Why would salt levels suddenly jump after 1 week?

[music3000]

Yesterday we had a short power outage. When it came back online the SWG began giving a '92' high salt warning, so I checked the salt and it does appear to be 4080 ppm. There was a little rain and some wind, but other than that, we have been swimming in the pool and using the SWG for 1 week without the '92' warning. Why would the salt suddenly be high?

Also, is there a formulaic method for reducing salt level, or do I simply drain a portion and refill with fresh and adjust after that point?

Right now, the SWG will not run until I partially drain the pool, is there something I should do in order to maintain chlorine levels in the meantime?

 

[Patrick_B]

Welcome to the forum. We need more information please. To lower salt, you must drain and re-fill some. Salt level doesn't suddenly increase for no reason, so there is something else amiss. Testing, salt not all dissolved when you tested, something. If it were me, I would use bleach to make sure I had sanitizer. But, can you test properly for it, calculate for properly sized dosing? Please read some more here and post some good test numbers if possible. It really is difficult to help without that information. Impossible actually.

 

[music3000]

I'm new to caring for a pool, and a couple weeks ago after filling my 14x48 intex metal frame pool, and I added the recommended amount of salt to start a pool. Using salt test strips (improperly as I have learned) the salt was reading low, so I added more. After that dissolved for 24 hours I got the '92' warning and knew that I had added too much salt, so I did a partial drain and refill and after that the SWG ran without warning for well over a week. I didn't test it because I figured my strips were bad or I just didn't know how to use them properly. I assume it may have been on the verge of being too high for that period of time when the SWG ran without warning, but then we had the power go out and suddenly the 92 warning shows now. I believe I figured out what I did wrong with the salt test strip, and I'm getting 4080ppm readings consistently along with the '92' warning. Looks like I'll be partially draining and refilling this weekend. I just don't understand why the SWG ran fine for a week before realizing that salt was too high. Right now the chlorine is about a 2.

 

[Patrick_B]

Yea, multi analyte strips are notoriously innacurate. You will be able to take nuch better care of your pool if you aquire and learn how to use a good test kit.

 

[Isaac-1]

Your SWG senses amount of salt in the water by measuring the electrical resistance of the water, salt level is the primary thing that effects resistance, but there are other factors that can potentially effect the reading, basically anything you put in the water has some effect on resistance some larger than others, even water temperature has some effect. So the true amount of salt in the water may not have changed, just your SWG is now sensing a slightly higher level, which in the end is the only important detail.

Ike

 

[music3000]

Thanks for the insight guys! After a partial drain and refill I got the salt down to 3740 ppm, enough to get the swg operating but still on the high side so I will do another partial refill. Thanks again for helping me to understand why my swg would have suddenly detected 'high salt'. I know I need to get a good test kit, I've got the drops for chlorine and ph, but I've got the strips for salt and CYA.

 

[UnderWaterVanya]

Yea, multi analyte strips are notoriously innacurate. You will be able to take nuch better care of your pool if you aquire and learn how to use a good test kit.

I thought we advised using the salt test strips in most cases. For other chemistry I agree.

Sent via Tapatalk...

 

[music3000]

Well I'd love to know what method I should use to test salt because yesterday my AquaCheck salt test strips were reading 6.8 (3740ppm) and I did about a 20% drain and refill with fresh water last night. Today the salt test strip gave me a 6.8 reading again. I find it hard to believe that I didn't reduce salt much, but to get to a 6.6 reading on the strip, I would have to bring the salt down to 3440ppm.

I feel like it was the salt strips that got me in trouble in the first place, because they read a 3.6 (1040ppm) after I had dumped 100 lbs. of salt into about 3861 gallons of water. I may have been using the strips wrong, as I think submerged the entire strip into a sample of water when I should have just put it into about an inch deep test tube.

At any rate, I then dumped enough salt to get my pool from 1040ppm, to 3000ppm and now my salt is WAY high.

What should I do at this point? The salt strips are still reading 6.8, so I must not have brought the salt below 3740ppm, unless I'm basing these results on an unreliable testing method.

 

[Isaac-1]

As long as your SWG is happy you probably should not worry to much about the actual salt number

 

[Jenischmeni]

This could be a stupid question, but I'll ask it anyway........

Do you have a water softener? If you do, and if that's your fill water, you're not going to reduce the salt level.

You can probably guess why I know this :-D

 

[music3000]

The swg is happy but the high salt may be contributing to drying out our skin when we swim, my wife seems to think so anyway. Is dry skin just a side effect from salt pools in general?

I suppose we probably do have a water softener, I've never had to add salt to one in the 8 years I've lived here however so I'm not positive we have one.

 

[jblizzle]

I do not think salt dries the skin. It makes the water feel softer. If it did dry the skin, no one would ever get in the ocean which has 10 times more salt than your pool.

I like the Taylor drop based salt test.

 

[music3000]

Will having a higher than recommended salt level increase corrosion or have other bad effects?

I'll definitely be ordering the Taylor salt drop kit asap!

 

[Patrick_B]

Will having a higher than recommended salt level increase corrosion or have other bad effects?

I'll definitely be ordering the Taylor salt drop kit asap!

It's a great kit but the end point can be tricky on chloride tests likt this. Just watch the Taylor video and listen to what they say about end point color. Going too far is the commone mistake and would give you a higher reading. Not hard, just pay attention to what they say. When I said you needed a good kit, I thought perhaps you were using multi-analyte strips. Single analyte strips are good quite often, salt strips included.