cleaning solution

[SeanD]

sorry, i know this has come up a lot. i'm finally getting around to sanitizing my bins and have read to use a 20:1 bleach:water solution. but as i think about how much bleach to pour into a 32 gallon barrel, that's a gallon and a half of bleach. that seems like a crazy high amount of bleach.

is that right?

sean

[maple flats]

I think 5% is right but you do not need to fill the bin. A solution of 5% which is enough to brush around the bin, let set and brush again then dump into the next bin and repeat will work just fine. This is how i do it except I use peroxide. With the bleach be sure to rinse well after sanitising and you will be OK.

[Brent]

for what it's worth you can keep a swimming pool sanitized at 3 parts per million. For a shock treatment you raise that to about 15 parts per million.

you can keep drinking water sanitized at about the same levels.

so I would say 5% is way overkill. that would be 50,000 parts per million.

at the lower concentration, you should give it some time to do it's thing. I would use 15 ppm.
if you have a pool test kit, dump the chlorine solution into the tank and test it an hour or so later. If the chlorine level
goes down significantly, it is being 'consumed' while it oxodizes "stuff" Add more chlorine and retest later. When the level does not go down
significantly, everything has been oxodized. Rinse well.

For a few years I kept my pool crystal clear using the above guidelines. I used bleach as the chlorine source, being the cheapest readily available source. Get plain bleach. No perfumes. Not "color safe". Just plain bleach. Watch on the label for the concentration. Most domestic bleach is 5.25%. Cut rate stuff is about 3.5% The 'liquid chlorine' sold in pool stores in nothing more or less than bleach. No magic. It just makes money for the pool stores. It is about 11 1/2% concentration. Higher concentrations than that will break down too fast to be practical.

If you want to read up see poolforums.com or troubefreepools.com

[Haynes Forest Products]

I was at Home Depot and in a hurry and grabed a gallon of bleach and told my helper dump it into a water feature to kill the alge NO PLANTS OR FISH. Well i didnt notice that it was consentrate 30-1 It looked like STP coming out of the jug. Pond is nice and clean

[SeanD]

In the end I went with the 20:1 ratio, but that still seemed strong as I was using it. I could feel the sliminess of the bleach on my hands as I was scrubbing. I added more water to knock it down a bit. A good rinse took care of everything in the end - that is according to the sniff test.

I didn't intend to put this all off until May, but it was pretty nice doing this in 80 deg. weather. Are these good to go for next season or should I sanitize again next brrrrrrrr February?

Sean

[peacemaker]

any one using peroxide instead of bleach

[OGDENS SUGAR BUSH]

peacemaker yes

RICH

[peacemaker]

i have been the last two seasons i like it but it will destroy your hands

[OGDENS SUGAR BUSH]

this was my first year or it

RICH

[brookledge]

Another product that I have used and it workd good is Calcium Hypoclorite it is available from pool supply stores. I like it because it has no sodium in it that attacts the squirrels like bleach (sodium hypoclorite)
Keith

[maple flats]

I use peroxide and really like it. I wear nytril gloves when using it. Of 35% strength peroxide (food grade) I use 1qt/100 gal water. No rinsing needed because any that does not drain out (I do drain it briefly) quickly breaks down to water and hydrogen, the hydrogen vaporizes and is gone, leaving pure water and no salts.

[maple flats]

Maybe those are nitryl gloves, something like that.

[peacemaker]

i know what u mean i use the black kitchen gloves ... and if its cold out u can get away with surgical gloves under some winter ones ... when i ran rescue and was cutting cars we used two pair of rubbbers under our leathers ...that way if u got into some blood your hands where protected and the leather shells keep the rubbers from tearing