Salt water winter pool result question

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4x4tx

4x4tx

Well-known member
Jul 23, 2007
401
Greater Houston
Pool Size
17500
Surface
Plaster
Chlorine
Salt Water Generator
SWG Type
Pentair Intellichlor IC-40
My CYA is low right now, is that important to get up at this point? Also I have added probably 100 pds of salt over the last 6 weeks and my salt cell is still showing a red light. Does the cold water keep the salt from dissolving correctly?

My last test results were
1 FC
7.7 PH
90 TA
210 CH
20 CYA
2600 Salt
Temp 59
CSI -.31
 
Do not rely on your SWCG for salt levels. They show low when they are worn out. Please use a drop test kit to find out your actual salt concentration. Evaporation does not reduce salt concentration, so the salt does not ever decrease unless water is physically removed from the pool.

If you had proper salt levels and you did not drain your pool, then by adding an additional 100 pounds you probably have a little too much salt in your pool now.

Also, what red light is it showing? It can easily be a low temperature light. Many SWCGs stop working at 60f, some work all the way down to 50f.
 
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Its the low salt light on it and unit is just a year and a half old. I will test it myself tonight. Is my CYA an issue?

Also my pool overflows with rain so I turn water and my refill water comes after my water softner too.
 
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4x4tx said:
Its the low salt light on it and unit is just a year and a half old. I will test it myself tonight. Is my CYA an issue?

Also my pool overflows with rain so I turn water and my refill water comes after my water softner too.
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Overflowing to the drain due to rain is one reason the salt concentration would decrease. Although, 100 pounds of salt for your pool is a concentration of 683ppm, so the pool would need to overflow about a quarter of its entire volume for salt concentrations to be reduced by that much; multiple thousands of gallons.

For example, my pool overflowed about 6 inches so far during this rain season, which is about 1800 gallons for my pool, but that only reduced my salt concentration by ~200ppm.
 
So here's some relevant things you have going on.

The cell uses conductivity to determine salinity, and is affected by temperature and also other metals in water such as calcium. The cell test is easily skewed so you absolutely need a drop based kit for a better idea where you stand.

You get 50 inches of rain most years in Houston. Not all of that will perfectly displace pool water, but if it did, it's about a 85% water exchange in a 60 inch average depth pool. Maybe mother nature's free water exchange is half efficient due to mixing and your salt, CYA and calcium will drop 40% year over year, or somewhere in between. But you'll usually notice the drop in the off season when you arent paying nearly as close attention to the levels.

You'll need a bigger correction most springs than the occasional mid season top offs. But again, never dose from the cells say so.

For now, order a k-1766 pronto. You can add salt now at its direction, or just wait until it warms up and will consistently produce again. Some prefer to let it help when it can, but I'd personally rather get into a groove with LC once the temps made for inconsistent SWG production.
 
Newdude said:
So here's some relevant things you have going on.

The cell uses conductivity to determine salinity, and is affected by temperature and also other metals in water such as calcium. The cell test is easily skewed so you absolutely need a drop based kit for a better idea where you stand.

You get 50 inches of rain most years in Houston. Not all of that will perfectly displace pool water, but if it did, it's about a 85% water exchange in a 60 inch average depth pool. Maybe mother nature's free water exchange is half efficient due to mixing and your salt, CYA and calcium will drop 40% year over year, or somewhere in between. But you'll usually notice the drop in the off season when you arent paying nearly as close attention to the levels.

You'll need a bigger correction most springs than the occasional mid season top offs. But again, never dose from the cells say so.

For now, order a k-1766 pronto. You can add salt now at its direction, or just wait until it warms up and will consistently produce again. Some prefer to let it help when it can, but I'd personally rather get into a groove with LC once the temps made for inconsistent SWG production.
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So I have a salt test, I just did it tonight. It read 2400 so its still low, not sure why. Over the past month according to my app, I have dumped approx half a bag of salt so call that 20pds and now 3 40 pd bags of salt. I will take a new reading tomorrow but dang I dont understand the salt loss.

I retested tonight and my FC was 3 , TA was 120, PH over 8 and salt 2400. I dont know why my TA and PH swing so much.
 
4x4tx said:
its still low, not sure why. Over the past month according to my app, I have dumped approx half a bag of salt so call that 20pds and now 3 40 pd bags of salt.
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It was likely trending downward when the off season started and you paid less attention to it. Another month or two later it was considerably low and you put half of it back.

You can aim for 3000 now (allowing some wiggle room) or just wait until it's warm enough for regular SWG production to rebalance it then.

Do you have an autofill and overflow? A leak would accelerate the chemical loss from rain even further.
 
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Newdude said:
It was likely trending downward when the off season started and you paid less attention to it. Another month or two later it was considerably low and you put half of it back.

You can aim for 3000 now (allowing some wiggle room) or just wait until it's warm enough for regular SWG production to rebalance it then.

Do you have an autofill and overflow? A leak would accelerate the chemical loss from rain even further.
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I have an autofill and technically an overflow....I have a infinity edge pool that has a basin that will fill up and overflow out into the grass.

I will shoot at getting it up to 3000 lbs....I can put in some LC too although not really worried about it with water temps in the 50s
 

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4x4tx said:
have a infinity edge pool that has a basin that will fill up and overflow out into the grass.
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Keep an eye on the salt level and also the CYA. Both will dilute similar regardless of rain or leak/overflow. The CH will also if it's from rain but may skew if it's a leak because your fill water may be raising it some during the process, appearing as less loss.

if it's an autofill issue, the overflow area should be damp/wet when it hasn't rained.

If it's a leak, it may be wet somewhere else when it shouldn't be.

Hopefully it's just the standard issue drop that most of us see in the off season :)
 
Newdude said:
Keep an eye on the salt level and also the CYA. Both will dilute similar regardless of rain or leak/overflow. The CH will also if it's from rain but may skew if it's a leak because your fill water may be raising it some during the process, appearing as less loss.

if it's an autofill issue, the overflow area should be damp/wet when it hasn't rained.

If it's a leak, it may be wet somewhere else when it shouldn't be.

Hopefully it's just the standard issue drop that most of us see in the off season :)
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Thank you.

I definitely dont think I have a leak, I know when it rains it will overflow. Also my fill line water comes off my water softner so that definitely lowers my CH overtime as well. I used to always fight high CH at my old house and here I fight low because of the fill water.
 
4x4tx said:
Also my fill line water comes off my water softner so that definitely lowers my CH overtime as well. I used to always fight high CH at my old house and here I fight low because of the fill water.
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Ok so all 3 will fluctuate about the same. Keep an eye on it and also the water bill for any abnormal increases. Keep us posted. :)
 
4x4tx said:
So I have a salt test, I just did it tonight. It read 2400 so its still low, not sure why. Over the past month according to my app, I have dumped approx half a bag of salt so call that 20pds and now 3 40 pd bags of salt. I will take a new reading tomorrow but dang I dont understand the salt loss.

I retested tonight and my FC was 3 , TA was 120, PH over 8 and salt 2400. I dont know why my TA and PH swing so much.
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Your pH swings so much because your TA is really high. Let it get down to 50/60 and your pH rise will be a lot slower.
 
Bperry said:
Your pH swings so much because your TA is really high. Let it get down to 50/60 and your pH rise will be a lot slower.
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I put in some acid last night to lower my PH and TA...will keep doing that but for whatever reason my TA and PH wants to run high all the time. I know salt water pools tend to do that but mine is really quick to want to go to 8 plus PH and a TA of 130. Looking at my Pentair app which i know isnt that accurate but atleast it made sense....the salt level did go up from 2600 to 2800 this morning.
 
4x4tx said:
I put in some acid last night to lower my PH and TA...will keep doing that but for whatever reason my TA and PH wants to run high all the time. I know salt water pools tend to do that but mine is really quick to want to go to 8 plus PH and a TA of 130
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It’s not the salt water pool that makes it like that, it’s that trichlor tablets are acidic, which forces the pH and TA down over time. That’s why old school pool places recommended raising the TA so high to offset the trichlor acid effects. Once you stop using those, the water does what it does. Once your TA gets lower it should stabilize. Just keep managing the pH. If your fill water is high TA, that’ll be another reason it’s hard to manage.
 
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Ran some tests today . PH back up to 8.0 and TA at 90. Salt test read 2400....no idea where all the salt is going. I know we had a lot of rain in the Houston area but Dang.
 
its been a lot but not sure if you should watered my salt down that much. I have put in 140 pounds of salt since end of Nov.
 
Ran water test this morning after adding a gallon of Acid yesterday

TA 60
PH only down to 7.5, was expecting PH to be even lower
 

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