SWG - Tiny Cloudy Bubbles coming from jets

[JoeE]

Richard,

I don't think there is much more to do here, except for me to turn up the flow rate. I am curious if anyone else has similar conditions to confirm my theory or duplicate this situation?

I do indeed appreciate your help here and welcome further feedback or questions.
Fran

I recently had a new liner and a Hayward/Goldline Aquarite XL installed. Over the weekend I was working on my water and just yesterday I got my water balanced and noticed my free chlorine had gotten up to about 6.1PPM so I turned the generator off. Up to this point everything has been working perfectly. I did two things different last night, I added 8oz of algaecide and 4 oz of clarifier last night with the SWG OFF and ran the filter most of the evening. This morning I woke up to crystal clear water.

I turned on the equipment and decided I would set the SWG to auto and set it to just 20% to see what happens. I was told the SWG will eventually stop generating when the chlorine levels reach a certain number and wanted to verify this. Shortly after turning on the SWG I noticed the same effect in your picture, a milky white cloud coming from my four return jets.

I turned the SWG off and the milky white effect stops. I thought there might just have been something sticking to the plates casing this so I turned it back on. Same problem for about five minutes then I turned it off. After about 10 minutes the cloud dissipates with the SWG off.

The only thing different from yesterday has been the algaecide and clarifier. I put in just enough of each as per the directions on the bottles and filtered the water with the SWG off for a good six hours.

I left everything but the SWG on when I left to see if just letting the water filter and run over the cell while off for another eight hours will make it stop.

I'm thinking the culprit is most likely the algaecide. You mentioned Hayward reported this. I did but some inexpensive algaecide from SAM’s club and perhaps I will need to find something that is formulated a bit differently that won’t mess with the SW?

I’ll experiment with it and research it a bit more.

By the way I’m very surprised at just how well the SWG works. My pool is about 24,000 gallons and free chlorine has jumped up to very high levels very quickly. I did not turn it on until I had about 3200 PPM of salt and my PH and AL where within proper ranges. I’m pretty happy with it so far... just need to figure out the cloudy white mystery.

 

[New2Me]

Tiny bubbles...electrolysis in my electrolyte! Just for fun, take a 9 volt battery and hold it under water, you've got a mini SWCG! (or a hydrogen generator, according to the Ask Beakman & Jax Sunday paper comic strip!)

 

[JoeE]

I'm kind of obsessive when it comes to my pool so I ran home at lunch and turned on the SWCG. I've been running the pump and filter since 7am and it seems the cloudiness has stopped.

I'm going to try and replicate what I did last night but first I'm going to do nothing. Set the timer just like last night let it cut off and try it again in the AM just to make sure it’s not something I’m not even considering.

Tomorrow night I'll try adding just the clarifier then filter the same amount of time, turn everything on in the morning and see what happens. The next day I'll try the algaecide. The day after Ill add algaecide and clarifier. I'll try and keep the CL where it is now to cut down on the variables.

Sooner or later I should be able to duplicate what I did and discover exactly what it was. My money is on the algaecide. Since it's copper based I'm thinking it must be doing something to the electrolitic cell in the SWCG. Probably a non-copper based algaecide might clear it up?

 

[JoeE]

Well two days I've done nothing. Running my filter about 18 hours a day. It's been kind of cool here and partly cloudy so it's taking a while for the chlorine to come down from where it was. I'm down to about 5ppm now.

I have noticed when the system sits overnight and I start things up in the morning if I turn the SWCG on I get some of the milky white cloud but not as bad as I had first gotten. If I let the system run all day then thurn on the SWGC it's barely noticable.

Looks to me like something is sticking to or building up on the plates when not in use and as water runs over it it clears off. Does that make sense to anyone?

 

[frustratedpoolmom]

Joe, in a properly chlorinated pool, algaecide is almost never needed. In certain specific cases we recommend a Polyquat 60 algaecide, but that's it. For normal pool situations, it's just not needed, chlorine will do the job, even better and for less money. I would never recommend a copper based algaecide because the copper can stain your pool and cause green hair.

 

[JoeE]

Joe, in a properly chlorinated pool, algaecide is almost never needed. In certain specific cases we recommend a Polyquat 60 algaecide, but that's it. For normal pool situations, it's just not needed, chlorine will do the job, even better and for less money. I would never recommend a copper based algaecide because the copper can stain your pool and cause green hair.

Thanks... I think I have fallen victem to some poor info. I used to add a few ounces every week or two in the summer. This is only the 4th year I have owned my pool, it gets a little easier and I learn a little more (and spend a little less money) every year.

 

[Shieldsfx]

I thought I would provide an update to anyone who may have wanted to know the final conclusion of this post: "where are these tiny bubbles coming from?"

I performed a final test to determine what these bubbles are. If you followed the earlier posts, you would have learned that the speculation was that these 'cloudy bubbles' were hydrogen coming from the SWG, and that since I have a variable speed pump (set at low flow rates) the hydrogen bubbles (which are present in all SWG) are considerably more noticeable, probably because under low flow rates they are either larger bubbles or higher quantity per gallon of water.

Well, to prove this I used a "don't try this at home" sort of test: I got a barbeque lighter and placed fire over the small bubbles that were breaking at the surface above the jets. As we speculated, I can confirm the bubbles are indeed hydrogen, since they 'light up' quite easily. Actually, they 'ripped off the surface' with a loud 'snap, crackle and pop'. Remember, the manufactures of these SWG put in 'low flow sensors' which turn off the device for this very reason -- to prevent dangerously high levels of hydrogen production causing much greater harm than bubbles.

So, the dilemma is solved. But it does raise a new question about the safety of these SWGs (at low flow rates or malfunction). There is fairly decent amount of debate on the 'net relative to other chlorine generating technologies that don't rely on caustic salt and hydrogen production (and used more in Europe and Australia), but I will leave this debate for others to solve, and in the meantime I will keep an eye on my flow rate and my hydrogen production machine.

Fran
:?:

 

[Yeagerpools]

I installed a SWG on a physically therapy pool that I currently care for. Since day one, the cloudy bubbles have been a factor. The manufacturer, Jandy, has no answer for me and simply tells me it's the chemistry. I've balanced the pool forwards and backwards, even drained it but yet still achieving the cloudiness whenever the cell is producing chlorine. The pool is consistently kept at 95 degrees+ which may play a big factor. The biggest problem isnt so much the cloudy bubbles but a thin layer of bubble/foam builds up on the water surface, which quickly go away as soon as cell is turned off by the way. I have a Nature 2, mineral cartridge installed ahead of unit, Jandy assures me that it's ok, it might be the culprit?? Any help or pointers would be greatly appreciated since I'm getting no love from Jandy. Thanks

 

[Guest]

I installed a SWG on a physically therapy pool that I currently care for. Since day one, the cloudy bubbles have been a factor. The manufacturer, Jandy, has no answer for me and simply tells me it's the chemistry. I've balanced the pool forwards and backwards, even drained it but yet still achieving the cloudiness whenever the cell is producing chlorine. The pool is consistently kept at 95 degrees+ which may play a big factor. The biggest problem isnt so much the cloudy bubbles but a thin layer of bubble/foam builds up on the water surface, which quickly go away as soon as cell is turned off by the way. I have a Nature 2, mineral cartridge installed ahead of unit, Jandy assures me that it's ok, it might be the culprit?? Any help or pointers would be greatly appreciated since I'm getting no love from Jandy. Thanks

What FC level are you keeping? If you are keeping the .5 ppm recommended by Zodiac for the N2 then it simply is not enough and the bubbles you see on the surface are from organics in the water from an underchlorinated pool.
alternative-sanitizers-and-chemical-free-pools-the-truth-t3025.html

 

[Yeagerpools]

Ive been keeping FC anywhere from 3-5, Ive also been using non-chlorine shock to help control organics.

 

[Shieldsfx]

Yeagerpools, you describe the same situation as I have. Jandy gave me a similar run around saying their Chlorinator produces nothing (like the tiny bubbles as shown in the pictures above) and they say it's my chemicals (which it is not; my chemicals remain close to perfect and I test almost daily with three different test methods). As you indicated, the bubbles go away shortly after the chlorinator is turned off -- same with me. I also noted that you keep your pool 95 degrees. I also keep my pool heated (85-90), and I noticed this condition is worse at high temperatures.

Again, I am certain the bubbles coming from my jets are hydrogen bubbles, which are produced by the Goldline Chlorinator. I believe the factors that may contribute to why I get them (and others don’t) are: low flow rate (I have a variable speed pump at 30 GPM and do not see that bubble above 75 GPM +/-); distance of my pipes to the jets are short (15 feet) which may not allow for the hydrogen to mix sufficiently before jets); and possibly heat (I have a near 400 BTU heater that may increase hydrogen bubble production or make them more visible at higher temps).

 

[mbm262004]

the tiny bubbles are indeer hydrogen that is created in the generation process, they do not always occur but sometimes they do, if you turn up the speed of your pump sometimes you can get the bubbles to stop forming to the eye but hydrogen will always be realesed. it is completely harmless unless you puprosley set out to capture them (not recommended). if your pump is only a one speed or older pump, setting a different speen my not be possible, in which case you will be stuck with the bubbles.

 

[teppy]

we just got our SWG a few weeks ago. we got the hayward goldline. anyway, i remembered reading this post a few days ago when i suddenly saw the milky substance coming from my returns today. i did not panic, but husband almost did. i knew from reading this post that it probably was not anything to worry about.

If anyone remembers my thread on bugs, they were really worse today than ever. i was vacumming them and asked my husband to give me all the power he could from the pump to the vacuume. he cut the main drain most of the way. i also sucked alot of air in the end of the vacuume hose getting some of the bugs from the surface. when reading about a possible cause being reduced flow to the SWG, I kind of think this is what happened to us today. i turned the SWG off right away and it stopped. I hope this was the cause and not a problem with this.

 

[enigmafa]

I've worked on pools for 10 years now. I've worked on and installed hundreds if not thousands of SWG, and only just saw my second instance of this problem yesterday. The customer had damaged their pump and had a pretty bad air leak, and was also complaining about cloudiness when the pump was running. When I turned on the pump after about 30 seconds the milkly white clouds started comming out of the returns. I was totally baffaled because I knew this pool well he had been a customer for a while and he had never had this problem before. Knowing only that it was tied to the SWG I resolved to fix what i could and repaired his pump. However once I had eliminated the air leak the cloudiness stopped, for sheer acedemics I unrepaired the pump only to watch the cloudiness return. So my thinking upon leaving the house was that more turbulent (air mixed) water was a key to this mystery. My search to turn up more info on the subject lead me here, and I must say you all seem to have a pretty good line on whats going on here. I was pretty happy yesterday when i decided it must be hydrogen bubbles. The most confounding thing I did find in the posts here was that the lower the flow the worse the problem was for some, this may be because the slower water is sloshing around in the pipes instead of flowing rapidly through them, but usually turbulence in the pipes is caused by faster moving water. That system may be plumbed so that the hydraulics in the system are ideal. Hmm all in all I have to applaud you guys because no pool guy, sales rep, or product tech support could ever answer my questions. Hope my bit of information can help out too.