New to all this and have question about salt/chlorine

[tcordle]

I've dreamed of having an IG pool since I was a little girl and my kids and I are so excited about having one now!

Our IG pool (see specs in signature below) was just installed and set up last week. PB put 14, 40 pound bags of salt and 2 gals shock liquid in it last week. I tested the chemicals over the weekend and was surprised to notice that no chlorine was registering (I have a T-something-maybe 400?- test kit) and pH was high - 8.2. However, the SWG panel says the salt concentration is 3000 ppm. We have pump running 9 hours during day at 75%. Why would it say it has that salt concentration but no chlorine?

It rained hard 2 nights ago so yesterday I tested again and got the same results for chlorine and pH. I stopped there and added 2 cups (8 fl oz) of granular shock (tri-chlor) and a gallon of the liquid shock the PB left. A couple hours later the display said the salt was up to 3100 ppm. I have a sample to take to the chemical place during my lunch hour so I'll see what the levels are then. I hope I didn't screw things up. Any advice is MUCH appreciated!

 

[JasonLion]

The first thing to do is to get a full set of water test results, meaning FC, CC, PH, TA, CH, and CYA at a minimum. There are a number of chemical levels that you need to be monitoring and adjusting as needed. Ideally you should get your own top quality test kit, as that will give you the most information about what is going on and give you the most control over your pool. In the short run post what you have and get test results from a pool store for the others and that will be good enough for now. For the test kit I recommend the TF100 from TFTestKits.net. The Taylor K-2006 is also good.

If you post your water test results we can give you specific advice about what to do.

 

[Bama Rambler]

I'm guessing that the PB didn't add any CYA (stabilizer) to the pool, and that's at least part of your problem.
As Jason said, A full set of test results will help greatly.
Also tell us what model your Hayward SWCG is?

 

[tcordle]

Thank you Jason and Bama Rambler.

Here are the chemistry results:
saturation index: 0.2
TDS: 200
CYA: 50
TC: 3
FC: 3
pH: 7.8
TA: 150
adjusted TA: 135
Tot. Hardness: 150
Minerals: 3000
Borates: 50

The chem person was surprised to hear my PB told me we'd have to shock the pool every now and then, such as after a lot of rain. What do y'all think about that? Chem also said that salt generator pools run high on pH.

I'll have to look at home tonight to get the model # of the Hayward SWCG. Will try to post tomorrow on that.

Thank you so much for any and all assistance!

 

[JasonLion]

Your TA is high. High TA combined with the aeration from the SWG will cause the PH to rise. The best thing to do is to lower the TA down to around 70. You can either do that aggressively, see the article in Pool School on lowering TA, or you can simply lower the PH to 7.2 any time it gets up to 7.8 until TA comes down.

Another thing to keep in mind is that CYA is lower than what we recommend for a SWG pool. WIth a SWG it is better to keep CYA around 70 to 80. That will increase the life of your SWG and reduce the amount of PH drift.

It is also possible that you have a low level algae problem. But that isn't at all clear. I would manually raise the FC level is a little extra high and then keep an eye on FC for a couple of days. If FC falls again you may need to shock. But it might have just been the storm, which often use up chlorine.

 

[tcordle]

Thanks so much for the guidance, Jason. I will try it!

 

[ace_spaid]

i see that TF-100 is like 70 bucks....i am just learning and thinking of building a pool. Just curious how long that lasts you before you have to buy another???

Thanks

 

[dmanb2b]

Welcome to TFP

If you take care of it, you can easily get 2 seasons, and some have gotten more. Even at $70/season, it is a great value knowing you water chemistry and how to adjust it vs. blindly depending on the PS advice. JMO.

 

[JamesW]

After you buy the original kit, you don't have to buy a new kit again. You just buy the individual reagents as they are used up.

 

[Richard320]

i see that TF-100 is like 70 bucks....i am just learning and thinking of building a pool. Just curious how long that lasts you before you have to buy another???

Thanks

If you're not obsessive (hard to do) and don't have any huge demand for reagents, like ultrahigh CH, I'd guess a year. I've had to refill a couple of the reagents, but not all. I went ahead and ordered a full refill set, and had to order a few more singles. But I'm obsessive, I have to maintain the pool year-round, and I'm dealing with both high CH and calcium scaling.

$70 is probably still cheaper than the cost of shocking if you have an algae bloom. It's certainly cheaper than letting the pool store test your water and make recommendations. Last year someone posted about being pool-stored. I believe it was high TA and low pH or something similar wherein the store sold them both pH up and pH down at the same time! All they did was make a mess of their water and empty their wallet.

 

[tcordle]

Bama Rambler - we have a Hayward Aquarite T-15 Salt System. Sorry it took so long to get back to you.

Is it correct that even though we have a SWG system I will still have to shock the pool sometimes? If so, I would know this by water chemistry testing and not having enough chlorine registering, right? And we would shock it by running that option on the Aquarite panel rather than adding shock product to the pool?

Sorry for the newbie questions...we're new to all this and the PB didn't tell us how to keep the chemistry right.

I have read and printed out "Pool School" and really appreciate the wealth of information

 

[Bama Rambler]

If you test regularly and maintain the chems according to the recommendations you should never have to shock.
If you do have to shock, you should not use the swcg to do it. You should use liquid chlorine to shock with.

An swcg is good at maintaining the FC level when your CYA is high enough but it's not good at reaching that level. You should bring all the chems into the recommended range and then let the swcg keep the FC there.