Adding Salt

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dinobingham

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Nov 9, 2013
13
Dallas, TX
Love the forum thank you - new pool owner and i'm holding off on spending the $40/w on professionals while i give myself a chance to be a complete owner

After joining the forum in the last few days and reading up - i online ordered a Taylor test kit and some cyanuric acid

My SWG was showing a reading of 2.5 grams per litre (2500ppm) when i hit the salinity button - so off i went for my 4 dollar 40 pound blue bag of salt crystals (may need another) from the Big Box store and didn't i feel special and empowered as i deposited said salt into my own pool - in the shallow end - and turned the % down to 0 on my SWG, then set my pump to remain on for 24 hours. I appeared dangerously close to competent to my extremely dubious wife.

Checked the reading this morning (handy how the SWG salinity reading is available even while the cells are turned down to off) and we're at 2800 - so almost there; apparently i'm shooting for 3,000..

Once i have the water kit i'll see if i truly need to add CYA since the professional guy that turned up said my level was zero - stay tuned and thanks again for a terrific Forum!!

Question: ok to turn off the pool sweep during the 24 hour window? or negligent impact either way?
 
Welcome to tfp, dinobingham :wave:

I just thought I would mention that it is usually not a good idea to go by the swg alone when adding salt. In some cases, such as when a salt cell is at end of life or when the cell has buildup on it, the salt reading can read low, even though the salt level in the pool is fine. If you are not getting them, I would order some of the aquachek salt strips as an independent way to confirm salt levels.
 
Thanks much! ordering test strips now; great idea

i read thru the Jandy aquapure manual and there appears to be no salinity calibration feature, so i can only assume it's a replacement cell if the reading is off; or perhaps a cleaning for both the cell and the sensor as a first step.. should be a fun little task!

i'll post my water test results this week when the kit turns up - the pool looks gorgeous by the way since the last 3 weeks when we moved in

Question: do i assume the spa is receiving adequate chlorine treatment given it's receiving the same return water as the pool? i can't imagine i need to manually add more to it externally (for example)

thanks again - and thanks for boosting the confidence of a newbie pool owner
 
As long as some water is returning to the spa (and then usually spilling back into the pool), the water composition should be the same between the pool and spa. Just consider it a single body of water ... and this is certainly an advantage of having an integrated spa.
 
The aquapure's salinity can be calibrated, run a search in the forum and you should find a thread or 2 that has the directions for calibrating. That said, I suggest leaving the calibration alone as test strips do not give the most accurate measurement.
 
got it - plan is to use test strips to validate current SWG reading; if they're off, i may ask for advice on a second more reliable test; if there is indeed a differential from true, i will go through the calibration steps on the Jandy 1400 unit to align the reading

thanks for keeping me honest here
 
I would not worry too much on a new SWG about the test and SWG matching exactly. You just want to be able to use the independent test in the future to see if the trends are the same as what the SWG is showing. If the SWG is showing lower and lower salt, but your test does not, that would indicate a problem with the SWG.

Ultimately for the SWG to work, it must be happy with the salt level ... regardless of what you test says. My salt drop test consistently measures 400-600ppm higher than what the SWG is reporting. Not sure why, but does not really matter since the SWG is happy.
 
Hope tacking onto this post is ok - here are my first test results using a K-2006 Kit

Salt now at 3100ppm

FC - 6ppm (was 4 yesterday, perhaps i left the pump running too long (8 hours yesterday at 90%)
CC - 0.5ppm
pH - Looks like 7.1 or 7.2 (which suprised me since the 'pool guy' who tested a month ago read 7.8: i didn't know enough then to ask how he tested that)
TA - 80
CH - 260
CYA - 0 (i've added an 8lb bag of CYA and will re-test next week)

Caveat - testing was during the morning hours; i will start doing future tests in the evening

Anyway: pool calc. tells me i should add 4lbs of Borax; i'll await next week's CYA test and post
Concern i have is the CSI Index - the Taylor wheel shows -0.5 (pool temp is 70F) and hence plaster corrosive potential; so do i remedy this with an immediate application of Borax?

Water looks clear by the way - thanks for listening!
 

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Thanks again Jason et. al.

A little plea for help / review - updated test results and i'm a little surprised by a couple of them

i added 8lbs of CYA and a 4lb box of Borax a week ago - we've had a significant drop in temps in last couple days (30's)

FC - 16ppm (!) (that's 32 drops into a 10mL solution)
CC - 0
pH - 7.6
TA - 110
CH - 280
CYA - 90

maybe i reduce the SWG pump down to 20% for a few days? (my salt is steady at 3100ppm)

thanks for any insight
 
Yes. Reduce the SWG and/or pump run time. With the cold weather the FC consumption is much less. What is you water temp? At some point the SWG with turn itself off (50 or 60 degrees) and stop generating.
 
56 degrees
i'm now running the pump 24 hours given the likelihood of freezing temps
so reduced the SWG down to 10% (which i assume means 2.4 hours of chlorine generation per day)

i'll retest in a week and repost - aiming to get to the point i can add Borates and spark things up a little - tho i understand it's winter and way too early to get excited..

Happy Thanksgiving
 
I would just turn the SWG off at this point. The FC will slowly drop and then you could bump it back up with bleach. Likely the SWG will stop generating if the water temp drops much more.
 
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