How do I add chlorine while I am cleaning my filter. Can I run the pump?

DTE was replaced last week; removed element, hosed off old DTE, and installed filter prior to adding new DTE. I am experiencing black residue in the center of the pool after the pump finishes the normal cycle. The resudue, black "dirt" is removable with the vacuum, but it returns after each pump cycle and I am at a loss. Perhaps someone can offer some guidance. Thank you.

We have a Hayward SwimPure plus salt chlorinator( older) with a t3 turbo cell bought in may of 2022. Had water checked at pinch a penny told me salt was at 2900 but I had 0 chlorine in water. Checked salt chlorinator, the check salt, and inspect cell light is on. Tcell is clean, was cleaned the day before and salt water on salt chlorinator reads 300. I did the calibration with turning it off, to auto and press diagnostics 5 times. Nothing happens. Did it again goes to -0 and nothing happens. After 1 minutes goes back to check salt and inspect cell.

Diagnostic screen:

300
90
30.6
0.00
50P
-0
AL-1
R1.59
T3
Thank you if someone can help!

Just came back from vacation and main pump won’t start. Pool is murky and have no clue how long the pump was not started. I put the system in service mode and recorded a video . Any suggestions are highly appreciated.
I will add the video shortly to this thread

hello!

Since slamming my pool it has been beautiful and maintainable ( imo). I do you the premium version of the app which is very helpful!

My children swim most days. I have to add acid to lower ph almost daily. I also have to add a good amount of LC daily. Is this normal?

My TA has been 100 for awhile and today I decided to lower it to optimal . I got my ph down to 7.0 , where it is currently, and now I am aerating with my spill feature to heighten the ph. My free chlorine before this was 1. I wanted to get my ph right before adding chlorine ( which I understand is important to do, correct)?

Now, I am wondering do I wait until the ph reaches optimal to add chlorine?

Thank you!
Robyn

Or at least new to me. I don't know why I've never looked at the string to my pool thermometer before but I did today for some reason. Ewwww.
Just may be one more place to check if you can't find where the algae is hiding...

I've had an in-ground 18'x36' pool for many years now but still yet to master how to balance it poperly quickly. Always seems to have both high TA. Easy to adjust lower but it also lowers PH. So trying to find some good option for pool aeration. Welcoming all ideas.

Pool filter making , it's not the pump. It is a Hayward extream.

I would like to close my outdoor in-ground pool because I can no longer do the routine maintenance work needed. The fall is especially difficult because the skimmers need to be emptied of leaves at least twice a day. Even during the summer the skimmers need to be watched closely. (I would consider selling the house and moving to a non-pool home but the current economy precludes that option.) It is a free-form shape would make a custom cover very expensive. Do I drain it and just let the leaves and debris accumulate until someone wants to reopen it? Even if I drain it, how would I keep rainwater from turning it into a smelly, mosquitoe breeding ground? Any advice and suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

The pool dig was a nightmare. 19" trenches and rocks around 3 sides of the house for months. We live in an area where gold rush fever left much of the area with hydraulic mining tailings. Piles and piles of rocks. Apparently, a builder came in and covered the rocks with a couple of feet of dirt and built homes on it. Broke ground 2/14/22. Did not finish and fill the pool until the middle of October. Got the final in Dec. But then we had to drain it due to leaks. Once it was refilled, we hired the pool builders' pool guy to maintain the pool chemicals. We still had leaks. The plaster guys came back twice more to fix them. The pool guy didn't open the on the 2nd fill-up and would not show up for 3 weeks at a time. The ph skyrocketed above 9 for weeks. Got a nasty case of Scale which I believe sealed the remaining leaks. Maintaining it myself now. Would like to incorporate a filter pressure sensor into the OmniLogic control system and find an easier way to remove the scale.. Sorry for the rant.

I've had this Chlorinator for about 10 years and it has worked well, but this season I noticed it has been producing no chlorine. I cleaned it with muriatic acid, I ran the diagnostic that showed it was 60% used up. All the lights are green- good salt level, good flow, good cell. I understand that when it's done the cell light will indicate end of life, but everything says it's OK. Is there anything else to try or is this the end? I know it is not making chlorine because my chemistry is good and the chlorine will not go up- I've had to add liquid. Thanks folks.

We had a crazy storm last night. I added 3 gal of liquid chlorine after it was over and got it 90% clean. Robot doing the rest.

I tested my water

FC 4
CC - was almost clear, but added 1 drop <.5
CH 300
TA 75
PH 7.5
CYA in the 20’s. I’m raising to 30

Why do I have a chlorine smell?

Side note: I have been slamming pool for a few days. FC in the AM previous days was 1

I just installed CircuPool SJ-35 SWCG, with idea of running it nearly 24/7 using low RPM setting on my VS pump.

Unfortunately, it requires at least 1500 RPM to keep air collecting at the top of SWCG, anything below and enough gas collects there for safety feature turning of generation due to low level of water.

I was thinking to install it vertically with outlet side pointing up - this way, I think, gas should have much easier time to escape SWCG housing. The safety sensor is located at the top of the cell, right above the exit port.

Any1 done it this way? Or may be there is an obvious flaw with such setup?

I'm struggling with my 10' x 30" pool. Regarding the Strainer Grids...are you supposed to be able to feel the suction/return on these grids? Intex is telling me no. I think they're incorrect. I've replaced the pump and everything looks like it's hooked up correctly, yet I can't feel a suction on the grid in the pool or return water coming out? The jet works that blows water in pool, but it's not strong. I guess I'm just used to a bigger pool! LOL! Help! And thanks!

Pool temp stayed low so I had took a look at the heater (Pentair Mastertemp 200). I noticed it had E05 error, and automatically assumed it was the Stack Flue Sensor since it is what Google tells me .

HOwever, after powering off and then powering on the heater, I noticed that the panel showed ERR AFS and fired back up...heating water ('heating' light was on) and turned off after a few 2 mins.

It does not look like E05 is on the panel anymore, but everytime I restart, same error (AFS) now shows up...fires up and turns off.

outside of contacting a technician, which can take days, what are my options here or what should I look at?

Each prior rust stain has been drilled out and patched, but new ones keep popping up in different areas of the pool. Once known rust stains are properly repaired, will replastering or adding pebbletec prevent further rebar rust stains from appearing? Or will more major work need to be done to fix my recurring problem?

Background:
About 4 years ago I posted on this forum about a rebar rust stain in my then 5 year old pool. The pool builder wonderfully accepted responsibility and repaired the spot at no charge (i.e., drained pool, drilled out the rusted rebar, patched, refilled pool). I paid for the refill water and startup chemicals, but was happy to do so. The pool builder acknowledged the problem is caused by rebar/ties being too close to the plaster surface.

In the past 4 years, 3 more rebar rust spots have appeared in different areas of the pool, and the pool builder gladly repaired them. I must say this is amazing, given the pool is now 9 years old and the most recent drill-out patch job was done last week. Can't say enough good things about my pool builder.

Well, I just checked the pool this morning, and yet another rebar rust stain has just appeared :-(

At 9 years, I assume I am now at the end of the lifespan of the plaster and that I will now/soon need to re-plaster or add pebbletec? With so many rebar rust issues, what needs to be done to fix the problem? Will a normal pebbletec/plaster job fix the recurring issue?

Cheers!

Pics for reference of a couple of the prior spots.

I have looked around the forum for info on this. There are many posts about streaks in plaster but most seem to be things that developed very quickly after the build. In my case, our plaster looked amazing after the build and for about the nine months (we kept pool open through the winter). It still looks really good, but I'm starting to see some streaking that looks like what some describe here. It is almost exclusively in the deep end, which makes me think it might be related to something I read which said that filling the pool too soon after fresh plaster can cause these issues. Our plaster team started the water immediately after they left so the deepest part of the pool did have water on it early. It took about 40 hours to fill the whole pool so the shallower parts rested a bit before getting water.

My main concern is whether this presents any issue other than the cosmetic effect. I certainly don't love it visually, but it's not terrible. I just want to know if this means the plaster is weaker or in other ways more susceptible to problems than it should be. I haven't been able to find any info on that yet either.

I'll include a couple of photos I took last night. The one with the long thin streaks is taken on the transition from shallow to deep end, almost like water rushing over this area over time has caused streaking. The other one is probably the most prominent spot in the deep end bowl.

When I dive down and look at this close up, these just really seem like discolorations. The surface doesn't seem any different from the rest otherwise.

As always, any thoughts are appreciated.

I have a 1 hp - 2 speed pump. It runs & will start up on high, but if I try to start it on low, it will try, then trip the plug. If I start it on high, I can switch it to low & it will run.

Right now I am running on high all the time, but would like to fix it. (I'm in California so a new pump is not cheap.) Is this something I should watch youtube videos on and try to fix myself? Ok, really I mean direct my husband on what needs to be done. Anyone have this problem before?

Last weekend, I had a heavy bather load so I used 2 bags of Leslie's Fresh N Clear non-chlorine shock. I have a SWG, pool installer set to 85% and left it at that when they abandoned me. My pool is about 5-6 weeks post fill.

Today on testing, Free and combined chlorine by FAS-DPD is 9.2, had been running just under 5 prior. I did the simple OTO test also and sample turned dark yellow.

Is this an artifact of the oxidizer in the Fresh N Clear. I found one forum entry alluding to this. Do I need to do anything about this? Reduce SWG or leave it alone and let chlorine return to normal levels?

Thanks as always, Jim

My Circupool SI-45 cell is on its last legs. Has anyone dealt with Salt Pool Store - The Experts in Salt Water Chlorine Systems ? If so, what is your opinion of them?
They list replacement cells at a much lower cost than Discount Pools.

I installed my first pool (Intex 18x9x52 XTR) about a month ago. I did my best to level the ground and the legs support using regular and laser levels. The pool is on compacted crushed granite covered with R-TECH panels and thick tarp. For leg support I used 4-inch thick concrete retaining wall blocks. I checked and rechecked using regular and laser laser levels and could not see anything wrong. Once I filled the pool, all was good except one corner that was about 1/2"-1" lower than the rest (just the corner, not the legs). I suspect it was probably because I did not expect the liner to reach that far, so maybe the base ground was a bit unleveled in the corner, but not 100% sure. I thought it would do for the first season, but today I noticed that the connecting rod that is close to the lower corner bent, the bottom of the leg shifted by about 1" and the corner went lowered by another 1/2"-1".

I rechecked the leg support blocks and they seem leveled:


The rod under the second leg also seems slightly bent, but not nearly as bad. Any ideas why this happened and what I should do short of draining the pool, redoing the corner and installing a new rod?

Hello. Looking for advice. We have had a large concrete pool put in our garden in Spain via a professional pool company. Upon filling the pool the water will not reach the top step without almost entirely covering the skimmer. Although water is still circulating no debris is being sucked in. The pool company are telling me it's fine to cover the top step and skimmer will still work. I do not believe this and with water under top step skimmer is already 3/4's covered. Firstly is it normal for top step to have no water reaching it and do the skimmers appear in the correct location. Pool company are adamant it's been done correctly but common sense is telling me otherwise.....

Should/can the FAS/DPD test be done using the magnetic stirrer, or just swirling by hand? New pool owner with water going in today. Thanks.

I'm a pool professional who's been dealing with a pool with high demand for years. The pool is just over 40K gallons. There's a spa attached to the same system as the pool that's just under 1K gallons. Sanitation is provided by an IC60. During the heavy parts of the swimming season, I have to run the generator at 100% while its in pool mode and 20% when it's in spa made. I have the spa set to run for 5 hours from 7p to midnight, and then it runs on the pool the rest of the time. I have a very hard time keeping the chlorine levels at the 7.5% of the CYA level on this pool. I have to manually add Sodium Hypo every week to both bodies of water or the chlorine levels just keep falling. The pool gets used A LOT. They basically open their pool up to their church and people from the church use it often, so the bather load is very high. I know I don't have some sort of biological issue, because this is only an issue when school is out. Once the use of the pool goes down, I have no trouble keeping the FC up where it should be and can turn the generator down to more reasonable levels. Because of the way the pool builder designed the equipment pad, adding any sort of additional chlorine feeder is difficult. Currently, there's no room in the plumbing for an additional SWG, and because the equipment is below water level and the single pump nature of the design of the system, I'm not confident in accurately controlling the FC with a liquidator.

BUT, due to issues that don't need explained at length here, I'm going to be replumbing the equipment pad to fix some hydraulic issues the builder created in the way he built the system and installing a variable speed pump and eliminating a second pump the builder was using to run half the spa. Also, because the builder didn't put any kind of equalizer line in-between the pool and spa, the chemistry is often different in both bodies of water and I basically have to treat them separately.

So, here's my question; What can I do to either increase the chlorine generation in the pool, or reduce the chlorine demand? My local Pentair rep is pushing Bioshield, but I'm well aware of how UV is looked upon in outdoor residential pools on this forum. I will say that this pool has an automatic cover and it's kept closed a lot, so maybe the UV would help reduce the demand enough that the SWG could keep up? Since I'm replumbing the entire equipment pad, I'll have the freedom to do as I please for additional sanitation now. My initial thought was to add an additional SWG and have one run at a fixed level and the other controlled by the automation. I'm concerned that if I turn it down enough to work with the spa, it won't do enough for the pool. I'm pretty confident that I can't have both of them controlled by the automation system without upgrading the control board in the automation (It's an old Easytouch8), but I think that's going to be a hard sell due to the expense, plus Pentair is phasing out the EasyTouch8 and wants us to upgrade the boards to the new IntelliCenter systems. As I've said before, I'm concerned about the liquidator working due to the equipment being nearly 6' below the water level in the spa, and 3' below the pool water level. I'm also concerned about control since there's no equalizer line, trying to get it set to a level that works for both bodies of water seems impractical.

I'd love to hear any ideas anyone might have for how to deal with this.

Who would believe in MICHIGAN you cannot find No. 20 Silica sand !!!! Can I use HTH pool filter sand ? Need help thank you

The CYA just won't go down or do I just have bad info/luck? I was under the impression that maybe I'd lose 1-3ppm a month. Tested in May (Memorial Day) the CYA was at 70 when I first opened the pool, today the CYA is still at 70.

I shake the test bottles for a whole minute and let it rest for 20 seconds and shake again for a minute so that I am not getting testing errors. I even pour back the solution from the eye-ball beaker into the bottle, shake it up and get a second reading. Always at 70.

Since opening the only thing I've been strictly using 10% LC. Except for 1 bag of 1lb 58% Cal-hypo and that was because I was going away for a week so wanted to bring the FC to near 30 and didn't have any more jugs of LC on hand.
I always try to keep the FC at or above 6-7ppm, the water is clear, it's good, it feels soft and great. I haven't had the need to add any pH increaser or TA just because those levels are within range.

Do I just have bad luck or am I under the wrong impression that the CYA is supposed to dissipate 1-3ppm over a few weeks/months?

My Jandy AquaLink RS is giving me fits! Noticed my programs weren't running at the set times. When I reviewed the Schedule in iAquaLink, there were duplicates and missing "circuits" that I had programmed. I've removed them all and tried to add them back with new start and stop times but its all wonky. After programming the activities, I reviewed them only to find out that times are for other programmed activities. Anyone else come across this? Help!

Hello Everyone,
Just moved to Arizona from the PNW. Love the desert! I haven't had a pool to care for since 1990... a lot has changed since than, way too many chemicals, and new products every pool owner must have. What happened to Acid, and Chlorine as the main chemicals to keep a pool happy?
I have a Pentair saltwater pool and for the last 3 months have been trying to get things in balance...which is a balancing act.
Several times I've had questions, and Google brings up TFP, so I decided to join and hopefully get some sound advice, as well as share my experiences, both positive and challenging.

Hi all! I've been monitoring my pool remotely and noticed it has a significant leak. I still have 10 days left before I make it back home.

I've turned off the pump for now but unsure if I should be trying to look for a repair company remotely or if I should have my friend constantly refill it.

They had filled it about half way up the skimmer line and about 2 days later it looks significantly below the tile line.

Any tips on what to do? Maybe get a cover to cover the pool for now?

Image below of current level. It was half way at the skimmer 2 days ago.

Hope I can get some suggestions here.

I have a plaster in-ground pool with a floor cleaning system. Being as I live in the Phoenix area, occasionally we receive dust storms which occasionally rise to the level of a haboob. Our house (and pool) back to a wash on the edge of the metro area, and we are usually the first to get hit with these storms. Long story short - they can deposit a huge amount of dust/dirt/sand into the pool. The in-floor system is more or less incapable of dealing with this much dirt - it takes 3 or 4 days to start becoming even remotely clean, due the the high power floor jets just sending the dirt all over the place instead of sucking it into the filter. This leads to a load of manual brushing toward the drain with minimal success. Afterward, an immediate cleaning of the 4 huge canister filters in the 40k gallon housing needs to be done. Needless to say, this stinks.

Dirt uptake is the easy part - I can use a manual or robotic vacuum attached to the filter basket intake. What I want to include if I'm able, is a pre-filter filter if you will. It would reside inline between the vacuum and filter basket intake. That way I can dump the dirt into that filter before it continues on into the primary filter, and I can occasionally stop and relieve the single filter of its contents. But I'm not certain of the best type to use. I'm not sure it I should use a sand filter, a canister filter, or another type. I'm looking for something that will filter most of a large quantity of mostly fine dust - 'moon dust' if you will. I'm hoping it is fairly portable, easy to clean, and hopefully inexpensive. Being able to use a standard pool hose is a plus.

Thank you in advance for any suggestions.