Don’t worry, plenty of people (besides you) made the inadvertent mistake of leaving the filter cartridges in the filter over the Winter, or worse yet, made the inadvertent mistake of mixing the cleaning solution a wee bit too strong in the Spring.
No worries. Simply type in you old filter cartridge’s dimensions into the very convenient ‘cartridge calculator‘ featured on InTheSwim.Com.
How Do You Test an Old Cartridge Filter?
If you wet the thing and it falls apart, or it falls apart even when dry, you have your first clue. After that, if you put the thing in after a thorough and proper cleaning and the pressure on your filter system keeps heading towards the sky, well, now you have a second clue.
Everyone always wants to know what levels of chlorine (tablets & powders), pH (pH increaser & pH decreaser), alkalinity, calcium hardness, TDS, and stabilizer they ought to have in their pool.
Too bad a vinyl liner pool in Upstate Michigan usually requires a different set of water chemistry parameters than a gunite pool in Southern Arizona… and a fiberglass pool in Central Kansas requires a slightly different set of parameters.
Don’t get discouraged, though. Just stick w/in the following guidelines to start, though, and then correct as you go along… with the goal of finding the perfect chemical balance for your pool — hopefully with the help of a pool water testing expert from your local pool store!
- pH: 7.2 – 7.8
- Free Chlorine: 1.0 – 2.0 ppm
- Total Alkalinity: 80 – 120 ppm
- Calcium Hardness: 180 – 220 ppm, though some say 200 – 400.
- Cyanuric Acid: 25 – 50 ppm
- Total Dissolved Solids: 500 – 5000 ppm
For those between pool store visit testing times, meaning you need to test your pool at LEAST two or three times a week, you may want to consider using a liquid test kit such as one of the following:
By now many of you new pool/spa owners, and perhaps a few folks who have had a pool for a while, may have noticed that not all Swimming Pool Shock packages contain the same stuff.
It therefore follows that naturally, we would like to help you understand the basic differences between the different types, not brands, of swimming pool shock treatments.
- Calcium Hypochlorite Base Shock Treatment — Known for many years simply by an old school brand name, HTH, this shock has a calcium base. It normally has around 60% available chlorine and one pound will usually treat roughly 10,000 gallons.
One thing to watch out for when using a calcium base chlorine shock treatment… Pouring a bag of calcium base chlorine shock treatment into pools with high total hardness and/or calcium hardness can result in undissolved shock resting on the bottom of the pool where it can bleach liners. The longer the undissolved shock sits on the liner, the greater the bleaching effect and the greater the odds of the liner becoming weakened in that location.
Calcium base chlorine contains no cyanuric acid, also known as chlorine stabilizer.
- Chlorine-Free Shock Treatment — Typically these types of shock treatments will contain something called potassium monopersulfate, a strong oxidizing agent that works as well as chlorine AND has the added benefit of destroying chlorine odor causing chloramines. Additionally, most packages of non-chlorine shock also boast that people can swim literally minutes after adding their contents to a swimming pool. Proper circulation in the pool required, of course!
- Lithium Base Shock Treatment — Very rarely, if ever, will you ever hear of someone complaining that they added lithium base swimming pool shock to their pool and having a hard time getting it to dissolve. Many people swear by this product for that reason.
On a side note, some folks say that it puts a special sparkle in the water… and some OTHER folks have done ‘studies’ and found that people who use lithium base chlorine seem happier than people who use chlorine sanitizers made with other base materials (i.e. calcium and sodium).
One down side of lithium base chlorine shock treatments… They typically have only 35% available chlorine whereas calcium and sodium dichlor base chlorine shock treatments contain around 60% available chlorine and therefore have a lot more sanitizing power.
Calcium base chlorine contains no cyanuric acid, also known as chlorine stabilizer.
And lest we forget to mention one tiny detail: Lithium base chlorine shock treatments cost more than any other kind.
