Hi everyone, my name is Francesco and I write from Italy. I discovered your fantastic forum and I decided to register because in Italy I could not find a solution to my problem even with qualified technicians. I have a 22x8m swimming pool with skimmer filtration system and Zeolite as filter material (changed last year) and I only use drinking water from the municipal network. for a couple of years now I have had big problems with iron stains forming all over my pool and which I can only remove with the use of ascorbic acid. however, as we know, this involves lowering the pH and destroying the chlorine. unfortunately after each treatment with AA as soon as I start adding chlorine again (even if I do it gradually) the stains in the pool begin to form again especially on the stairs and on the level of the waterline despite using sequestering products regularly. I'm desperate and don't know what to do anymore

Hot tub is due next month and I'm doing as much homework as possible. This is all very overwhelming.

1. Fill tub through filter well with filters removed. Using a hose filter.

2. Use Ahhsome to purge the system.

3. Cut power off and drain.

4. Clean shell etc.

5. Put filters back in and turn power back on.

6. Refill tub through filter well.

7. Heat to at least 80F.

8. Balance TA to about 125, then Ph to 7.5.

9. Use sodium bromide to get to levels about 5.

10. Get Calcium to about 175.

11. Use liquid unscented bleach to shock (what level of what am I looking for here?).

12. Once at correct levels, put bromine tablets in floater.

13. Enjoy?

Am I missing anything? Any advice?

I am in northwest Georgia, and our pool is nearly complete. It is in the process of filling today, and I am so happy with the way it has turned out. I agonized over material choices because I didn’t want my pool to have any hint of green. (almost went with Stonescapes Tahoe blue) I wanted a medium blue pebble finish, and I believe we achieved that with Stonescapes Aqua White mini pebbles with one bag per batch of cobalt blue glass and one bag per batch abalone shells. We chose silver travertine coping, and NPT Caldera blue azurite waterline tile. I second guessed every choice, but I think it turned out great.

They both seem to be recommended just curious if other than price there is any difference?
Diamond Crystal Solar Naturals Water Softener Salt Crystals 100012454 - The Home Depot (7.69 in bulk vs 7.99)

Avoiding mortons and chlorox due to rust stain issues and well.. they cost the same.

Looking for advice. I noticed a single tile off in my skimmer. It quickly turned into several with fairly large chunks of gunite (I assume that’s what it is) coming off. I am pretty handy but this looks complex. Looking for advice and / or a name of someone in the greater Sacramento area that could fix this. My pool is 23 years old and is pebble tec.

Good afternoon i am new here! Trying to get some info on why my pool is throwing error codes after a new board was placed. I work a lot and it’s frustrating when you get ready to get in the pool and parts ain’t working causing pool to turn. I would appreciate any help an insight. I look forward to learning from everyone.
I started a thread in the SWCG forum.

Hi all I’m in Australia and have recently installed my first ever pool. Everything going well and the water is testing great so far but due to the amount of dirt and wind around while we were waiting for concrete and such the water got very dirty. This is where my question comes in. I was told to vacuum it to waste. Everywhere I looked people had a valve to turn to the ‘waste’ position.

I don’t have that just a valve you open and the water goes out there so figured that was all I needed to do. But I’ve noticed when I “waste” the water it is going out of the hose but it’s also coming back through the jets in the pool which I’ve been told shouldn’t happen.

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That is the current set up. Water comes out of the blue hose and into a drain. It’s currently closed off but usually turn the valve and that opens it up. I’m eager to figure it out as I want to get this pool as clean as I can as we get closer to finishing the area.

Opened the pool in mid-June and promptly took the family on vacation in mid-July. I opted to cover our small above ground pool and leave my SWG running on a shorter than normal schedule, just to ensure the water wouldn't be overrun by algae upon my return. Three weeks later, the water was crystal clear except for a small amount of fine sediment at the bottom. Looks like I misjudged the potential chlorine loss though.

I'm sure it'll be fine in a couple days once the sun has had its way with the chemicals. Regardless, I was quite proud that I managed to stave off an algae/critter takeover with nothing more than a pool cover, some shrink wrap, and running the SWG for two hours a day.

I am planning out a pretty big water exchange. I'm trying to get my calcium level down, and I know there is some iron in my water that I'm trying to get down too. I have had some issues over the past few years with scale and iron stains, reasonably mild, but trying to do better.

I have a 15,000 gallon pool, and was thinking of running the exchange long enough to have 15,000 gallons in/out-- which is about 24 hours continuous using my pump.

This will drop my FC, CYA, TA, and Salt, and likely change my pH. I've been looking around for the sequence in which to balance things once I'm done with the exchange, but couldn't figure it out. Anyone have any thoughts on this? I was thinking about adding the salt last, as I have plenty of chlorine around from a recent SLAM and just figured I'd turn off the SWG during this as the salt level will drop too low anyway.

Thanks in advance.

First of all, thank you all for this wonderful forum. I have been learning alot from reading your posts!

Long story short...started doing maintenance on spa (installed 2018) during the pandemic. I could get decent levels of FC (2-3) by running the Aquapure at 15-20%.

Have had on again off again algae problems since aquapure started having issues in May last year, and I couldn't get decent chlorine production even if I cranked the chlorine production up to 50 or 75%. Was getting error codes 121, 120 (120 - Low cell current in forward direction - check DC cord, clean cell if necessary or replace cell. 121 - Low cell current in reverse direction, same as 120 above). Cleaned the cell, replaced the DC cable etc to no avail, did some research online and figured it was probably be the cell (once I used non-dilluted Muriatic acid to clean the cell, so its probably my fault).

Bought new Jandy Aquapure 700 cell off ebay in Dec 2022 and installed in Feb 2023 .... didn't start it up since water temperatures were relatively low (for SoCal) in the mid 50s and wanted to wait and get water balance right. Stabilizer levels were low. Added stabilizer but levels were still below 20. So never really started the cell up. Controlled algae by scrubbing, then using Shock DryTec Calcium Hypochlorite periodically (which made the Calcium levels skyrocket, I've stopped using it since)

A couple weeks ago, had some plaster repair done, and even though the repair work was in a shallower corner of the spa, the tech drained the spa completely. Test results from newly changed spa water:
FC .5 ppm
PH 7.6- 7.8.
TA 160
CH 150
CYA 0
Salt 0
Added salt, stabilizer, liquid chlorine but didn't do anything with the akalinity which seems high in our tap water. After a few days got the water to this:
FC 2 ppm
PH 7.6- 7.8.
TA 160
CH 150
CYA 65
Salt 2700

Later on, started running Aquapure at 40% and still getting FC readings below 1. Then errors 194/125 on the Jandy Aquapure SWG.
I looked on the web and it appears "194 -Cell Current is 85% lower than desired and cell voltage above 19V (generates 125 code - Cell dirty or needs replacement)"
I checked the cell before firing it up and washed off the very light layer of scale.

Need some help figuring out the next step...Thanks in advance!

Could an admin PLEASE place the charts where they can be easily accessed? The links in forum threads don't link directly to them. Would really be a big, big help for a lot of folks here.

Hello everyone! I am new to this site and have a few questions about pebble color.

We selected a French Grey color pebble from Stonescapes. We added some Puerto Rican and Abalone Shells for sparkle.

My question is how long does it take to see the true color of the water if it was installed a week ago? I've been brushing every single day and while I do love the color, at times I'm seeing a little bit of a teal/green tint and its a little different than all of the photos I've seen online. We have Ozone that is using primarily chlorine so not sure if that has anything to do with the watercolor, but curious if anyone else has French grey and love and/or hate it.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Hello: Thank you for all of the wonderful advice on these boards. We just completed a pool replaster. Day 1: Plaster completed by about 11:30am; Day 2: acid wash in the morning at about 9am, and starting at about 10 am a very quick pool fill with delivered water. All looked good on day 1, but by day 2 after the acid wash there were cracks all throughout the shallow end, the steps and a bench. Can these be fixed? Are these a concern for the life of my pool? Is it fair to insist that the contractor address these cracks? Thank you.

I am running an intex 12 in sand filter on a 12x30 prism pool. I recently started to get a lot of silt on bottom of pool. I’m wondering if it’s too much power and it is either over circulating and not filtering properly. It has not always been an issue but started to get progressively worse. I thought was mustard algae and it is not. I replaced sand and it still Happened, I ran a test and out the old weak filter in that came with pool And no silt On bottom. Getting very frustrated with what is causing it! Any insight welcome.

Just looking to extend our swimmable season from mid-May thru Sep and also supplement for any cold spells in the summer. I have no problem with installing the ~75' run of NG to the pool and doing most of the install myself but I was wondering what the real world cost is to run the heater? We like a temp of at least 82 degrees. With the weather this year, it's touched that at points but we got spoiled last year when it stayed 86 or above for a few weeks.

Thanks...

Test

For weeks, I've been maintaining FC levels between roughly 3-7ppm as my CYA has shifted from 50 to 40. Suddenly this evening, I'm attempting to run the FAS-DPD and after adding the 870 powder I am adding 20-25 drops of 871 and the 10mL solution is still remaining a dark pink. Is this a sign that my reagents are suddenly expired...I just can't make sense of this sudden change.

It hasn't been a year since I purchased the TF-Pro kit however I am nearly at the bottom of the 870 powder. Does the fine dust that settles at the bottom sometimes give false readings for any reason?

Thank you!

I just posted this in Reddit,
"I live in sunny Southern California and have to target 9.5 PPM chlorine every night just in order to keep pouring level above for PPM the next day. So I'm losing about 5.5 PPM per day. And for a 14,700 gallon pool, that adds up to more than 1/2 a gallon of chlorine per day.
So I have two questions. First, does this seem like a reasonable amount to add daily? And two, how is it possible that these professional pool guys can add chlorine just once a week and still maintain proper levels needed to avoid algae? I have to add chlorine every night!"

Almost everyone on Reddit recommended that I raise my CYA (currently 30 ppm). But I understood on trouble-free pools that increasing CYA above 30 brings diminishing returns. And by the way I have already done the overnight chlorine loss test and passed it. Any thoughts?

Hi All!
Couldn't find anything on this, but I suspect that I may have (dead?) algae growing near my equipment due to a leak somewhere in my inground pool plumbing.
I noticed that a very small amount of water is dripping from the side of my water heater when the pump is on from the pressure release valve, and maybe somewhere in the piping that is causing green stuff (i assume is algae) on my concrete landscaping.
It looks like this problem was inherited from the last owner, as the algae was already there prior to me opening my pool in May.

1. What can i use to seal up the heater?
2. What can i do to deal with the algae on the concrete?

Thanks!

OK, I wasn't sure this belonged under this thread so if there is a better one, feel free to move me along

I wanted to share some pics of my new liner install. I am so freaking happy with this liner and the overall color effect. The pictures hardly do it justice

Liner is by GLI - Durango 20 Mil with Mosaic dark gray floor

I have been looking for an affordable solution to control my variable pump and my Pool Pilot Digital SWG via WIFI. My budget was $100. After reading several threads here and looking closely to the v-green 165 and pool pilot digital manual, I've came up with a solution that I would like to share with the group. Following is a list of devices that I used.

Orbit B-hyve 4-Zone Smart Indoor Sprinkler Controller​

Functional Devices RIB2401B Power Relay​

I have included a rough connection diagram below.

Using the digital inputs of the v-green to control the pump, I hooked each b-hyve zone to one of the pump steps as pictured below. I also used the b-hyve "pump" port to control the RIB2401B which turns my pool pilot on/off. When the b-hyve sends a 24vac signal to the v-green motor via each of its steps, it also sends a 24vac to the RIB2401B. You can program the b-hyve to run each step up to 8 hours and we can schedule up to 4 programs through out the day. I have disabled the rain delay so it would not interfere with the b-hyve running steps 1-3 and the override.

I hope this helps. Cheers

Hello, our pool is one year old. We have an island planter in the center. It was discovered by us after the gunite was poured that measurements were off by a whole foot. Our project mgr didn't even notice it until we showed him the measurements. They tore down one side all the way down to the rebar and rebuilt it and poured the gunite again. Huge mess. Anyways, this history is probably helpful info. I just discovered a few weeks ago a spot on the island wall that has rust. This is the same area that was demoed. At first I was hoping that I was imagining it but it has grown larger and darker so there's no mistaking it. I took a look wearing googles to confirm it. I reached out to the pool company as we have a warranty. I wanted to see what everyone here thinks. What is the correct way to fix this?

The wheels on my 6-week-old Polaris 360 stopped spinning like others in this forum. The tail is still whipping and water is flowing strongly from the jet drives. If I manually spin the single wheel myself, the other 2 wheels will freely spin. I placed a straw over the 3 jets underneath and blasted water through each with a garden hose. After this, the sweep worked nicely for about 10 minutes, but then the wheels stopped again. I actually tried to repeat the process again, this time blasting each jet even more thoroughly. Again, the sweep started up well with the wheels spinning, but again the wheels stopped after a few minutes. Thanks for the help so far ... any advice how I can keep these wheels moving?

I have a HP13023646 Hayward HeatPro that I believe the fan motor is going out on. The fan struggles to start or won't start at all until you give it a little bump with your hand, then it seems to run just fine. I'm assuming the bearings are going out and it needs to be replace. The problem is, I can't seem to find anything that specifies exactly which fan motor is a replacment for it. I even have the model and information from the fan motor, but that hasn't helped much yet, either. The model of the fan is K55HXNDY-0875 and it's a 1/3 HP, 825 R.P.M, 60Hz, 2.4 amp, 208-230 volt unit. Any ideas? Thank you for the help.

Hi,
I replaced my dead Pentair Max E Pro pool pump with a 3 HP Black and Decker VS pump. I have an a Intellitouch i7 +3 automation system that connects to an App using screen logic.. I replaced the B&D control panel with the automation adapter that can be used for the B&D pump. When I went to connect the automation cable from the pump to the board, I found a rats nest of cables and could make sense of how to make the connections. I viewed several Youtube videos with folks connecting VSPs to automation boards but never with the i7+3.

I used the same electric connections from the old pump on the new B&D.

When I try to fire up the pump (turn the breakers on), it is not getting power. The App will not fire up the pump either. The breakers (in the automation box and the main house panel) are not tripping. My uneducated guess is that the pump is not getting power due to the panel not being connected to the pump. Does this seem like a plausible explanation?

Can anyone give me some ideas on trobleshooting this issue or is anyone an expert on Intellitouch systems? I took lots of picture of the the low volage side and high voltage side if that helps.



.

Could someone tell me why my CSI is constantly testing out of range, all year long? This is the one variable I don't understand how to balance even after reading other posts. I know it's something about scaling but unsure beyond that.

My most recent full test results:
7.4 ph
30 cya
4.0 FC
0.0 CC
70 TA
75 degrees F - Temp
-0.94 CSI

Thanks!

(edited to include my test results)

Well it simply doesn’t work correctly if you have comma as a decimal separator in your locale as opposed to a dot. It is a common problem in many systems when they are not developed locale aware but it is easy to fix. I am using the app on iPhone. It would be nice if you guys fixed it.

Every year my pool closing company increases their prices. I think I will do it myself this year. My only real concern is the main drain. Can anyone point me to a good video of the main drain?

They also insist on a firm date for closing. I explained to them that I close based on water temp but they don't care. If I miss my date they go forward like another month.

Also as far as blowing water out of the heater, is it just, "blowing water out of the heater"?

I know where all of the equipment drains are located so I am not anticipating any issues.

I do not have a "cyclone" blower but may pick one up. I am not sure my shop vacuum can provide enough air. I have an air compressor but that only provides like 5 SCFM of air.

Blowout Underground Lines Only

PLAN C: Blowout Underground Lines Only------- $379

o Lower water level as needed

o Remove water from underground pipes and add antifreeze as needed

o Backwash filter and/or hose off elements

o Winterize filtration equipment

o Install customer’s freeze plugs

o Provide a pool evaluation and Winter Warranty

o Work performed by our Certified service technician

Click to expand...

Would anyone happen to know if the jandy JXI heater has a built in regulator or does the heater need an external regulator? I believe the water column needs to be between 4 and 10

Hi TFP -

I have a return line (1.5" flex PVC) that has a leak under my concrete deck. Pool is <1year old and the leak has been there from day 1. I don't really want PB to dig into the concrete so have been looking for no dig solutions and found pipepoxy. Has anyone used this or something similar? How were the results? Any recommendations for techs in central Ohio?

Thx!