After shocking your pool you need to add a small amount of Pool Clarifier that will polish and help your filter clean Pool’s water more efficiently along with a good quality Pool Flocculant that works in tangent with a Clarifier during those times when your pool is in trouble or vulnerable to usage and temperature. Each product has an important function. What is the difference between Pool Clarifiers and Pool Flocculants?
Pool Clarifier collects tiny particles in suspension after shock or when the pool’s H2O has other issues-binding them together making them bigger trapping them in the filter. Pool Flocculants help particles clump together & settle out onto the pool floor with the filter off then vacuumed & removed
Using a Clarifier product along with Pool Flocculants should be part of a pool regular maintenance program and the best way to keep your pool and filtering system’s overall condition and health operating smoothly when you need your pool open during those hot summer days that are coming.
Pool Clarifiers vs Pool Flocculant
Pool clarifier products are polymers that act as coagulants on suspended particles in the water. Specifically, clarifiers impart cations or positively charged ions to the pool, which are attracted to negatively charged suspended particles.
Opposites Attract, and when adding a clarifier to a pool, the positive (+) polymer molecules immediately bond with the negative (-) particles that make pool water cloudy. As attraction continues, the particle quickly grows from microscopic size to a larger clump that can be removed by your pool’s filtering system called pin floc.
An important distinction to make with most pool clarifiers is that do not destroy particulate matter or consume colloidal solids that you see in the pool. They simply gather them up by clinging them together making larger and larger clumps, to a size that will be trapped in your pool filter. A properly operating pool filter is of paramount importance, to the pool water clarifier’s success.
Pool Clarifier Chemicals
Use the Clarifier as part of your Maintenance Schedule. Like this really good product available through Amazon called SeaKlear Chitosan Clarifier for Pools | 1 qt | 12 Pack that will last the entire season. Pool clarifiers are “mild” versions of flocculant used as a regular maintenance cleaning solution that keeps your swimming pool filter working well and the pool water clear and polished looking.
A swimming pool clarifier is a cleaning product for pool water that comes in a liquid or a powdered substance that when used in the pool attracts tiny solids and holds them together. This helps the cleaning process of the filter, will add clarity to the pool water, and is used as a maintenance solution in pool care to prevent cloudy pools.
Pool clarifiers typically contain positively charged particles that assist in the bonding process with particles in your pool. Some pool clarifiers work by using enzymes, which consume the natural particles in your pool.
The two most common chemicals used as pool clarifiers are ammonium chloride, typically sold as a solution, and polyacrylamides, which often come as a gel-like tablet. There are also more natural clarifiers available, such as those made out of chitosan, a sugar derived from the shells of shellfish.
The most popular chemical used in pool flocculants is aluminum sulfate, which causes polluting particles to sink to the floor of your pool and form a concentrated mass of debris.
Pool Flocculant and Pool Clarifiers Chemicals
A flocculant used in pools is similar to a pool clarifier in that it binds smaller particles together as floc but is faster and more effective than a clarifier. A Flocculant product is best for more severe cases. Your pool water is already cloudy and the solids won’t settle to the bottom of the pool and the pool filter can’t remove them from the water.
The main ingredient in the pool or spa flocculants is aluminum sulfate. Clarifiers are often confused with flocculents, which are similar products but work differently in the worst cases in your swimming pool.
The Aluminum Sulfate products, are called simply Alum by those in the know. Alum is used as a flocculant, as it can clog pool filters. After adding a Pool Floc product the filter is shut off, to allow the heavy particles to sink to the pool floor, usually overnight. A slow vacuum to waste the following day will expel the gel-like material, which has the consistency of wet toilet paper.
A Pool Flocculant will attract suspended particles to itself, in the pool water resulting in marble-sized clumps that sink slowly to the bottom of the pool. The filter pump remains off during treatment, and after 8-12 hours or longer, the better-a-thick white carpet needs to be slowly vacuumed – to waste. If it doesn’t work completely the 1st time do it a 2nd time.
Use the Flocculant when you have a pool water quality issue. Like this quality Flocculant, available through Amazon called BioGuard PowerFloc (32 oz) (12 Pack) that will last the entire season.
Chemicals in Flocculant and Pool Clarifier
Pool clarifiers typically contain positively charged particles that assist in the bonding process with particles in your pool. Some pool clarifiers work by using enzymes, which consume the natural particles in your pool.
The two most common chemicals used as pool clarifiers are ammonium chloride, typically sold as a solution, and polyacrylamides, which often come as a gel-like tablet. There are also more natural clarifiers available, such as those made out of chitosan, a sugar derived from the shells of shellfish.
The most popular chemical used in pool flocculants is aluminum sulfate, which causes polluting particles to sink to the floor of your pool and form a concentrated mass of debris. A pool floc is faster and more effective than a pool clarifier.
Floc is stronger than a clarifier and forms larger clumps that sink to the bottom of your pool. Pool clarifiers are “mild” versions of flocculant. The advantages of using flocculants are many. Flocculants build particle size even faster and flocculants can be used after a clarifier is added to the pool water.
How To Add Pool Clarifiers for Pool Water Maintenance
- Read and follow label instructions on the Clarifier product exactly, in regards to pool water balance requirements, correct dosage, application method, and pool filtration following treatment.
- Don’t Overdose the pool with polymer Clarifiers can change the charge of the suspended particles from negative (-) to positive (+), resulting in increased pool water turbidity.
- If pool clarity problems begin with an algae bloom, be sure to kill algae before clarifier treatment. This requires 10-30 ppm of chlorine, with a suitably low pH of around 7.2.-7.4
- Operate the pool filter 24 hours per day during treatment, or as long as possible each day and night to improve circulation and filtration.
- Resist the urge to over-clean the pool filter. Backwash or clean the filter only when the pressure gauge on the pumps has risen 7-9 lbs.
- Always maintain proper pool H2O balance and chlorine levels following the treatment of clarifier or flocculent chemicals in a pool. Some pool clarifiers may increase pool pH levels.
Pool Flocculant and Pool Filter for a Cloudy Pool Water
- Adjust the pH to 7.4-7.6
- Test pool water chemistry (balance water chemistry)
- Dilute Pool Flocculant-Read the directions on the bottle to find out how much water to add to the product to dilute it
- Add the pool flocculant to a five-gallon bucket to mix it up in. Pour the mix around the edge of the entire pool.
- Run your pool pump for 2 hours(without the pool filter)
- Let the water in the pool sit still for at least 8 hrs. or better let sit still overnight
- Vacuum your pool to waste by removing the blanket of debris from the pool floor
- Backwash the pool filter for any sediment that made its way into the vessel
- Test the Pool water chemistry for balance
There are other Pool Flocculant products that you pour directly into the pool skimmers that are pre-measured and very convenient. There are also combination Clarifier/Flocculant/ H2O Polishers products that work at different levels and degrees of cloudiness.
Once your pool breaks down with cloudy solids whether it is from pH or other balance problems it’s too late. Don’t bother to add a clarifier product to the pool water. Find a flocculant to add that will form clumps of solids from the cloudy pool water and settle those clumps to the bottom of the pool.
Find your specific need I would recommend after 30 years of operating my 45,000-gallon inground pool that you use both a Clarifier for regularly scheduled maintenance and a Pool Flocculant that will turn over a green pool faster!
Conclusion:
Pool Clarifier collects tiny particles in suspension after shock or when the pool’s H2O has other issues-binding them together making them bigger trapping them in the filter. Pool Flocculants help particles clump together & settle out onto the pool floor with the filter off then vacuumed & removed
Using a Clarifier product along with Pool Flocculants should be part of a pool regular maintenance program and the best way to keep your pool and filtering system’s overall condition and health operating smoothly when you need your pool open during those hot summer days that are coming.
Reference:
Leslie Pool Care- What is the Difference between Clarifier and Flocculant
