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Chlorine Shock Treatment

By Ben Mester

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Published: 22Nov2010
Word count: 508
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I recently wrote an article on non chlorine shock treatment for pools and spas, and thought I'd write a little something about regular chlorine shock treatment. Chlorine shock treatment is basically a maintenance procedure where a very large amount of chlorine is introduced into a pool or spa, sometimes up to 10 times the normal amount, thereby shocking the chlorine in water back into a normal state. What exactly does that mean?

Well in basic terms, chlorine is added to a pool, spa, or hot tub in order to sanitize and purify the water against harmful bacteria, germs, and algae. And it does the job very well. But what ends up happening is that most of the chlorine in the water comes into contact with other foreign particles, things like sunscreen, dirt, hair, skin, lotions, bugs, grass, etc. When the chlorine comes into contact with these foreign particles, it ionizes them and the chlorine itself becomes what's known as a combined chlorine, or chloramines. These particles of combined chlorines give off a very strong chlorine smell and also cause irritation to the eyes and nose. Chlorine shock treatment attempts to break down these combined chlorines, or chloramines, and return them to their original state of being a free chlorine.

The main problem with chlorine shock treatments is that the procedure is very subjective. Opinions vary widely over how often to shock your pool or spa, and when is too much. Not only that, but because of the wide variety of different kinds of foreign debris that can enter the water, different solutions might work better. Many times an algaecide needs to be used in conjunction with chlorine shock because an algae problem cannot always be easily solved with chlorine shock alone.

Another problem with chlorine shock is that the pool often seems to get worse before it gets better, and repeating chlorine shock multiple times is sometimes required, which worries people. What often happens is that the invisible organic debris in the pool, such as a thin coating of algae on everything, is killed by the first shock treatment and is released into the water, making it appear cloudy or otherwise just plain dirty. People get worried that they've added too much chlorine or that something went wrong. What's really the case is that another chlorine shock treatment is needed, and perhaps even a third, to further obliterate the foreign debris and return the free chlorine levels back to correct levels.

This understandably worries many pool or spa owners who don't want to keep on dumping such intense levels of chlorine into their pool. That's why I really like the idea of non chlorine shock. Because of the fact that pools often get filled with organic debris that needs to be eliminated, other methods such as monopersulfate, also known as MPS, is a great idea. This compound will help eliminate much of the debris that gets into the pool, allowing the free chlorine levels to stay at their peak and work as sanitizing agents like they were meant to.

Thanks for stopping by and reading about chlorine shock treatment. For more on the subject, check out another of my articles on non chlorine shock treatment.

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