Hello, I am wondering if you have found a solution. My aqua logic is doing the same thing. It is an older system so no way to tell which relay is related to what polarity. We removed board and saw some burn marks on the K2 relay. We re soldered, worked for a couple of days and then back to 0amps, 0 salinity, 31V when on negative polarity. Positive polarity readings are all fine. Cell has only been used for 1 season (maybe 5 months). I remove it over the winter and replace with dummy cell.

Moved from here.

Hello, I have been maintaining our home pool for a while and I do ok (not great)with the day to day. What stumps me is when something breaks. We have an aqualogic chlorinator that I have a love hate relationship with.

I'm working on the pool base for my 12'x24' above ground pool. I was thinking of using pea gravel to level the ground and to put the pool on top of. I know that mason sand is recommended to be 3" deep - how deep would you recommend pea gravel to be? I read somewhere 4" but that would get pretty costly - the frame I built is 18' by 27'...

I'm have a cloudy greenish problem. I have maintained CYA at about 50 (always), FC level at (usually) 5-10, with a high of 30 three weeks ago when I first noted the algae. Since, I have changed my filter cartridges twice ( I have two sets and clean them pretty thoroughly before and again after they are stored) with pH of 7.2. When this started four weeks ago with the algae, I did the high FC thing with some improvement, but not great. Did the cartridge changes 10 days apart (pressure didn't get high, but I had to do something) and still cloudy with new green dust every day. I am absolutely a believer in chlorine as sanitizer and algae killer, but it doesn't seem to be keeping up with the algae. Thinking of doing some Polyquat and have ordered it. I don't drain the pool ever (well once after it filled with furniture and tree limbs when the tornado missed us by about a mile), but polyquat is metal free so not scared of it, but is it likely to work? The chlorine is high enough to trust for safe, but I'd like it to look better!

Hey guys. I have small spa attached to the pool. The drain has never worked. Just moved here last year and unsure if it worked before. I just took a look at there’s this plug. Is this supposed to be removed? Or is it supposed to be here? Sorry for the poor photo.

Thanks!

This is a new requirement for me. I'm used to draining pools with a submersible pump into a cleanout, but it appears the City wants to have a dedicated drain to the sewer. Is there a standard way of accomplishing this? I was going to use the 1" discharge line of a Jacuzzi JMC16 pre-filter to discharge into the drain. The drain is 2" PVC with a P-Trap (City Requirement) draining at 2% and tied into the house sewer sub-lateral. Problem is, he wants me to show an engineering calculation to prove that the discharge flow rate won't overwhelm the drain line and I'm not sure how to do that. Nobody I've asked has any idea what I'm talking about, so I think there must be a more standard solution to this. Anybody have any clues?

I got a pool blaster centennial vacuum a few weeks ago. IT IS AWESOME! Time will tell how long it lasts, but so far it has been great at vacuuming the tanning ledge, steps, and corners. It picks up a ton of fine debris and anything else that accumulates in hard to reach areas for my current pressure side robot.

It charges quick. Battery has died on me yet, but my pool is fairly small and only really used to get the edges and corners where the robot doesn't get to.

Thought i'd share my thoughts on it in case anyone was considering one

Liner replaced on my pool last weekend and filled by hose. I have been using my Taylor kit and adding the appropriate chemicals. TA and PH are high so I added muriatic acid today to reduce Ph to 7.0. What’s the easiest way to aerate to increase Ph now?
Is it building pvc “fountains” on returns? My husband does have an air compressor, is there a solution using that???

I took readings of everything using my K-2005 test kit (excluding FC/TC/CC which i used the FAS/DPD test) yesterday at 1030AM and this is what I had:

pH: 7.5
FC: 7.5
TC: 7.5
CC: 0.0
TA: 80
CH: 210
CYA: 30
Salt: 3171 (using SWCG reading)

Per the math, I added about 4.5 lbs of CYA moment ago via pantyhose in front of the return to get my CYA up to around 80, and of course, it lowered my pH from 7.5 to 6.9 (it's an acid, duh...). I know it will rise over the next 24-48 hours as the CYA continues to disolve and be absorded, but my 4 year old son wants to swim in 2 hours - I assume this is still safe?

So I've been a faithful follower of TFP since we bought our house with a vinyl-liner pool 7 years ago, and knock on wood, in those 7 years I only had one funky chemical issue when I was traveling for work and my wife didn't put any chemicals in and I ended up with CYA reducing bacteria.

Since then we've bought a cabin, that we periodically go to during the summer that is a fair distance away from our house. The last couple of trips I've had a neighbor handle the chemicals, which they did alright but missed a couple of days but it wasn't hard to recover from.

Longer term I feel like I can't keep asking my neighbors though, so I've been considering converting to a SWG. My pool service guy (I use for major repairs, opening, and closing just because they can do those things better and faster than I can) isn't a fan because the older vinyl pools weren't designed for salt and salt is corrosive. His concern is its harder on the metal walls (I'm not sure I buy that unless there is a vinyl leak), the anchors for the ladders, the metal coping, and reduces the life of the liner overall.

So I'd love to get some thoughts here on:

1. Has anyone else converted an old vinyl liner pool to SWG and had any issues?
2. What have you done when you travel (1 to 2 weeks at a time) to keep things fairly balanced.

One thought I have is to get a float with CalHypo tablets and tie it between the two loops use for hooking the float rope across, that way it stays towards the middle of the pool, and I can hook up the hose to a pool sentry to make sure the water levels stay good. And then maybe I can reduce the amount of times the neighbors have to do something to once or twice.

Hello, I was able to buy this cooler from someone selling it, but it's missing the sump pump with the plumbing. Can someone provide some pictures of how the sump pump is plumbed in these units, please? Also, when checking the install diagram, why is the output of the chiller connected to the incoming skimmer line instead of the return line? I won't have a dedicated return line for it. Can someone explain to me how that makes sense to plumb it like this?

We are about to kickoff a renovation on this pool, having recently purchased the property.
Pool is original with the house build (2006), FWIW.

Current general plan:
WetEdge Serenity finish
Add sunshelf
Marble decking
Upgrade pool controller - unsure on this one, probably Pentair?

Some background, we built the pool at our previous house in 2017. It was done in PebbleTec/PebbleSheen, and used Haywood automation, which I wasn't a fan of. Overall we had no complaints, but I like the WetEdge Serenity feel, so going for that over PebbleTec again.

On this pool we plan to use the decking material as the coping, we really like the cleaner and more consistent overall look. Was not planning any major changes beyond adding the sunshelf (78"), but open to novel ideas.

Not directly related to the pool, but I've been debating adding kind of something where the spa is, like a waterwall for a bit of privacy and general aesthetics.

We discussed doing a fire feature also, but I think the novelty of that will just wear off. Plus, we are in Florida, so it isn't going to get a ton of use.

Whats the best to use to lower alkalinity and to lower and raise ph for chlorine pool.

Looking around a little bit and so far looking pretty good!

I'm having a sporadic issue with my pump and pulling water. Most days my pump will start and it will pull water into the pump and get my full system going, but some days I have to go out and bleed air out of the filter to get it to pull water. Once it's running it seems fine with no air in the return lines, but then a couple days later I'll have the issue again. If I had a seal issue I would have expected it to be more common versus sporadic. Any thoughts here? My biggest concern is I have to leave and my wife or someone at our house won't be able to troubleshoot it like I can.

I am trying to decide on a pool builder and only 2 of 4 pool builders I have contacted will do a salt water pool. I have heard from this forum of Pentair products which people seem to like, but one of the pool builders doesn’t seem to have Pentair products. Here is the pump, cleaner, filter, and SWG that they have put in my quote. Anyone here have or know about these brands/ models?

Pool is a 75’ permitter pool, maybe 7000 gallons

Hayward Tristar 900 1.85 VSP

Goldline "Aquarite" T925 Chlorine Gen. (Salt Water System) Stand Alone Time Clock for (Salt System) if Variable Speed Pump

Automatic Water Leveler w/ 40' of 3/4"PVC "AquaNaut" Pool Cleaner with 25' of 1 1/2" Suction

Hayward 330 cartridge filter

I am going to ask them about Pentair products but if the above products are okay, maybe I am fine with what is in the quote. Any feedback appreciated.

Does anyone have an UltraTemp running without the smart panel? (We thought automation was included with our installation, but that's another story...grrrr.)

I would like to know if having the heat pump/chiller set to "on", but flow too low (so heatpump won't kick on), will harm the heat pump OR will it simply not run and then just kick on when the flow is sufficient and clear the low flow error?

Since we don't have the smart panel, I have to set the heater/chiller manually. I was thinking that I could program my VSP to run higher RPMs from 3:00-7:00 am to maximize chiller operation overnight without having to run the chiller starting at bedtime while the ambient temps are higher than they would be from 3:00-7:00 am.

Hope my question makes sense. I sure don't want to harm this expensive piece of equipment by trying to be clever and save a little electricity - oh, and to avoid all that trekking back and forth to the unit.
@Jimrahbe - can you answer this question?

I originally posted this in another thread regarding an AA treatment another TFP'er is going through but I felt it warranted it's own thread specifically.

If anyone is concerned their fill water or auto-fill water has Iron in it, you can do a 5-gallon white-bucket test with your water.

• Iron in water (without ANY chlorine) will be in a solution state, meaning it's invisible to the eye.
• Iron in water (with chlorine added) will go into a suspension state, meaning it's visible to the eye (caveat: assuming NO sequestrants are in the test water)

So fill up a white bucket with water (make sure there is NO chlorine yet in the water!), and take a picture of it. Then add in 1TBS of 12.5% chlorine and mix thoroughly. This will raise your FC levels to around 22-25PPM roughly which is SLAM level or higher for most people, which should force any iron in that water to come out of solution and go into suspension, turning the water an ugly yellow/brown (within an hour or so). If that happens, you KNOW you have Iron in your fill or auto-fill water.

Here's my side by side comparisons. One 5-gallon bucket that has iron in it, one 5-gallon bucket that doesn't have iron in it (because my dual Water Softener removed the iron through an ion exchange process).


From 8:55am
Left Bucket: Filled from Well, and passed through 4 13x52 iron filters.
Right Bucket: Filled from Well, and passed through 4 13x52 iron filters and through dual tank Water Softener





From 9:15am (20 mins later)
Left Bucket: Filled from Well, and passed through 4 13x52 iron filters, and 1TBS of 12.5% chlorine (mixed)
Right Bucket: Filled from Well, and passed through 4 13x52 iron filters and through dual tank Water Softener, and 1TBS of 12.5% chlorine (mixed)





From 9:55am (1 hour later)
Left Bucket: Filled from Well, and passed through 4 13x52 iron filters, and 1TBS of 12.5% chlorine (mixed)
Right Bucket: Filled from Well, and passed through 4 13x52 iron filters and through dual tank Water Softener, and 1TBS of 12.5% chlorine (mixed)




Note: The FC is 23PPM in the 2nd and 3rd picture, and STILL no changing of the color in the 5-gallon bucket that was filled through my Soft Water system. (yes, 23PPM, I verified/tested with my Taylor kit)

I know it's not scientific but, anyone that wants to check for Iron in their fill/auto-fill water, can EASILY do this and not have to pay for testing (and we also know LOTS of people "test' for Iron and get results of 0ppm even though they have Iron in their pool, proven from Vitamin-C testing on the stains they have!) So I feel this test is more accurate than some of the actual iron "testing" done by stores or labs and basically costs *nothing* ... If anyone thinks this iron-test isn't valid please add your input, I'm no science wizard and plenty of smarter people on TFP than I am.

Hope this helps some people.

EDIT: Crud, I can't remember if it was 1TBS or 1TSP that I added. Please note. In hindsight I'm thinking maybe it was a TSP (the smaller amount).
2ND EDIT: Clarifying I'm using a 5-gallon bucket.

I have read many articles on this forum (thank you!) about GFCI breakers tripping on VS pumps. I have a Mechanical Engineering and Energy Engineering background and many years of construction experience including electrical. I am by no means an Electrical Engineer and not even a licensed electrician but safe to say I could wire an entire home. Maybe no enough to be dangerous. So here is my story:

Pool ALMOST completed and filled two months ago. This has been a long battle around contract commitments and a pool builder that would cut a corner to save a dime. I did win many battles with the plumbing and pumping being the biggest accomplishment. It is not rocket science and there is plenty of quality information online to get the piping sized and installed correctly and with energy efficiency in mind. Thank goodness for variable speed pumps so that we can offset this absurdity by oversizing the pumps. Anyway my pumps are oversized but I have automation so all is great. Now to my problem. 240V 20A GFCI Eaton breakers tripping almost daily. These breakers are shared with other items such as heater, 2 blowers and oversized ozone generator (battle for another day). Electrician wired with 40 amp breaker in main panel to subpanel located by pool equipment. Subpanel has two 240V 20A breakers and one 120V 15 amp. Here is the detail:
(a) 240V 20A Breaker A - Jandy 2.7HP Epump + 2-1HP Silencer Blowers = 15.7A full load. This is dedicated to the 12 jets in the 2800 gallon spool. Pump set at max speed 3000 RPM since it will slide off the end of the curve thanks to the 3" piping.
(b) 240V 20A Breaker B - Jandy 1.65 HP VS FloPro + Heater + Ozonator = approx 15A full load. This serves filtration, heating and sanitization.
(c) 120V 15A Breaker C - Aqualink RS8 + all actuators, 4-12W Hydrocool and 15A outlet.

Originally electrician had wires doubled on the 3HP relays in the Aqualink some on line side and some on load side. The power runs through the relays to all devices. I have since added additional relays to put each piece of equipment on its own relay but circuit power is still shared as described above. I have been moving things around trying to troubleshoot during the journey.

The key problem is breakers GFCI's only tripping almost daily. The one to the 2.7HP trips more often but it had not actually tripped with everything running. I have read that power should be dedicated to pumps, direct to pumps, on Siemens only breakers, grounding conversations and lots of it must be wired wrong thoughts. At first it seemed like the spa jet pump was always tripped when I tried to use it in the evenings. I started to establish a pattern that they tripped in the heat of the day and when reset in the evening they would run with no issue until the next afternoon. This subpanel is located on the brick wall on the West side of my house in North Texas. As it got hotter, GFCI breakers tripped daily. I even chased down whether humidity was the factor. I spoke with multiple electricians and a licensed PE who did not think that temperature should be the issue. Weather has stabilized enough that I could rule out most everything else so I thought I would try just putting a blanket over the subpanel to provide shade and to minimize the radiant heating. The breakers have not tripped in the last 36 hours. This is the longest they have gone since it started getting hot.

What am I missing? Seems like this would be a very common issue for a subpanel to be mounted on a West facing exterior brick wall. I found no information that referenced this specific issue. I am looking for all perspectives because it is really difficult to enjoy and maintain water chemistry (also another issue I am battling for another day) when my pumps keep tripping the breaker. Any insight or opinion would be welcomed and I appreciate your responses. Thank You!

Hi all, I have a 3 year old autopilot DIG-220. A month ago when I opened it, I needed the flow sensor replaced. Now I'm getting low amps cell? Warning. I spoke to autopilot, they had me try to cycle the power, and then put it in boost. I still have 0V, .6A. They said it's most likely the power supply.
Considering price, I can get a new controller for $1000 right now. My pool guy recommends switching to a pentair IC40, but that will be 2700 installed. What is the general consensus on the DIG-220? I know it's discontinued, and autopilot told me they will be making parts for it but they might take longer to get in the future. Am I better off getting away from autopilot? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Joe

The rain has been brutal for the past week, and I've had drain the pool back down to acceptable water levels twice just this week.

As I am 1.5 months into the season, and with the transfer of water that happened... figured it would be a good time to do a full workup.

FC 9.0
CC .5
PH 7.6
TA 60
Salt 3000

The salt did drop 400 since I tested it last on 5/29.

The CYA is either 50 or 60.... its hard to tell.

The two questions I have are;

Should I raise the salt at all, or leave it alone and retest in a month?

I hate the CYA test (sorry!). It was 70 the last time I tested on 5/24. It definitely dropped probably with the rain and just naturally through me adding water every few days to a week.

Should I play it safe and add the equivelent of 10 and retest in a week or so? I just don't want to go over 80... and I prefer to stay in the middle of 70 like before.

I am currently in the SLAM process and Thursday will be two weeks. I have kept my FC at 14 with a few dips to about 10ppm for the entire time. I still have visible algae and am having 6ppm overnight loss. What should I do other than stay the course? Do I need to raise my CYA? I use the TFP approved Taylor test kit:

FC: 10+ (for almost two weeks)
CC: 0.5m (this has remained constant throughout)
PH: Was 7.2 prior to start. (has for sure gone up due to aeration)
CYA: 30
Water Temp: 92F (unusually hot 100+ temps)

I use only Morton Pool Salt in our pool but it is not available anywhere within a 100 miles from Walmart (except for $36 for a 40 lb bag WHAT???) A few years ago, I tried the Clorox brand of salt that resulted in severe staining and a huge investment to get rid of the stains. Our local Home Depot carries the Diamond Salt Splash Ready and appears to have many positive reviews. Looking for input since I bought out the remaining 10 bags of Morton $8) but that probably will not last through the summer. Thoughts?

Not new to pool maintenance but new to TFP. We’ve had a hard time getting our pool perfectly clear this season. We can see the bottom but the water isn’t sparkling clear. After being totally fed up with the run around at the pool store and a recommendation from a family member who uses TFP we decided to make the jump. We have the TF-100 kit. Spent a week or so trying to balance the water then learned about doing a SLAM when the water isn’t perfectly clear etc. We’ve been in the SLAM process for 5 days and the pool isn’t clearing up and we are still failing the OCLT. We test every 2ish hours and add 10% liquid chlorine as necessary, vacuum to waste anything that is showing up on the bottom of the pool and brush everyday. This is a vinyl pool with a sand filter. We are in Texas so have been battling the 100 degree temps everyday. Not sure if this is having an affect or not. Do we stay the course? Am I missing something? Definitely reaching the point of frustration as the pool wasn’t green when we started this whole SLAM process just cloudy.

Ran diagnostics, AFS code came up - air flow switch. So, I open up the case to see what I can see, and I find duct tape across the air intake. Would this have been done as part of closing routine, and they just forgot to remove it? It looks relatively fresh, and the heater is 3 years old, so its definitley not original. I can't imagine it would run like this - and that this is the problem - any thoughts?

Thanks,
John

Hi all

We just moved into a house with a pool. Its a 15,000 galloon pool with aggregate (I think). We have a pentair clean and clear plus cartridge filter system. The pool is new built 1-2 years ago.

The prior owner gave me a rundown on his pool maintenance. He used 2-3 pucks of trichlor weekly, ran the filter 8 hrs a day, shocked when it rained and that was basically it. For what it is worth the water is crystal clear and no current algae issues.

As you can imagine our CYA levels are through the roof. I've read the pool school articles, and moving forward will stop using trichlor pucks and use liquid bleach as needed. Two questions:

I'm going to do the extended CYA test when I get home from work, but for now I know our levels >100. Everything I've read here says that I need to drain and refill. How do you actually do this? I can't find backwash or waste setting anywhere on my pool pump. And is their harm in draining the water below the skimmers? IE should I drain just a few inches, then refill/redilute and keep doing that till CYA levels are acceptable?

Second question is if I don't do drain/refill - how long will it take CYA levels to naturally come down? obviously won't use any more trichlor.

I'm frustrated that we are walking into this situation. I also want to maintain my pool myself and keep it perfect. Talking to some friends who have outdoor pools they said they only use trichlor pucks/shock (for years) and don't worry about CYA levels - how does this work?? I've seen in my pool the levels are off the chart from prior trichlor usage.

Before I was schooled up on pool maintenance my above ground developed a ring on the liner around pool level. I’m wondering the best cleaner or way to clean up the liner. I have tried several sprays and scrubs with no luck yet! Thanks

My pool contractor is charging for a couple mosaic designs to go in and then says that the plaster company is going to charge another fee to go around it? We feel we have been nickeled and dimed throughout this process. Does this seem right? Our tile store said that most companies install the mosaics for free and don’t charge extra “to go around it”.

This is the same company that is charging the same price for pebbletec as pebble sheen when everywhere else I read that pebble sheen is an upgrade.

Your thoughts?

Hi! I found a good deal on CDS Liquid Chlorine at Rural King ($14.99 for a case of 4)

Is CDS a reliable brand? If so, can anyone help me with the date code?