My DIY Aerator

[Ashbourne]

Working on getting my TA down (before I found this fabulous place I'd gone to the pool store where of course they told me I needed to put in Alkalinity Up) - I added the first dose of acid last night - brought TA down from 150 to 130 and pH down to 7.2...so now I'm getting that pH back up so I can re-dose with acid.

My eyeballs point up and break the surface but not enough for strong aeration, so thanks to Rangeball and dmanb2b's pictures and guidance, I was able to build this today. Hopefully this will make a difference!

[attachment=1:1t055b37]aerator1.jpg[/attachment:1t055b37]

[attachment=0:1t055b37]aerator2.jpg[/attachment:1t055b37]

 

[esim13]

Awesome :-D I want to do one of these myself... maybe this weekend!

 

[Ashbourne]

It only took about 1/2 hour to put it together, including sawing the PVC. Materials about $12. I may end up tweaking it a little (reducing length of the pipe that comes from the return to the elbow, and possibly from the elbow to the T).

Tomorrow I'll post with a new TA measurement.

 

[esim13]

Have you ever thought of using a t straight out of the return, turned so that the left side of t is pointing top and right side is pointing down.. top of it to aerator and bottom to a 90 elbow positioned for circulation? I've been toying with it in my mind but not sure if it would have enough pressure to aerate and circulate.. any thoughts?

 

[Ashbourne]

Esim13 -

Well, ha ha, probably not so much that I thought of that as I tested it by accident. One end blew off my T (had the jet at the steps turned off, which created too much flow in the return I was using...too much for the aerator to handle) - so I saw first-hand how much that changed the flow to the aerator.

I guess it depends on the pressure you're getting at each return. If I turned off the steps again it might work, but with them turned on it wasn't enough pressure through the aerator for what I wanted.

 

[Ashbourne]

After 24 hours of aeration we are now at 7.5 (from starting point of 7.2) so maybe after another 24 I'll be at 7.8...

 

[Ashbourne]

As of this morning, pH back up to 7.8.

Added 2 qts. of MA to bring TA down to 110 and pH down to 7.2...now aerating again.

 

[CrashDodson]

How do you attach that to the return?

 

[Jake&Clan]

How do you attach that to the return?

a decade later and I hope someone answered this somewhere :-D

 

[bleazie]

a decade later and I hope someone answered this somewhere :-D

I believe most returns are threaded 1.5" PVC. You'll need to unscrew the return Jet Nozzel to expose the female PVC threading. You'll need to purchase a threaded male 1.25 or 1.5" to PVC Adapter. And then connect that to your PVC Pipe(s), 45 degree elbow (assuming this was used to get out of the water and the angle in the pictures), PVC 'T', etc....