Swimming Pool Chemical - Calcium Chloride
Calcium Chloride is a chemical compound of chlorine and calcium and is used to balance swimming pool water. To maintain the pool water’s health and safety, the water must always have a proper balance of alkalinity, acidity, and calcium hardness. As the environment changes, it affects pool water. Adding calcium chloride to a pool will maintain calcium hardness.
If the pool water is hard, the excess of calcium will show as a white scale on the pool surface. The amount of calcium chloride in the water will need to be reduced. If the water is too soft, pool pipes and fixtures will start to erode. You will need to add calcium chloride to level the balance.
Calcium Chloride Custom Packaging
Weifang Bell Chemical is a swimming pool chemical top factory in China. We supply calcium chloride small packaging and custom packaging for retail purpose. We provide various customized designs and packagings.
> 0.5kg(or 1lb),1kg(or 2lb),2kg(or 5lb),3kg,4kg(or 10lb),8kg,10kg,25kg or 50lb
> Bags, Pails, Jars, Jugs, Pots, Tubes, Drums, custom packaging.
The advantages of Calcium Chloride
- Hard pool water has too much calcium, whereas soft pool water has too little
- Calcium chloride helps to boost calcium levels in soft water
- Calcium chloride are available in forms of powder, granule, tablets
- Calcium chloride can also be used as deicer, snow melting agent, desiccant
- Make sure to carefully calculate how much calcium chloride to add to the pool water
- We provide Pool Chemical Calcium Chloride Custom Packaging
More about Calcium Chloride
What is Calcium Chloride and How Does it Work?
Calcium chloride is a salt compound of calcium and chlorine. Calcium chloride is used to maintain the calcium hardness of swimming water at a proper level. The recommended hardness range is 200-400 ppm. Anything over 400 ppm risks hard water that can damage the pool and equipment. Anything less than 200 ppm can bring the pool alkalinity down, corrode objects in the swimming pool, and irritate swimmers’ skin and eyes. Test weekly for the hardness level. If your pool water has lower calcium after test, follow the steps below to get it back to normal. If your pool gets too much calcium, you should move to How to Lower Calcium Hardness in Your Pool.
How to Add Calcium Chloride to Your Pool ?
Step 1: Prepare Your Pool
I understand the temptation to dump calcium chloride in your pool straight away, but it’s vital that you first prepare your pool.
To do so, test your water’s pH, total alkalinity, and chlorine. Each of these numbers should fall within the following ranges:
- pH: 7.4 – 7.6
- Total alkalinity: 80 – 120 ppm
- Chlorine: 1 – 3 ppm
You shouldn’t have issues testing for these three items if you own a digital tester. However, if you buy test strips, double-check to make sure the test includes them.
Should you discover that any of these items are outside the recommended range, rest easy. They’re easy to fix by using the right products to counterbalance them.
After properly balancing your pool water, you’re ready to start addressing its low calcium issue.
Step 2: Calculate the Amount of Calcium Chloride
You’ll need to know the following to calculate how much calcium chloride you should put in your water:
- Current calcium hardness (in ppm)
- How many gallons of water are in your pool
As a general rule, for every ten ppm of calcium, your pool water needs to increase; you should add two ounces of calcium chloride per 1,000 gallons of water.
Phew, that’s a mouthful! Let me break it down for you.
Let’s say you need to increase your calcium levels by 30 ppm, and you own a 20,000-gallon pool.
That means you’ll need to divide 30 ppm by ten ppm, which equals 3 ppm. Then, multiply three by two ounces (for 1,000 gallons of water), which gives you six. That’s the number for 1,000 gallons of water.
Given that you have 20,000 gallons of water, you need to multiply six by 20, which gives you 60 ounces of calcium chloride that you’ll need to add to your pool water.
Step 3: Get Your Gear Ready
With the calcium chloride calculations under your belt, the hardest part is over. However, this next step is critical to ensure you stay safe during the application process.
On its own, calcium chloride isn’t a very harmful chemical. But when you add it to water, it becomes extremely hot—it could even burn you if you’re not careful.
For this reason, you must wear appropriate clothing to stay safe. You should wear a well-fitted pair of goggles, a long sleeve shirt and pants, and gloves with chemical-resistant properties.
According to a study on soft tissue necrosis, calcium carbonate rarely causes skin issues in its salt form. However, the heat released when calcium chloride mixes with water can cause burns and calcium deposits on the skin.
Step 4: Prepare the Mixture
You should not dump the calcium chloride directly into your pool. Instead, grab a five-gallon bucket and fill it about 75% with water from your pool. With your calculations in hand, pour the appropriate amount of calcium carbonate in ounces into the bucket.
Make sure to pour slowly because of the hot chemical reaction the calcium carbonate will have. Furthermore, remember to never pour water on top of calcium carbonate. For your safety, always put pool water in the bucket first, followed by the chemical.
Step 5: Add the Calcium Carbonate to Your Pool
With your pool pump turned on, circle the circumference of your pool and gradually pour the calcium carbonate mixture into the water.
There are a few things to keep in mind during this time. First, this mixture can destroy a pool’s finish, so be careful to keep it from splashing up on the sides. Secondly, brush the sides of the walls after you pour in the substance to help move the solution around the water.
How to Lower Calcium Hardness in Your Pool ?
Once you test the water and determine the calcium level is too high, you’ll need to bring it down.
- Drain and replace some water. Before you replace the water, test your water source. If it’s high in calcium, try using a hose filter to keep some of the minerals out. Otherwise, this will be an exercise in futility.
- Use pool flocculant. If you can’t or don’t want to drain any water from the pool, try using pool floc to clump the excess calcium. Once the clumps form, you’ll need to manually vacuum your pool to remove them. Important: Be sure to turn your pump and filter off before putting floc in the water. You do not want to get any flocculant in your filter, or you’ll need to replace the filter medium. To that end, you also need to ensure you vacuum to waste. This means you can’t use floc if you have a cartridge filter.
- Try muriatic acid. If draining and floc don’t work, you can add muriatic acid as a last resort. It won’t actually reduce the water’s calcium hardness, but it will raise the saturation level, which can help bring the water back into balance.