Understanding Swimming Pool Chlorine

Chlorine is one of the longest tenured pool supplies. For decades, chlorine has been the key to keeping a personal swimming pool clean without a lot of manual labor and water replacement. However, in an era where there is a notion that anything chemical is bad, there is a great deal of misunderstanding about chlorine. Swimming pool chlorine is not only a good safety precaution for you, but for the entire surrounding environment.

Chlorine itself is one of the basic elements. There is nothing unnatural about chlorine atoms. As a matter of fact, all of your salts contain chlorine. In most molecular combinations, chlorine is a harmless material to animals and plants. In some cases, these molecules are a life necessity. However, chlorine that is separated from other elements can be quite lethal.

Swimming Pool Chlorine Safety

Chlorine is effective as a swimming pool cleaning agent when it is in the form of a chlorine ion. These ions travel around looking for other elements with which to combine. Unfortunately, if your eyes or skin are the bonding targets of these chlorine ions, you can end up with some chemical burns. This generally only happens if the chlorine concentration is very high. Swimming pool chlorine levels need to be carefully monitored and controlled to ensure that there is just the right amount of chlorine to clean the water without doing any harm to people.

Pools of water tend to attract all sorts of bacteria and organisms. These organisms come from swimmers, the air, dirt, animals, and a variety of other sources. Without the right balance of chlorine to damage these potentially harmful organisms, sitting water, such as your swimming pool, would be a dangerous place to swim.

On the other hand, if the chlorine becomes too concentrated, your swimming pool will be a dangerous place to swim because the chlorine will damage your cells the way it damages microorganisms in smaller concentrations. Chlorine tablets are designed to provide just the right doses of chlorine to keep your pool safe.

Bromine as a Swimming Pool Chlorine Alternative

It is possible to use bromine instead of chlorine. Swimming pool bromine acts in pretty much the same way chlorine does. For those who are chlorine sensitive, bromine can serve as a preferred alternative.

One of the benefits of bromine is that it dissolves more slowly, even without the use of chemical stabilizers, making the cleaning effects last longer. This can also lead to less skin irritation. Swimming pool bromine is usually released through an automatic feeder system. Unfortunately, bromine tends to cost significantly more than chlorine.

If you have trouble with chlorine, there are alternative bromine delivery methods. Like pool chlorine, pool bromine comes as a mixed solution, sticks, granules, a powder, or tablets.

Whether you use chlorine or bromine, it is important that you only use swimming pool supplies of these substances to clean your pool. Using laundry chlorine or laboratory bromine in your swimming pool is very dangerous. Some people have foolishly tried to save a few dollars by using these products. Swimming pool formulations of these chemicals are made with environmental safety in mind. Just make sure you follow the directions.