Newbie Pool Equipment Questions

[dallasjava]

I have been a pool owner for the past two weeks. It is a SWCG pool. I have applied what I have learned from the wealth of information here to make to get the chemistry right. The previous owners had no CYA in the pool, and the TA was on the high side. They were running the SWCG at 80% for around 18 hours a day before. I have the run time down to 11 hours and the SWCG output on 20% now. I am going to cut the pump run time down further once I get the CYA to 70. I made my second addition on Thursday. It is was 30 before. I will check it again on Thursday or Friday.

Is this circled disk on the wall part of the pool drain?

Here is the drain? in perspective:

There is a Pentair Legend pool sweep. I got a vacuum hose and head yesterday since there is some dirt that will not get picked up by the pool sweep nor will it stay in suspension long enough to get filtered out. Unfortunately neither of the skimmers have a cover that lets me plug it in. Can I get a cover like that? I can shut the other skimmer off at the pump so I am drawing for the one.

Here are some pictures of the pool and pad:

I think the pump is very oversized. It is a 3 HP Pentair VS. I need to figure what the speeds are programmed to. The speed number 2 cause the SWCG to flash a warning for flow so I have been running it on 3 speed unless we're using the SPA, then I turn it up to 4. I have been using the TFT100 test kit, but the CH test is suffering from the fading endpoint. It stays purple. I tried to the five drops first, but this did not help. I am going to grab some distilled water next time I am at the store.

 

[JasonLion]

The circled fixture looks kind of like an underwater light to me. Though it is hard to tell in that photo.

There should be a hole in the bottom of the skimmer, below the skimmer basket, that you can plug the vacuum hose into. You can also get a part called a vacuum plate that fits on top of the skimmer basket and provides a place to plug the vacuum hose into. Using a vacuum plate is better, because the skimmer basket catches the large debris, but plugging directly into the hole in the bottom works also.

 

[dallasjava]

Thank you for the information Jason. Do the vacuum plates vary in size? I would like to avoid the dreaded Leslie's Pool if I can. I do not think the circle fixture is a light since there is a standard light (not LED) in the same wall. There is also another circle fixture in the adjacent wall that is identical. I will try to shoot some better pictures of it. It is really puzzling what it is. Neither the owners nor the pool inspector had any idea.

 

[Melt In The Sun]

The pentair legend is a pressure-side cleaner (pretty sure about that...), so you don't need to hook it up to the skimmer at all. The booster pump at the pad (the black pump with the skinny hose) will supply pressurized water to a return in the wall of the pool, and that return is where you need to hook up the legend. The timer on the right side controls your booster pump; its runtime should always be set to be within the main pump's runtime, as it is now.

I think the fixture looks like a main drain cover. I don't know what it could be used for though; I don't see a suction line dedicated to it. Can you tell if water is being pulled in or pushed out of it (squirt some food coloring nearby to tell)?

 

[dallasjava]

Melt In The Sun, the legend is definitely a pressure-side cleaner. It is in the fourth picture down in my initial post. It is working pretty well. I need to manually vacuum some spot areas of silt or dirt.

 

[Melt In The Sun]

Ok, misunderstood your question. Sorry!