to follow on how to add stabilizer to your swimming pool.
Step 1. Test your pool water and measure the amount of stabilizer you need to add. Test your pool water with a test strip. A lot of tests today can test for chlorine, pH, alkalinity, and cyanuric acid. A low level of chlorine stabilizer will show a reading on the test strip below 30 parts per million.
After running the test, the ideal amount of cyanuric acid to add should increase the chlorine stabilizer level to 30 or 40 ppm.
Step 2. Dissolve the stabilizer: pick a bucket and add an average level of warm water, then slowly pour the cyanuric acid or chlorine stabilizer into the bucket, dissolving it in the process. Then slowly pour the diluted solution around the edge of your swimming pool.
Liquid stabilizer is known to dissolve faster than powder stabilizer or granules. So if there’s an option to choose between these three, it’s best to go with liquid stabilizer. Do take note that this is a highly concentrated chemical, so it is advised that you wear complete personal protective equipment when handling it.
Can you swim in a pool with a low stabilizer?
A low stabilizer level, especially in the summer season, can pose a big risk to your sanitizer levels, as sanitizer or chlorine will quickly break down and finish due to no or little stabilizer. When this happens, the pool might be safe to swim in at the initial stages, but eventually, it will become completely unhygienic and risky to use.
Let’s look at some of the problems that come from low sanitizer levels in your pool.
Sore eyes: Your eyes become sore after continuous use of a non-hygienic pool. This can eventually cause serious eye problems if not stopped.
Skin irritations: A bad or poorly sanitized pool makes your skin scratch and itchy.
Bad pool smell: among the list of the effects of low chlorine levels in your pool is bad odor. Your pool develops a funny smell that is very unappealing.
Algal growth: your pool begins to allow for the development of algae, bacteria, and other contaminants.
Now, what to do in such a situation is to take immediate steps towards sanitizing your pool and bringing it back to normal. Testing your pool is one of the measures towards restoring your pool back to its hygienic state. After testing it, you go ahead and shock the pool with chlorine, to which you later apply a chlorine stabilizer to help the chlorine last and be more effective, especially if it’s a hot summer.
Is the stabilizer supposed to dissolve?
After winter comes summer, and the struggle to maintain your pool continues. The summer period brings with it a high temperature, in which your sanitizer, also known as chlorine, begins to break faster than it normally should. This is where a chlorine stabilizer becomes very important to help the chlorine last longer and be effective enough.
The cyanuric acid, which is also known as a chlorine stabilizer, must be dissolved in warm water in a bucket before adding it to the pool. This is because the solution can damage the bottom of your pool and even bleach it if it’s added ordinarily into your pool.
Take note: it is important that you first test your swimming pool water before you go ahead and administer the treatment, to be familiar with the necessary amount of chemical to use.
First test your alkalinity, pH, cyanuric acid and chlorine levels first before taking any action. It is the level of your cyanuric acid that will determine the amount of chlorine to use. If your chlorine stabilizer is below 30 parts per million, then add an amount that can increase it to 30 or 40 ppm.
An overdose of chlorine stabilizer can be very bad for your sanitizer, as it is capable of rendering it useless.
Will low stabilizer cause a cloudy pool?
Low stabilizer on its own can not cause a cloudy pool if the sanitizer levels are balanced. However, during the hotter seasons, sanitizers tend not to last long and are less effective with stabilizers. And low sanitizer levels are likely to cause so many issues in the pool, including making the pool surface cloudy.
Let’s look at some of the causes of a cloudy pool.
- Lack of proper water and chemistry balance: if your chlorine levels, alkalinity, and pH levels are low, your swimming pool water tends to develop different contaminants that throw off your clear pool surface and make it cloudy.
- Humans: when you use the pool, you wash off lotion, body cells, hair products, and other things applied to your body inside the swimming pool. It then causes your swimming pool to become cloudy.
- Bad filter system: if your filter is bad, it can not filter debris, leaves, and other dirty particles in the pool, allowing contaminants like algae and bacteria to thrive.
