Chlorease

[NWMNMom]

Oh good question. I know that the Chlorease is a passive SWG so needs to have flow through it, right?

So I was looking at my pool and thinking, where would something like that go on mine? The return is just one panel over from the skimmer....no blank panels in between them, so just somewhere half way in between on the panel with the return?

Will a higher Alk level cause this thing to cake up? My Alk runs high (~180-200) I am loathe to aerate until the water gets very warm or I lose my heat (precious this year when we have so little sun)

 

[Rangeball]

I plan to put my Dad's downstream of the return, so when the pump is running water is running past/through it and the chlorine is being circulated.

From reading the manual, cleaning sounds pretty straight forward, so even if it had to be done weekly, it shouldn't be too much of a problem. In your situation I'd be inclined to leave my alk alone and monitor chlorine output and cell condition.

 

[MikeInTN]

If you adjust your unit to 23 hours on, will you run your pump this long too?

No. The control unit for the CL02 is completely separate from the pump. All it will control is the ChlorEase cell.

Mike, I understand... What I meant was will you run your pump to cirulate the water while the chlorease is generating or turn the pump off?

Ahhhh..gotcha. Yes, I usually leave the pump running as long as the Chlorease is on, so if it's set for 23, I leave the pump operating for 23 . Right now I have the Chlorease turned off. My FC shot up to around 10 ppm, so I'm letting it drop to a more manageable level. Strange, because before this happened, I had the unit set to 11 hours on, 13 off. I'll plug it back in tomorrow morning before I head off to work, and check the FC again tomorrow evening.

 

[MikeInTN]

Oh good question. I know that the Chlorease is a passive SWG so needs to have flow through it, right?

So I was looking at my pool and thinking, where would something like that go on mine? The return is just one panel over from the skimmer....no blank panels in between them, so just somewhere half way in between on the panel with the return?

Will a higher Alk level cause this thing to cake up? My Alk runs high (~180-200) I am loathe to aerate until the water gets very warm or I lose my heat (precious this year when we have so little sun)

With my pool, my skimmer and returns are in the same panel (the plain steel one that connects both ends of the wall). I put the Chlorease one panel to the right, as that's the direction that my returns flow.

I don't know if a higher Alk level will cause it to cake up or not. I spent a week aerating and adding acid to get my TA down to 90-100, only to find out I lowered it too much - my pH is wanting to drop now. Sooo, now we're in the process of raising the TA a little at at time until the pH stabilizes. Just can't win sometimes...

 

[NWMNMom]

Well we sure don't have any problem with wanting any of that to go up here. Usually my PH sits around 7.2 so the Alk is never much of an issue but we have been getting non stop rain hitting the water surface - ph UP!!!

So far, its working ok then? Keep us updated - this is interesting stuff for us AG people. Thanks for your input!

 

[Rangeball]

Thanks Mike. If that's a problem, sounds like a good one to have

 

[NWMNMom]

Mike, how is that Chlorease working for you? Is it regulating any better? I am really interested in this item.

 

[MikeInTN]

Mike, how is that Chlorease working for you? Is it regulating any better? I am really interested in this item.

Right now, it's maintaining a FC level of 3.8 when running 12 hours on, 12 hours off (along with the pump). My CYA is around 50-60, which, according to Smartpool, should be around 80 for this unit. From what I've read on some of the threads here, I might get a little bit better efficiency if I raise my CYA level a bit. I'm thinking of going to Lowe's and getting some CYA and raising it another 10 and see what that does. FWIW, Smartpool also says that 3ppm FC is optimal, so if that's true, then my unit is running fairly optimal According to Ben's chart though, I should be around 5ppm FC on the low end.

 

[Poolsean]

You can generally disregard the FC estimate when dealing with Salt Chlorine Generators. The efficiency and "shocking" ability of the cell is different from normal chlorine treatment and does not need to follow Ben's Best Bet (hey, another BBB!)... or is that Ben's Best Guess (BBG...never mind).

3 is ideal. 5 is ok, but not necessary. Definately not below 2 ppm.

 

[Guest]

From the pools I have seen with SWGs I concur with Poolsean!

 

[NWMNMom]

Oh good, then it seems you are right on the spot with it. Good to know info Sean and Waterbear!

 

[MikeInTN]

Sean and 'bear, thanks for the info. Makes me feel better about the FC level I have (or had). My FC is down to 2.6, and my CC is up to 0.6. I was wondering if this unit would help keep the CC's burned off, but evidently not. My guess as to why it doesn't is the lack of water flow through the unit vs. one of the inline cells. So, I added chlorine tonight to shock the pool.

I stopped by Lowe's tonight and got some CYA. I'll figure out how much to add and put it in a knee-high and then in the pool tomorrow (ran out of time tonight!). Oh yeah, I found skimmer socks at Wallyworld!! :-D

 

[bf1967]

I bought one of these at the end of last season, but it's still in the box. I was going to add salt to my 30' AG anyhow so I though I'd try it. I have about 23k gallons so it likely won't generate enough chlorine. Is it possible to supplement with bleach or is that a no-no?

 

[MikeInTN]

I don't see a problem with supplementing with bleach. As you can read above, I had to do just that to shock my pool due to the CC level rising. After 174 oz of 6% bleach last night, my FC was around 8.4 today and the CC is back to 0.0 . Adding CYA to the pool as we speak to see if getting my CYA level up to manufacturer-recommended levels will help in chlorine production and superchlorination of the water.

 

[MikeInTN]

OK, final thoughts on the CL02.

I leave my unit on for 12 hours a day (6am - 6pm), along with my pump, and my FC is staying right at 3.6 - 3.8 ppm, with my CYA @ 70 ppm. My CC might get to 0.4 ppm, but the next night it's down to 0.2 or gone. So, the unit's doing it's job.

I found out the other night that cleaning it is kind of a pain, although it was reassembling the head that turned out to be the biggest pain by far. My cell was caked up pretty badly, so I figured it would take a while for the diluted acid I had to remove it - wow, was I wrong! 5 minutes, and the cell looked like it was brand new. Very cool too, to watch the acid froth and bubble as it was removing the buildup. Word of caution here - don't fill up whatever container you use anywhere close to the top with the diluted acid; as I said above, the acid will react w/ the buildup, resulting in lots of bubbling and frothing.

All in all, if I had to do it over again (and I'm sure I will in a few years), I'll go with an Intex or, if I'm feeling ritzy, an Aquatrol.

 

[NWMNMom]

Well thats what I was wondering about, the cleaning. It has been so far so good with the Intex. I bumped my time on the system up to 5hrs per day as the extremely hot weather has our water up to 92F and a lot of swimming going on so more FC needed. So far so good. Its just an adjustment issue when we test the levels. I have put a quart of supplemental chlorine in once because we had a party and I was worried that all those swimmers made the water levels go off but otherwise, good to go. I do keep it in a shaded/protected spot as people have had issues when the power supply got too hot in the sun.

 

[MikeInTN]

Glad to hear the Intex is working out, mom. I'm guessing that's the route I'll go as well. I'll go ahead and say it - I'm a cheap Rear. :lol: The less I have to pay out for pool maintenance, the more beer & BBQ I can buy!

I will have to say though that I felt like a mad scientist when I was cleaning the cell in the CL02 the other night, especially with the way the acid was boiling and bubbling! Muwahhahhaahhh!!!

 

[Strannik]

CL01 uses what's called "convection cell"
very old technology put in a pretty package. Used to be popular in Australia in 80ies and early 90ies, but has been phased out in favour of plumbed in designs as it's very inefficient, and doesn't chlorinate pool properly.

 

[Poolsean]

CL01 uses what's called "convection cell"
very old technology put in a pretty package. Used to be popular in Australia in 80ies and early 90ies, but has been phased out in favour of plumbed in designs as it's very inefficient, and doesn't chlorinate pool properly.

Strannik, sorry to disagree, but the convection system is much more efficient as it has more contact time with the water than an the flow through cell. The problem was being able to place it so that it's out of the way and still provide the efficiency of the convection cell.
For instance, I have an installation, 308,000 gallon private school with about 500 kids throughout the day, using 15.4 lbs/day of chlorine to maintain it. With an inline cell system, I would have to have over 30 lbs/day to maintain this same pool.

A convection cell, properly positioned, will allow you to sanitize a large pool with a smaller cell.

 

[NWMNMom]

Mike, the Chlorease does have an inline unit that can be used for AG and IG, but the cost is about the same as the Aquatrols, etc. I opted for the Intex on the price your pointed out to me at Cabelas (of all places!) just to see if that was for us or not - no sense in spending $500+ if its not right for us. I am convinced and for this price, its a pretty darn decent setup for pools our size - doesn't appear to be able to keep up with anything larger than 15K gals according to the directions - but the directions are not on the money about everything anyway. It did say I would need to run 12 hrs and we are hovering between 3-5hrs to keep the FC at 3ppm for appx 14500 gals.