No Available Chlorine

Jump to latest Follow Reply
Good Morning All,
Ok, I am now officially 7 days into my SLAM. Here are my measurements from last night to this morning.

10/02 7:00 pm
FC = 24.5
CC = 0

10/03 8:30 am
FC = 17.5
CC = .5

I'm utilizing PoolMath as usual and adding 3.85 (rounding up to 4) 121 oz. of WalMart bleach to get back to my SLAM FC level of 28. Just to be certain, I even tested CYA which is still showing 80.

It does seem a bit odd to me that in fact 7 days in I'm still adding bleach daily and while I certainly understand (believe me I do) after a week that this is a 'process' I'm perplexed at the large FC loss overnight even after a week of doing this.

I'm not even close to a point where I want to tackle my iron stains on this liner (but I do have 9lbs of ascorbic acid ready) because I don't want to risk letting the FC level drop before I'm done with this SLAM.
Yes, I ran the Polaris, been scrubbing the bottom of the pool daily, and also even took the cartridges completely out of the filter and cleaned them 5 days ago.

Hopefully there is light at the end of the tunnel...somewhere

Thanks all
 
Many are discouraged at this point. I always remind folks that there are only two things that consume chlorine......sunlight and organics in the pool. You eliminated the sunlight by testing your overnight loss so the inescapable conclusion is that you have organics in your pool that must be dealt with.
 
Scott,

Sorry to hear about your setback. Yes, 7ppm OCL is perplexing as you were seemingly on a good glide path. Bumps in the road are always possible and, while I'd love to have a quick and easy explanation, sometimes you just got to take the bad with the good...CONSTANT VIGILANCE (as Mad-Eye Moody from Harry Potter would say).

Anyway, you've measured your CYA at 80ppm. Previously you measured 70ppm; a +/-10ppm variation is well within the test's margin of error. Your shock level of 28ppm FC is based on 70ppm CYA. You can certainly try bringing up the FC to 31ppm (for a CYA of 80ppm) and see what that does for you. Also, as pabeader said, try to keep on top of the maintenance dosing if you can, consistent dosing at shock level is really the key to reaching that light at the end of the tunnel....let's just hope that the light is not an on-coming train ;)

Keep up the good work.
 
The longer the pool stays at shock level that faster it will clear the organics. You might want to bump the FC a few points above shock level if you are finding out that it is below shock value between tests. Add enough chlorine to raise the FC to 34 ppm for the CYA of 80. If it drops much below 31 ppm then you either need to bump it up a bit higher than 34 ppm or add the chlorine sooner. Adding chlorine sooner is the preferred method.
 
hi all,
yes I am still at it....been consistently testing the water morning, early afternoon, then early evening. Funny, during the day I don't seem to be losing much (if any) FC.
The CYA test is a bit subjective of course, and oddly enough I've had to add water to the pool a bit to compensate for evaporation this week.
My Salt level continues to rise, the SWG is showing it at 4000ppm, I will retest that via my kit today to confirm.

Will keep at it...definitely not out of the woods yet. Perhaps running the Polaris yesterday stirred up a lot of junk from the bottom.
 

Enjoying this content?

Support TFP with a donation.

Give Support
hi all,
Latest readings.
7:00 pm 10/03
FC = 28
CC = .5

7:00 am 10/04
FC = 27.5
CC = .5


To answer some of the questions,
I started running the SWG during the day a few days ago after a few questions to the experts here. I assumed it certainly couldn't hurt lessen the load of bleach.

I can certainly hook up and run the Polaris daily. That's no problem but there is nothing on the bottom of the pool. I've been running it about every other day.

The filter pressure is pretty low on the range. I had pulled all the cartridges sprayed them off and cleaned them extensively a couple of days into this procedure. I didn't think that was necessary weekly and it's obviously a time consuming several hour project so I'd like to avoid that unless it's critical to this whole process.

With what I'm seeing this morning I'm hopeful I"m nearing the end so I can start another thread on the removal of these nasty iron stains on the liner with the 9lbs of ascorbic acid I purchased.

Thanks all!

Scott
 
On a side note, one thing I am slightly concerned about with my SWG. My salt reading is 4200ppm. I confirmed the accuracy with my K-1766 test kit yesterday. The "high salt" light is NOT flashing on the Aquarite. It should be and always has in the past when it got above 3800ppm. I have 2 cells, this one is essentially less than 6 months old out of the box and 1 backup. So I'm a little concerned this cell may be bad in the first place which may have contributed to my FC level dropping off so far. The only way I know of to test if the cell is actually working properly is to take it to Leslie's and they run some sort of test on it. Both cells they 'tell me' are totally fine.
argh.
 
scott802 said:
hi all,
Latest readings.
7:00 pm 10/03
FC = 28
CC = .5

7:00 am 10/04
FC = 27.5
CC = .5


To answer some of the questions,
I started running the SWG during the day a few days ago after a few questions to the experts here. I assumed it certainly couldn't hurt lessen the load of bleach.

I can certainly hook up and run the Polaris daily. That's no problem but there is nothing on the bottom of the pool. I've been running it about every other day.

The filter pressure is pretty low on the range. I had pulled all the cartridges sprayed them off and cleaned them extensively a couple of days into this procedure. I didn't think that was necessary weekly and it's obviously a time consuming several hour project so I'd like to avoid that unless it's critical to this whole process.

With what I'm seeing this morning I'm hopeful I"m nearing the end so I can start another thread on the removal of these nasty iron stains on the liner with the 9lbs of ascorbic acid I purchased.

Thanks all!

Scott
Click to expand...

Scott,

So it looks like you've passed the SLAM exit criteria!! If the water clarity is good (ignore the stains for now), then you're done with the SLAM.

So here's what I'd like to see you do next - I'd like to hold off on the metal stain treatment and get your water balanced and the FC/CYA chemistry right. Chlorine is the most important chemical in our pools so it is imperative we get that sorted out before we go confounding ourselves with an AA treatment.

I'd like to see you dial in your SWG and pump run times to maintain the proper FC/CYA ratio. Since your water is clean, you should now be able to generate and hold 5-6ppm FC. Let's aim for that. Since you've expressed concern about the SWG one thing you can do, while the current shock level of FC is dissipating (it can take several days to drift down to normal) is to pull the SWG and do a dilute muriatic acid clean. Have you done that before? I know the cells you have are new, but I'd like them to be inspected and cleaned. Then return the cell to operation and let's wait and see where you go.

What are your pump run times and output SWG % ?

As for the filter, you could, if you're up for it, pull the cartridges again and give a final clean. Your filter should be sized properly so that you only need to clean it once in a long while. But because we were SLAM'ing the pool, it could be larded up with dead algae carcasses. Best to clean it if you feel up for it. Then we're assured that everything is in tip-top shape.

Once we get you're FC dialed in and consistent, then we can tackle metal stains.
 
The salt level does not set off the high salt warning. The high salt warning only goes off when the current gets to 8 amps. The current is affected by salt level and water temperature. At high water temperature, the high salt can go off at a salt level of 3,000. At low temperatures it might not go off until 4,500.

The diagnostics can tell you everything you need to know. If the salt level on the box is close to the actual salt level, the cell is fine.

What are the diagnostic readings?
 
hi Matt and James,
Here is some additional info.
Matt, yes I've done a muratic acid bath clean on my cells before but will swap and do it again on the new one etc. I just need to remember the correct ratio of muratic acid to water it's nasty stuff that burns if it gets on you (yes I've been dumb enough to splash it before no fun)

Here are the diagnostics on the Aquarite this morning.
Pool Temp: 76F
Cell Voltage: 25.2
Current: 7.12
Output: 80p
Salinity: -4000
Product: AL-1
Revision: r1.59
Cell: T-15

My run time on my timer is close to 20 hours per day now. hope that helps.
The water is clean and clear and I can see the bottom very well on the shallow end even with the ugly liner stains. The deep end (my pool is super deep 8' diving end) is harder to see because the bottom is so discolored but water is clear.


Thanks!
 
I'm not familiar with the aquarite, so James will have to answer your diagnostic questions.

20 hours is a lot but could have been that way because you were not maintain the proper FC/CYA ratio.

What do you think about 12 hours and 75% output? And then see where your water winds up with FC.

To clean most cells, the correct ratio is 4 parts distilled water to one part MA. Always add acid to water and mix in a separate container. Never mix acid inside the cell.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
The diagnostics look good. For AquaRite the Product should be AL-0, but that really doesn't matter. It's only related to branding for private label units. It doesn't affect the operation at all.

As long as the salt level is consistently close to the actual salt level, the cell is good.

I would avoid acid cleaning the cell unless there is visible scaling. Acid can wear down the coating on the blades.
 
James,
Your point on the acid cleaning is what I thought as well. I usually do a visual inspection of the cell, and the plates/blades. This one is brand new practically so there is no scaling in there whatsoever.
The only other variable is that I did put a brand new motherboard in there earlier this year. The current limiter (as has happened many times before) fried and I got lazy and didn't feel like spending hours soldering a new one on. But I kept the old board too.

So in theory this cell should be producing the max amount of FC.

At this point, I'm going to stop adding bleach and keep testing the FC level daily hopefully it will stabilize around the 5.0 ppm level. If not, I know I've got other problems somewhere. As you can see from my CYA test yesterday, that's totally fine.

Should I now try and balance out the rest of the water? Ph level etc now that the SLAM is essentially over?

Once all this is set I'm going to have to start another thread and tackle the nasty ugly metal stains. I read the sticky on metal/iron stains and ascorbic acid...very informative.
I was just pretty nervous about messing with my FC level at this point until I got my water totally cleared up.

Thanks all! will get some photos of the water today.
 

Enjoying this content?

Support TFP with a donation.

Give Support
You must log in or register to reply here.
Thread Status
Hello , This thread has been inactive for over 60 days. New postings here are unlikely to be seen or responded to by other members. For better visibility, consider Starting A New Thread.
Top Bottom
Back
Jump to latest Follow Reply