- So one of the questions we get asked the most
is what's the difference between stabilized chlorine
and unstabilized chlorine?
Well, I'm glad you asked,
because we're finally gonna answer that...
Well, we've answered the question before on our website,
but in this video, we are gonna answer the question,
which one should you use, what's the difference,
let's find out.
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All right, just a quick disclaimer,
everybody has a different way of taking care of a pool,
and this is just our way of doing it,
and based on my many, many years in the pool industry,
and the research that we've done here at Swim University.
And if I missed anything in this video, please,
leave a comment below, and we'll clear things up.
All right, so first, what is chlorine?
Chlorine is a sanitizer, it is a halogen sanitizer,
it is one of the most effective sanitizers
for your swimming pool, and it is the most common.
Normally, we wanna keep our chlorine
between one and three parts per million.
If you have a normal chlorine pool or a saltwater pool,
both of those should stay roughly around
three parts per million of chlorine at all times
to make sure that your pool is completely sanitized.
Now there are two different types of chlorine, there is...
And you'll commonly see them referred to
as stabilized and unstabilized chlorine.
So unstabilized chlorine is generally just chlorine,
it is what it is, and the reason it's unstabilized
is because when you add it to your pool, the UV rays
from the sun will burn off the chlorine very fast.
And so chlorine that's unstabilized tends to come
in a powder form or a granular form,
similar to shock, or just like, chlorine granulars
that you would throw directly into the pool.
In fact, if you buy something called shock,
then it's probably unstabilized chlorine,
but you wanna check the label, because again,
there are so many different types of shocks out there.
But commonly, shock is unstabilized chlorine.
And what that means is that the chlorine
is susceptible to the sun burning it off.
There is no protectant, it is not stabilized,
which is the opposite of unstabilized,
where stabilized chlorine protects it
from being burned off by the sun.
Not 100%, but it protects it.
Now why would you add unstabilized chlorine to a pool
if the sun's just gonna burn it off?
Well, typically you would add it
because you want the sun to burn it off,
meaning it's a short burst of chlorine
that you're trying to add to the pool,
and you want it to be super high.
So this is what shocking is, shocking is really just
a method of chlorination, and so when you add shock
to a pool, or a bunch of unstabilized chlorine to a pool,
you are raising the chlorine level of that pool
to a very, very high level, which is killing bacteria,
and oxidizing the current chlorine that's in there.
And so when you do that, you want the sun when it comes out
to burn that chlorine off as fast as possible
so that you can be back down to a normal level.
So typically, shock, or any granular chlorine,
is unstabilized chlorine,
meaning that it is susceptible to the sun.
And so if you watch our shocking video,
which we have on this channel,
you'll know that shocking your pool,
or at least we recommend, shocking your pool at night,
so that you get the most out of that shock,
because the sun's not out, it's not gonna burn off chlorine,
you have it mix into the pool,
it's gonna be high chlorine for a very long period of time
when really no one is swimming in it,
I mean, unless you're swimming in the middle of the night,
but if you're shocking it, do not swim in it.
And the chlorine will be high,
and then when the sun comes out the next day,
it'll start to burn it off.
Now if you want to use unstabilized chlorine
to sanitize your pool, you can certainly do that.
They actually make a chemical called cyanuric acid,
which is what makes chlorine stable.
It is an acid that you would put into the pool
that is also known as chlorine stabilizer.
See?
And the chlorine stabilizer will actually protect
the chlorine from being burned off by the sun.
Now typically you won't see anything
labeled unstabilized chlorine, like you're not gonna go
and see a bag of shock, or any bucket of chlorine,
that says unstabilized chlorine.
When you look for shock,
you wanna look for calcium hypochlorite,
which is essentially unstabilized chlorine.
Okay, so what is stabilized chlorine?
Well, it's the opposite of unstabilized chlorine.
Uh-duh!
I'm sorry, that was mean.
It usually comes in the form of a tablet.
So if you're buying chlorine tablets
at your local pool store or online,
and it's the active ingredient is trichlor,
then chances are you have stabilized chlorine,
which means it has cyanuric acid in it,
which protects it from being burned off
by the UV rays of the sun.
And this is great too, because you can use shock,
or unstabilized chlorine, if you wanna super-chlorinate
your water, and kill a lot of bacteria,
and then you can use stabilized chlorine
to keep the chlorine at around three parts per million
at all times, and the stabilized chlorine
usually lasts about three to five times longer
than unstabilized chlorine,
and when you add these pucks to your pool,
you can add it via a chlorine floater,
or within your skimmer basket,
or what we recommend is to add them
to a automatic chlorinator, that is your best bet
for adding chlorine pucks and keeping the water
at three parts per million in a classic chlorine pool.
But if you're adding chlorine pucks, or chlorine tablets,
and they are stabilized, because they're trichlor,
then it is adding chlorine stabilizer,
or cyanuric acid to your water, in very, very low amounts
because it is stabilized chlorine, that's what that means.
But, either way, you're gonna wanna add chlorine stabilizer
or cyanuric acid to your water,
whether you're using just unstabilized chlorine
or a mix of unstabilized and stabilized chlorine,
just to make sure that both of those things
are kind of stabilized together, and you wanna keep
your cyanuric acid at a very specific level.
You wanna keep the cyanuric acid
between 30 and 80 parts per million.
Ideally, you wanna keep it at around 50 parts per million.
If your cyanuric level goes too high,
it can cause problems with your sanitizers,
speaking of chlorine, and the only way
to lower cyanuric acid is to dilute your pool water.
Okay, so hopefully you know the difference
between stabilized and unstabilized chlorine,
it's pretty simple.
So the final question is, well, which one should you use?
If you have an outdoor pool, you're gonna wanna use
a combination of both unstabilized and stabilized chlorine.
Unstabilized chlorine for shocking and high-chlorination,
for oxidation in your water, and stabilized chlorine
for just general, you know, keeping your pool
at around three parts per million,
because it's just gonna last longer with the tablets,
and they're easier to add than constantly adding
unstabilized chlorine to your pool.
Now, if you have a saltwater pool,
you are constantly adding unstabilized chlorine
to your pool, and you can use cyanuric acid
to help the sun not to burn off the chlorine
that you're generating.
And whenever you super-chlorinate it,
again, you're just adding a bunch of unstabilized chlorine
to the pool, because you're not generating cyanuric acid
with a saltwater system,
you're gonna need to add that separately.
And then if you have an indoor pool,
you really are not bothered by the UV rays
of the sun too much if you have a, you know, a cover,
if you have the sun peaking through,
well then, you're gonna have to worry about it,
and if you have an indoor pool,
I recommend keeping your cyanuric acid,
or your chlorine stabilizer level,
at around 10 parts per million.
Okay, again, taking care of a pool,
everyone's got a different way of doing it,
there's different ranges when it comes to
how much cyanuric acid to add to a pool,
how much chlorine to add to the pool,
and generally that's why we like to give a large range,
but tell you what the ideal is,
and that's what we gave you here.
So the ideal for chlorine is around three parts,
or three parts per million, and with cyanuric acid,
you want it at about 50 parts per million.
Real quick, I also wanna mention that we have
a very, very in-depth course on how to take care
of your swimming pool, if you just go
to SwimUniversity.com/pool-care-handbook,
we have a 35-lesson video course, and counting,
and we have a full 30-plus-page digital e-book,
it's all together in one package
teaching you really in-depth stuff,
everything that you need to know
about taking care of a pool.
I just wanted to put that out there for ya
in case you were interested in something like that.
And everyone's got a different way of doing it,
and this is just our way, and I hope
that answers your questions, but if we didn't,
if we missed something, please leave a comment below,
and we'll definitely get it cleared up,
and perhaps do a future video.
Also, thank you so much for watching,
please subscribe to our channel.
You can get more pool and hot-tub care videos like this
every single week whenever we publish them
all season long, and check out some of our other videos.
You might find them useful, you might learn something
about your pool, and we're just trying to help.
So thanks again for watching, that's it.
As always, happy swimming.
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