Practising proper pool chemistry is important and easy. In this guide, we will provide you with everything you need to know to keep your pool clean and clear!

Your pool water is delicate, and in order to reach perfect pool harmony, it must be balanced. Just like Goldilocks, it musn't be too soft, it musn't be too hard, it has to be just right!

Balancing your pool means keeping the pH of the water between 7.4 and 7.6, which is slightly above neutral on the pH scale.

There are 3 main ingredients to keeping this balanced:

• pH levels
• Alkalinity levels
• Calcium hardness levels

It’s important to keep your eye on your pH and alkalinity levels – at least once a week – by using a home test kit or test strips.

To keep your pool balanced, you need to keep these chemicals on hand:

• pH Increaser
• pH Reducer (hydrochloric acid)
• Alkalinity Increaser

You’ll notice I didn’t mention alkalinity decreaser. Most major pool chemical companies do not produce it and here are the reasons why:

• If your pH and alkalinity are low, alkalinity increaser will raise both. You may need to add a little pH increaser if the pH doesn’t reach 7.4 – like fine tuning an instrument.
• If your pH and alkalinity are both high, pH decreaser will lower both.
• If just your alkalinity is high, your pH will also be high and you can use pH decreaser.

If your pool is properly balanced at all times, it will make your pool’s sanitizer work more effectively – especially chlorine.

Chlorine is an extremely effective bacteria and algae killer, and cost effective.

There are a few ways you can introduce chlorine into the pool water, including:

• Chlorine tablets
• Chlorine granular or powdered chlorine
• Salt Chlorine Generator: turns regular table salt into chlorine

This is a chlorine alternative. It’s an effective sanitizer for swimming pools and even makes the water feel smoother.

These chemical packages are more expensive than traditional chlorine-compatible chemicals, and they come in granular/powder or tablet form.

Silver and copper minerals are introduced to the water by an mineral system that resembles a chlorinator. These minerals work to sanitize the water, but they are much slower than chlorine.

A mineral system is NOT a complete chlorine alternative as chlorine is still required – but only a small amount as backup.

When a chlorine particle attacks and kills bacteria, or other organic material in your water, it turns into chloramine or chlorine that isn't active and does not kill bacteria anymore. This particle just floats around in your water until it can be oxidized and broken apart.

To reach breakpoint oxidation, the chlorine reading must be 10 ppm over your combined chlorine reading.

Your chlorine has two readings: free chlorine (FC) and combined chlorine (CC). Free chlorine refers to the chlorine that is free and available to kill.

NOTE: Pool shock products are made with unstabilized chlorine or no chlorine at all. They will go in, do their job, and get eaten up by the sun’s UV rays very fast. That’s why it’s important to shock your pool at night or dusk, and let it work for 8 hours (with the pool running) throughout the night.

If you only used pH products, alkalinity products, calcium products, sanitizers, you could keep a clean and healthy pool all year long. However, there are a few more products you should be familiar with in case you need or decide to use them.

Most chlorine products you add to the water will be stabilized chlorine. However, if you start with fresh water, you might want to add some cyanuric acid (aka water stabilizer) as a stabilizer base so that the chlorine doesn’t get burned off by the sun’s UV rays so quickly. This chemical will protect your chlorine from the sun.

There will be times where your cyanuric acid levels will be higher than where they're supposed to be and this can actually cause a problem especially when it comes to pool chemicals. There are a number of ways to reduce cyanuric acid since they don't go down by themselves, but if you're in a hurry, there's always a Cyanuric acid reducer that you can use to treat this problem.

Algaecide is a algae preventative. There are certain algaecides on the market that claim to kill algae, but the best killer is chlorine.

Use algaecide as a backup. If your chlorine levels dip down, and you don’t catch it in time, the algaecide will keep the algae at bay until you can get the chlorine back up.

A water clarifier helps by bringing all those tiny particles that are making your water cloudy and combining them into bigger particles that your filter will have a better chance of filtering out.

Floc or Flocculant, grabs those tiny particles, brings them together, and sinks them to the bottom. With pool floc, you will have to manually get those particles out of your water by vacuuming to waste.

If you have metals in your water, like copper and iron, you can use a metal remover or stain and scale remover to keep those metals in solution so that your filter can filter them out.

If metals come out of solution that can attach themselves to the walls and other parts of your pool and produce unsightly stains.

To maintain a safe and healthy swimming pool, you need to keep your pool chemicals at the following levels:

• pH: 7.4 to 7.6
• Alkalinity: 100 to 150 ppm
• Calcium Hardness: 175 to 225 ppm and 225 to 275 ppm for plaster pools
• For Chlorine or Salt Water Pools: 1 to 3 ppm (I recommend you keep it at 3 ppm)
• For Bromine Pools: 3 to 5 ppm
• For Biguanide Pools: 30 to 50 ppm
• For Mineral System Pools: 0.5 ppm of chlorine

Make sure to practice good pool circulation and filtering, and keep your pool cleaned by vacuuming and skimming frequently.

SEE ALSO: How To Maintain Chemicals In Peak Season