Need Help Balancing My Hayward Sand Filter/ SGS Salt cell

[dn]

HELLP! The pH of my water has been extremely high, stabilizer a little low, Salt at 3,000. Was told to put in muriatic acid then wait a couple of hours and put in chlorine granules.

I also need to add more salt. Can I put salt in at the same time as when I add muriatic acid? How much muriatic acid do I need? I have a 55,000 gallon pool.

 

[linen]

Re: Need Help Balancing My Hayward Sand Filter/ SGS Salt cel

Welcome to tfp, dn

Please post a full set of test results. See:http://www.troublefreepool.com/pool-school/read_before_you_post

You have a huge pool...are you sure about the volume?

 

[dn]

Re: Need Help Balancing My Hayward Sand Filter/ SGS Salt cel

Yes. I went with an SGS salt cell bc Hayward salt cell was too small for the pool at only 40,000 gal. Just added half a gal of muriatic acid 4 hours ago and check at 2 hours for pH level. pH level still high. Went ahead and added 3 bags of salt (salt yesterday was at 3,000) I was told with my salt cell I needed it to be 4,500. I will post a set of results when I go to Leslie's tomorrow to have my water check and I will let you know. I honestly don't know what I'm doing other than what Leslie's sales guy tells me. Do I need to put chlorine in my pool since I don't have any? Or can I just wait for the pH to go down and with the addition of salt, wait for the salt to produce chlorine? If so, how long would that take? Thank you.

 

[jblizzle]

Re: Need Help Balancing My Hayward Sand Filter/ SGS Salt cel

Welcome to TFP!

I think you would greatly benefit fin done reading in Pool School. Click the button in the upper right of the page and start with the ABCs article.

You certainly should be adding chlorine if the SWG if not keeping up. The SWG also tends to drive the pH up, so user of acid is expected.

You can check the pH after 30-60 minutes, no need to wait longer than that.

 

[Suziqzer]

Re: Need Help Balancing My Hayward Sand Filter/ SGS Salt cel

I would recommend your order yourself a good test kit and stop relying on the pool store results. Pool store tests are inaccurate and inconsistent. Here are the test kits recommended by this forum http://www.troublefreepool.com/pool-school/pool_test_kit_comparison. Most like the TF100 as it has more reagents for the $. A good test is the best investment you can make in your pool.

Yes, if your FC is 0, you need chlorine! Algae will take to growing quickly if your FC goes too low.

 

[dn]

Re: Need Help Balancing My Hayward Sand Filter/ SGS Salt cel

Thank you all for your help. Just put chlorine granules in along with lots of salt and more muriatic acid. will see tomorrow. also found out that i have high levels of phosphate in my pool, so added phosphate free plus to get rid of it. will see tomorrow. system running continuously for chemicals to mix. also quick question: how do i clean out my salt cell? it's an sgs. do i just use muriatic acid in with water for 30 minutes? how much muriatic acid? pool guy will charge me $60 for this! figured it sounds simple enough to do.

 

[techguy]

Re: Need Help Balancing My Hayward Sand Filter/ SGS Salt cel

PhosFree is something the pool store sells to "get rid of algae food", with the BBB system we use here, we eliminate the algae by using active chlorine to oxidize the algae and the phosphates are no longer an issue since there is no algae to need it. The "active chlorine" we use is typically liquid chlorine and its different than "stabilized chlorine". All forms of powder/shock/tab/puck are stabilized with something that can make the chlorine much less active in cleaning your pool, and then the algae grows and the pool store says you need phosFree, for $30 a jug, plus tabs. I have used less than $30 in chlorine this month.

The PoolSchool section describes this all in detail.

 

[dn]

Re: Need Help Balancing My Hayward Sand Filter/ SGS Salt cel

so are you saying i should have used liquid chlorine instead of the granular chlorine? i was told liquid chlorine will dissipate real quickly in the AZ heat here and the granular chlorine will be better. that's the only reason why i'm using the granular chlorine. now that i put granular chlorine in along with salt, will my salt cell produce too much chlorine then? i will check it tomorrow to see where it's at, but i was hesitant to put in the granular chlorine. only did it bc of previous comments to tell me that i needed to. thank you for any suggestions/commnets.

 

[duraleigh]

Re: Need Help Balancing My Hayward Sand Filter/ SGS Salt cel

Pool store advice and our advice do not mix. Much of this thread has been to correct the false advice you are receiving at Leslie's. You should make a choice between what we suggest or what Leslie's suggest. You are stuck in the middle and making no progress.

You will never be able to manage your pool unless you learn from this site and stop having Leslie's managing it for you.

 

[FamilyGuy]

Re: Need Help Balancing My Hayward Sand Filter/ SGS Salt cel

+1 to what Dave said (55,000 gallons!?!? Wow you have a big pool!)

 

[techguy]

Re: Need Help Balancing My Hayward Sand Filter/ SGS Salt cel

The interesting thing is what what Leslie's said is accurate, in a certain situation. If you use only liquid bleach/chlorine, it will quickly be lost to the sun. We choose to add the required stabilizer to our pools then use unstabilized chlorine. This protects it from the sun and provides very effective sanitization.

That solid form of chlorine that they sold you is a stabilized version of CL. The stabilizer, known as CYA here, protects the CL from the sun. The issue is the most common and least expensive bags and pucks are chemically about 50% CL and50% stabilizer. The stabilizer builds up to fast and the chlorine becomes over stabilized and ineffective at keeping the algae dead.