1. Do not forget to enter your pool water volume in the field Pool Size
2. Test your poor bromine (BR) level and enter value in the field Current BR
3. If you use bleach to activate the bromide bank, select bleach concentration
(see how in Chlorine Help)
4. Enter the bromine level that you want to get in field BR target
5. Or move the slide selector below the field to the desired BR value.
6. Push Enter after you finish entering data. When using slider, that is not required
7. Find below, in highlighted lines, several chemical products and doses needed to
achieve the new BR level
PLEASE NOTE: Once a indoor pool is treated with any kind of bromine, or a outdoor pool is treated with bromine tabs, it is always a Bromine pool until it is drained.
There are basically 2 ways to provide the pool with bromine sanitizer: in the 1-step system, the bromine is put directly into water as an ingredient in the bromine tablets. In the 2-step system, the active bromine is generated in the pool itself, by oxidation of ions of a previously established bromide ion reserve (bromide bank). The first thing is to create the bromide bank by adding enough bromide salt into the water. From then, the oxidizer agent (usually, chlorine or MPS or ozone) needs to be added on a regular basis to oxidize the bromide ions into active bromine.
The 2-step bromine systems (bromine generation in the pool)
The first step is to add bromine salt to water to set up an initial bromide reserve of not less than 30 ppm. You need to add 1.25 gr of bromine salt per each m³ of your pool to increase 1 ppm the bromide bank. That means 1,25*30*50 = 2 kg of salt bromine to for a pool of 50 cubic meters.
You can also create the bromide-bank by starting pool sanitation with bromine tablets. But, depending on several factors, it may take days or weeks until the bromine bank is properly established.
In the second step, oxidizer is supplied in a daily basis, to generate enough bromine to keep up a bromine level within 2 and 4 ppm (3 to 6 for spas). Therefore, the generated bromine is already distributed in the mass of water, and the bromine level increases immediately.
The CALCULATOR displays the amount of product needed for increasing the bromine level using 2 different oxidants at your choice:
* Liquid chlorine (bleach , sodium hypochorite)
* Dry, unstabilized chlorine (calcium hypochlorite)
Chlorine-based bleach is particularly suitable for its automatic dosing to the pool thanks to its liquid format. Just a simple dosing pump governed by a ORP controller. The automatic dosing of sodium hypochlorite or MPS is more complex due to its fast dissolving formats. If calcium hypochlorite is used as oxidizing agent, it must be taken the same precautions to prevent a excesive elevation of calcium hardness like it happens in chlorine-sanitized pools
The 2-step bromine systems (by direct addition of active bromine)
The bromine is provided by erosion of tabs of bromochloro or dibromo placed in a dispenser (brominator) or the skimmer. The CALCULATOR displays the amount in weight of both compounds required to rise the bromine level up to the desired value. But attention, both types are very slow dissolution tablets, depending on size of the dispenser it can take days or weeks until enough dissolved bromine is put into the pool.
In practice, you need to test for bromine every 2/3 days and adjust your brominator to keep bromine level within the proper range (2-4 ppm in pools, 3-6 ppm in spas) until it has settled down.
But the most convenient and effective way it to use a ORP controller with a set-point set within the range of 700 to 750 mV. The controller continuously continuously the water ORP and acts on a final control element (may be a 3-ways motor or solenoid operated valve) to adjust the time the water pass through the brominator to keep up the water ORP close to the set point.
BCDMH is a compound of chlorine and bromine. When initiating the water treatment with this compound, the two sanitizers, chlorine and bromine, coexist in the water, summing their sanitizing capabilities. Sooner or later, a sufficient reserve of bromide is generated and from then, all the chlorine is reduced to bromine All the sanitizer is already just bromine.
In a few weeks we will have a bromide bank like to that we could have created by direct addition of bromine salt. That means after a while we can switch over to the 2-steps bromine system. Simply remove or reduce the number of bromine tablets in the skimmer or brominator and start dosing with oxidant (chlorine, MPS or ozone). Of course it is perfectly possible to continue with a mixed load sharing between bromine directly provided by the tablets and bromine generated by adding chlorine, ozone or MPS.
The first option to reduce the pool o spa bromine content is letting the pool stay with no bromine adds. The bromine will dissipate of its own accord in a few days. The sun dries up and burns the bromine in the water, so the level of bromine will automatically lower.
If you are in a hurry, such as after a bromine shock or in indoor pools, you can force bromine to lower adding a bromine neutralizer. When you enter in the CALCULATOR a Target BR less than Current BR, the calculator display how much sodium tyosulphate needs you to meet the new lower bromine level.
The sodium thiosulphate lowers the active bromine level, but do not affects the bromide bank. Even if you add enough sodium thiosulphate to cut to 0 ppm the bromine content, your pool / spa continue to be bromine sanitized until the bromide level gets below a few ppm.