If you’ve owned a pool for anytime, you’ll have heard that you need to “shock your pool.” We always say shock your pool at least once a week during the summer, and when the weather is hot, and when it’s looking cloudy. But what does shocking actually do? What is shock?
Shock is a pool and hot tub chemical that rids your water of any unwanted bacteria. Essentially, it cleans your water.
To understand how shock works, you first need to understand how chlorine works to sanitize pools. There are two types of chlorine: free chlorine and combined chlorine.
Free chlorine is the chlorine that actively works to sanitize your water. It does this by attaching itself to unwanted particles and bacteria.
When free chlorine is attached to these particles, it then becomes combined chlorine. When chlorine is combined, it remains in the water, unable to be used again.
To clear up the combined chlorine, you need to shock your water. The shock will gas off the combined chlorine, which cleans up your pool.
There are several different kinds of shock you can use to clean your pool:
Super Shock
Super Shock is the most commonly used shock. This chemical is a 65% chlorine shock with a calcium base.
This is the least expensive shock because of the base ingredient. When a large amount of Super Shock is used in a pool, the calcium might cloud the water, which will take up to 12 hours to clear up.
Super Shock should not be used in hot tubs because of the calcium. Hot tubs have smaller volumes of water and therefore cannot accommodate the large amount of calcium, whereas pools can.
Although there’s risk of making your water cloudy, this shock is excellent for weekly maintenance and for cleaning up algae.
Easy Shock
Easy Shock is rarely used for pools, but commonly used for hot tubs. This is a chlorine shock like Super Shock, but Easy Shock has a lithium base.
Easy Shock will never cloud your water because of the base ingredient.
But it’s the lithium that makes the shock so expensive. The material, Lithium, is now primarily used to make batteries, making it scarce for chemical companies.
Brite Plus
Unlike the last two shocks, Brite Plus is not a chlorine shock. It’s an oxidizer. What that means is that it gasses off the combined chlorine in swimming pools without the use of chlorine.
Many people use this shock in their hot tubs (both bromine and chlorine) because it’s less expensive than Easy Shock, but customers also like to use it in their swimming pools.
Brite Plus is perfect for when you have many people swimming in the pool day in and day out and you don’t want to spike the chlorine levels with a chlorinated shock. You can throw Brite Plus in the pool to clean the water without harming swimmers’ skin.
This oxidizer is also great for families with small children. When babies and toddlers are using the pool, you don’t want to use harsh chemicals that might harm their sensitive skin. So, clean out the water with Brite Plus.
Come visit us at Valley Pool and Spa to talk about which shock is best for you!