To keep your swimming pool sparking clean and clear you need to use swimming pool chemicals to sanitize the water and keep the water balance correct. A well maintained pool will prevent algae from forming.

Pool chlorine or pool bromine is used to kill the water-borne bacteria which could be harmful to swimmers. Swimming Pool Chlorine is available as shock chlorine granules, chlorine tablets or chlorine granules. For each form it is important to read the labels carefully for information regarding dosing and Health and Safety. We have an on-line calculator to help you work out correct doses.

Algicides are added to pool water solely to prevent algae forming. To kill off algae already present shock chlorine dosing is required. There are two forms of algicides – longlife and regular.
Long life algicides are a one off water treatment. Usually dosed once in the spring for the swimming season, then again for the Winter close down period. Long life algicides mostly contain copper.
Regular algicide contains no copper but you have to remember to dose your water every two weeks, and with winter algicide every 8 weeks.

It is very important to keep your swimming pool water at the right acidity level. This is known as the pH balance. Acids and alkalis are the chemical you use to achieve this. Dose rates for these chemicals can be quite high so always make sure you have enough.

It is very common to get very small particles in your water that are too small to be picked up by the swimming pools filter. They can make your water look milky or cloudy but it is still safe to swim in. Clarifiers are a special chemical used to gather the small particles together to coagulate them into bigger particles so the filter can collect them. This is also known as flocculation so the chemicals used are sometimes abbreviated to “floc”. Floc tablets and granules are aluminium sulphate. Other water clarifiers are in liquid form and known as cationic liquid clarifiers. Different people have their own preference.

Testing your water is important so that you can manage the amounts of chemicals you put in the pool and a test kit is required. Test kits come in many types. The simplest type of swimming pool test kit is the test strip. Just swill it around in your pool water and the colour change tells you the levels of chlorine and pH. Comparator test kits involve taking a sample of the water and dropping a DPD tablet ( to test chlorine)and a Phenol Red tablet ( to test pH) in to the water. The colour change indicates the chemical levels and dosing can be done as required.