Just completed a tiled mini garden pool measures 5x4 metre with 30 cm depth.

Missus has acquired some chlorine powder to keep water clear/clean,  but have no idea what measure of chlorine to add to this volume of water. 

What is the pool for, swimming, decorative, fish ? If its for swimming you may need filtration, other chemicals etc, more than just adding chlorine. If its decorative, maybe plants and fish etc to keep it clean and balanced.

 

Do you want clean to look at or clean to swim in. 

4 minutes ago, Peterw42 said:

What is the pool for, swimming, decorative, fish ? If its for swimming you may need filtration, other chemicals etc, more than just adding chlorine. If its decorative, maybe plants and fish etc to keep it clean and balanced.

 

Do you want clean to look at or clean to swim in. 

 

30 cm doesn't allow for much swimming .

9 minutes ago, Peterw42 said:

What is the pool for, swimming, decorative, fish ? If its for swimming you may need filtration, other chemicals etc, more than just adding chlorine. If its decorative, maybe plants and fish etc to keep it clean and balanced.

 

Do you want clean to look at or clean to swim in. 

Thanks...Clean to look at and the odd splash around by a seven year old kid.

Total chlorine is the sum of free chlorine, and chlorine consumed by organic compounds in the water. Free chlorine is the amount available for disinfection of bacteria. Ideally, the aim is to have 0.5 mg/L (ppm) free available chlorine present. There are test kits for this purpose.

Overdosing with chlorine is not good for the eyes and respiratory tract of swimmers.More is not better in this case.

We can all argue til the cows come home about ideal dosing levels, so just to note that most (all?) public health authorities recommend levels at least double 0.5* for publicly available pools and the trouble with trying to maintain 0.5 is that it can so easily slip into insanitary territory.

 

 

 

Salt chlorinated pools are different animals again - I've seen it said that 2.0 free chlorine is a minimum.

PUBLIC POOLS

0.5 PPM of free chlorine is the absolute minimum to prevent normal cross infection between bathers,   mainly ecoli ,  it is not a target level  there are different schools of thought as to what the correct levels of free chlorine should be.. Normal levels of 0.5- 0.75 are however permitted  if a primary disinfection such as UV or ozone are used, remembering public pools will run there filtration systems 24/7 with auto dosing of chemicals.

Home Pools

Home pools are a different kettle of fish .Choose a level you are happy with usually about 1.5 - 2ppm make sure your ph is around 7.2 - 7.4 and your cynuric acid levels are around the 30- max 40 ppm over use of cynuric has no benefit whatsoever , intfact using electronic measuring of free chlorine (redox potential  or HRR) has shown that cynuric acid over 30ppm has a detrimental effect on the oxidizing properties of the chlorine (hypochlorus acid) . Teach yourself about balanced water and how to maintain it.

 

Or you could rely on the bucket and chuck it method adopted by pool companies and end up swimming in a chemical soup.Ask to see the results of any pool tests.