Every year, dust from the Sahara Desert in Africa travels across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas, and it is vitally important to our global ecosystem. The nutrient-rich Saharan dust, abundant in phosphorus, nourishes the ocean's phytoplankton and algae, while also acting as a natural fertilizer for the lush Amazon rainforest. That same dust also gets into swimming pools.
It's a common belief that bright, sunny days lead to more chlorine loss in swimming pools than cloudy, rainy days. But is this really the case? We set out to investigate this theory. This article explains what UV does to chlorine, and the impact of clouds and cyanuric acid on chlorine photolysis.
For swimming pool owners and service professionals, understanding the role of Cyanuric Acid (CYA) goes beyond its basic function of protecting chlorine from sunlight degradation. This article explores the role of cyanurate alkalinity as a pH buffering system and how it influences the overall water balance.
In this article, we explain how alkalinity buffers pH. We focus specifically on the significance of pKa values in water chemistry and how they impact the buffering capacity against changes in pH.
Chlorine products have different pH values when dissolved in water, but their impact on the pH of a swimming pool is not always significant. This article discusses how each chlorine type impacts pH and why.
In our last article, we introduced the concept of the Mole, a unit of measurement that allows us to weigh atoms, ions, and more complex molecules. This article expands on that lesson to demonstrate how to read product percentages listed on chemical labels. In particular, we're focused on Chlorine %.
In this article, we will discuss the significance of the mole in chemistry and how it is applied to chemical reactions and products.
One of the most common mistakes in pool chemistry testing is testing a water sample that is too cold. Let's discuss why.
Of the three most common types of in-ground swimming pools (concrete, vinyl liner, and fiberglass), fiberglass pools are sold as having the least maintenance and risk of problems. For the most part, that's true. But as we will learn in this article, water chemistry still matters in fiberglass pools. Especially calcium hardness and overall LSI balance.
Bromine is the most popular alternative sanitizer to chlorine. They are both halogen elements and neighbors on the Periodic Table. However, the chemistry of bromine differs from that of chlorine, and that's precisely what we'll delve into in this article.
Do you have sharp crystals in your swimming pool? Depending on your circumstances, they may not be calcium carbonate (aka calcite). They could be calcium sulfate crystals. This article will explain what calcium sulfate is, how and why it forms crystals in swimming pools, and how to prevent it.
When troubleshooting a swimming pool, it helps to know what can cause individual chemistry factors to increase and decrease. This article is an overview of the most common chemistries we measure in swimming pools, and what causes their levels to change up or down.
We have also included a Rule Your Pool Podcast episode for each factor we talk about in this article.