Intellichlor concerns...

[gatorbrit]

I have a new intellichlor 40 installed this year on my 18000 gal vinyl IG pool.

My concern is that today when I checked the FC it was at 0.5 ppm.
The rest of my numbers are good - Ph 7.6, CYA 60.

All the lights on the unit are green and I was running it at 80%.
My pump is running for 9 hours (9am - 6pm) during the day at about 2200 rpm. I am in North Carolina, so it has been quite warm and sunny. We've also had a few big rain storms.

I am a bit surprised that the IC unit can't keep the chlorine level in the pool up. 6 days ago the FC was at 5. So basically I've lost nearly 1 ppm per day - this seems like the IC unit isn't really doing much.

As a test, I set it at 100% and am running the pool pump all night to see what it shows in the morning, but I wondered what sort of settings others were using (i.e IC output/pump run time etc).


Any thoughts?

Thanks

 

[JasonLion]

I recommend manually raising the FC level to the high end of the normal range, to 9 or 10 in this case. Then keep an eye on what the FC level does from there. You might be right on the verge of an algae outbreak, or it could just be normal and all fine in a day or two. You shouldn't expect a SWG to recover from a very low FC level on it's own. You need to raise the FC level right away before things spin out of control.

Longer term, you will want to raise FCCYA up to the 70 to 80 range we recommend for use with a SWG.

 

[gatorbrit]

OK - thanks - I put in a load of bleach to bring the FC up to 6. I will add more CYA also. Then I will monitor the levels closely.

I think that I had assumed that the SWG would produce much more chlorine than it does - but it appears that (and this is assuming it is working), that setting it up takes a bit of tweaking.

 

[gatorbrit]

Longer term, you will want to raise FC up to the 70 to 80 range we recommend for use with a SWG.

Just checking - you mean to say CYA not FC - right?

 

[JasonLion]

Yes, CYA. Sorry.

 

[gatorbrit]

Just an update - I added more CYA and I also brought the FC up a lot by putting in bleach. I've run the unit for 12 hours at 80% output and it added 3ppm of FC - so I think it is good.

The moral (at least for me) is that even though you have a SWG - you need to do quick FC checks quite frequently until you are really comfortable with how it responds.

 

[jblizzle]

The moral (at least for me) is that even though you have a SWG - you need to do quick FC checks quite frequently until you are really comfortable with how it responds.

Yup, don't get too complacent: http://www.troublefreepool.com/threads/79576-Even-Mods-make-mistakes