stenner pump suction strainer in chlorine all summer covered in grey stuff?

[camueller]

Hi all. Hope this is the right place for this, but I had a question after winterizing my pool pump yesterday and discovering a leak on my stenner. The stenner just needs a new tube I'm pretty sure (not sure why this one only lasted me 5 months, but I got a season out of it, so ok). I decided to pull the pump and bring it inside for the winter so I can fix it, and keep it out of the elements. When I did this, I pulled the hose out of the bucket I am using for bleach storage and the stenner line strainer is white/grey looking. It's actually been like this for several months, and I thought maybe it was just bleached. But when I touched it with a gloved hand I realized there was a clay like substance all over it.

Is that normal? Should I have been cleaning it more often, or did something somehow get into my storage tank and foul up the strainer? And sorry, I didn't get any pictures...I didn't feel like grabbing my phone out of my pocket while my hands were covered in bleach/grey stuff.

 

[JohnT]

What are you using for a storage tank? Any chance it is breaking down?

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Bleach has a high pH, about 12 to 12.5; it is from the excess lye (NaOH). Strong hydroxide solutions can scavenge CO2 from the air and form bicarbonates that are mostly insoluble at high pH and will precipitate out of solution. This often seen in The Liquidators as the white flakes that form and clog up the lines (calcium carbonate). You may be getting precipitates from the bleach solution. It's probably a good idea to rinse the lines and strainer off with distilled water and maybe a very mild acid cleaner (like vinegar or diluted muriatic acid) and then rinse really well in distilled water again.

 

[rphpool]

Same exact thing happened to my Stenner setup. Mine has been operating for little over a year. I just cleaned everything up, blew air through the black tubing, changed the main tube ( which had stopped working ) and hooked everything back up and will repeat next year. Once a year maintenance for automatic chlorine injector, easier trade off!!

 

[camueller]

Interesting stuff. My storage container is a 5 gallon HDPE plastic bucket with matching top. I don't think HDPE will leach anything into the solution, but maybe.

Otherwise I suppose it makes sense that it is something precipitating. Either that or something like dirt is getting into my bucket. It just seems weird that it almost seemed painted on the strainer body, and I didn't notice any of the material on the bucket anywhere. I did not look too close in the tubes nor inside the stenner, so maybe more is in there. I did wonder how any liquid was even moving through the strainer still, all holes were pretty full.

Also the way my stenner tube broke seems a little weird. I haven't removed it yet to look, but from the outside, all I could really tell was that the fitting where my black UV tubes screw into were no longer tight on the part that was leaking. I could grab it and wiggle it around in it's hole, whereas the non leaking fitting was snug and secure still. Hopefully my body is still in good shape.