Problems with Intex SWCG

Up to you. As you do not have a big algae outbreak, I would try raising your FC to 28 ppm and hold it there for a day or so and see if things clear up.
Gotcha, I will start this today. I totally misread the chart on the slam page too. I saw you say 28 but I was looking at the SWG chart for some reason hahahaha
 
Wow,.. this thread was painful to read.
just want to add, I would not have a pool without a SWG. The TFP way is easy, inexpensive and works. I have never been in a pool store. The only thing I have ever put in my pool is, liquid chlorine, salt, muriatic acid, Dry stabilizer, and borax. All available at my local Lowe’s. I have never had green or cloudy water! I have never had to slam. I do add polyquat at closing. I live less than 1/2 mile from 3 limestone quarries, we do have very hard water. My water heater gives me way more trouble than my pool!
hang in there, this doesn’t have to be hard. Study up in pool school and stay away from pool stores and you will be successful!
 
  • Like
Reactions: digidoggie18
Wow,.. this thread was painful to read.
just want to add, I would not have a pool without a SWG. The TFP way is easy, inexpensive and works. I have never been in a pool store. The only thing I have ever put in my pool is, liquid chlorine, salt, muriatic acid, Dry stabilizer, and borax. All available at my local Lowe’s. I have never had green or cloudy water! I have never had to slam. I do add polyquat at closing. I live less than 1/2 mile from 3 limestone quarries, we do have very hard water. My water heater gives me way more trouble than my pool!
hang in there, this doesn’t have to be hard. Study up in pool school and stay away from pool stores and you will be successful!
I appreciate that fully, you really don't know how nice that is to hear. Our pool store, I had a feeling was full of it and I see it so much more now. Listening to them and the recommendations absolutely killed our pool the last few years. I am in the process of slamming now as we had definitely found white algae after cleaning and brushing in prep, lots of it to be honest. We were also at 5 chlorine leading up to the night and then 0 in the morning at approximately 6 am. I honestly had no clue what was causing it until I started talking to others on here and reading. So far the slamming and FAS/DPD test has been extremely straight forward. Hopefully we can clear up our water with it. As far as the borax, we are going to start that next season due to having little time left in the season and still needing to purchase air pillows and all that (budgets are stupid tight right now as my wife and I are both full time students). I read up on polyquat, do you really like it? We were going to add SunGuard algaecide 60 based off of a recommendation from a buddy that used to do pools back in Indiana. as far as the generator we will most definitely be replacing it along with all the rest of the Intex imho junk. It will just take some time and more than likely we will be going Pentair or hayward as I love hayward but have tons of experience with Pentair and cooling towers.
 
I appreciate that fully, you really don't know how nice that is to hear. Our pool store, I had a feeling was full of it and I see it so much more now. Listening to them and the recommendations absolutely killed our pool the last few years. I am in the process of slamming now as we had definitely found white algae after cleaning and brushing in prep, lots of it to be honest. We were also at 5 chlorine leading up to the night and then 0 in the morning at approximately 6 am. I honestly had no clue what was causing it until I started talking to others on here and reading. So far the slamming and FAS/DPD test has been extremely straight forward. Hopefully we can clear up our water with it. As far as the borax, we are going to start that next season due to having little time left in the season and still needing to purchase air pillows and all that (budgets are stupid tight right now as my wife and I are both full time students). I read up on polyquat, do you really like it? We were going to add SunGuard algaecide 60 based off of a recommendation from a buddy that used to do pools back in Indiana. as far as the generator we will most definitely be replacing it along with all the rest of the Intex imho junk. It will just take some time and more than likely we will be going Pentair or hayward as I love hayward but have tons of experience with Pentair and cooling towers.
I have the Intex XTR 16x32. I purchased it as a kit and it came with the SWG. I knew when I purchased it that I would like to upgrade the sand filter, pump and SWG. It all worked well for 2 seasons, then this year I actually broke the threads on my pressure valve and wasn’t able to find a way to replace it. I upgraded to a Hayward 1.5hp pump with a 21” sand filter and a circupool RJ45 SWG. Last year I also installed a Hayward through the wall skimmer. I also have a dolphin robot. This really has made my pool almost effortless to maintain. I have used polyquat every season and have never opened to cloudy or green water. I don’t use pillows, just the cover that came with the pool. I do always wait for my water to hit 50 degrees before I close and open as soon as it hits 50 degrees in the spring. Here is a pic from opening this year. Good luck to you! I also made a fountain to cool my water, it lowers my temps by 10 degrees in about 18 hours. 69C32880-AB77-4639-8B40-CB3480369529.jpeg1D724999-C39D-496A-B6B1-4B44A3D27694.jpeg
 
  • Like
Reactions: Chad1979
I have the Intex XTR 16x32. I purchased it as a kit and it came with the SWG. I knew when I purchased it that I would like to upgrade the sand filter, pump and SWG. It all worked well for 2 seasons, then this year I actually broke the threads on my pressure valve and wasn’t able to find a way to replace it. I upgraded to a Hayward 1.5hp pump with a 21” sand filter and a circupool RJ45 SWG. Last year I also installed a Hayward through the wall skimmer. I also have a dolphin robot. This really has made my pool almost effortless to maintain. I have used polyquat every season and have never opened to cloudy or green water. I don’t use pillows, just the cover that came with the pool. I do always wait for my water to hit 50 degrees before I close and open as soon as it hits 50 degrees in the spring. Here is a pic from opening this year. Good luck to you! I also made a fountain to cool my water, it lowers my temps by 10 degrees in about 18 hours. View attachment 356402View attachment 356403
Oh wow!! I love it!! We added a skimmer this year just to see if it would work and the intex one doesn't do half bad at all. We knew after the first year we wanted to upgrade the filter, pump, and swg as we would see small particles, that the leaf rake would miss. It's still in the works as well as upgrading to standard 1.5" which will more than likely be our first step as the Intex intakes are only like 3/4"... I am fully sold on the polyquat after seeing that though!! We will try to open at temps as well. We were going to add the air pillows because the first winter our ice was maybe 3" thick (Colorado) and it stretched the liner around the edges with the roughness of the ice. We think covering 10% of the surface with air pillows may mitigate that by keeping the pressure off the walls. Why do you need to lower your pool temps though? We will sit at about 80 degrees during the day (full sun, no shade on our property) and drop to about 76 during the night
 
Up to you. As you do not have a big algae outbreak, I would try raising your FC to 28 ppm and hold it there for a day or so and see if things clear up.
I left the CYA where it was and started slamming last night. So far I'm about 7gals of liquid chlorine in and our CC is hovering between 1 and .5. our water is really starting to clear up now. Not like the crystal clear we see from some on here but much more clear to the point we can see our blue squares on the bottom and sides fairly well. Tonight I'm going to an overnight test just to see but I think we are close. We can also physically see the oxidation in the pool i.e. bubbles around the walls where we knew algae was for sure after the first cleaning and vacuuming. I figured starting the slamming at night would aid the chlorine more since ours is in full sun as we have no trees or shade out here minus the 2 7' tall red wing maples we planted this year for our anniversary.
 
  • Like
Reactions: JamesW
Oh wow!! I love it!! We added a skimmer this year just to see if it would work and the intex one doesn't do half bad at all. We knew after the first year we wanted to upgrade the filter, pump, and swg as we would see small particles, that the leaf rake would miss. It's still in the works as well as upgrading to standard 1.5" which will more than likely be our first step as the Intex intakes are only like 3/4"... I am fully sold on the polyquat after seeing that though!! We will try to open at temps as well. We were going to add the air pillows because the first winter our ice was maybe 3" thick (Colorado) and it stretched the liner around the edges with the roughness of the ice. We think covering 10% of the surface with air pillows may mitigate that by keeping the pressure off the walls. Why do you need to lower your pool temps though? We will sit at about 80 degrees during the day (full sun, no shade on our property) and drop to about 76 during the night
Lol,.. I’m in Missouri,.. my water hit 92 before July 1st,.. too warm to swim in my opinion. I’m happy to get to 82!
 
  • Like
Reactions: digidoggie18
Lol,.. I’m in Missouri,.. my water hit 92 before July 1st,.. too warm to swim in my opinion. I’m happy to get to 82!
Whoa!!! We've never hot 92 in ours. I mean granted with being mountain desert we get huge tem swings between night and day and with our location we average 40-60mph winds once night comes or even a cold front.. when we don't have storms coming usually we hover at 80. But it will be 90-100 during the day and drop down to 50-60 at night on average. Lately we've had storms very frequently which usually causes us to dip into the low 60's and 50's. Usually our warm weather is typically only from June to August with snowfall coming between August and September. Last year our first snow and lows temps came around september 9th. We also tend to average 22-30% humidity as well lately with the storms though we've been hovering up towards 40-50%
 
Last edited by a moderator:
For the CH to actually be 1000 ppm, and we will caveat that with we do not know what it is until you get a proper test kit, the fill water would have to be close to that level. Local water companies in your stated location show CH to be more like 200 ppm. So are you on a well that has exceptionally hard water? Do you use a water softener in your home? Do your plumbing fixtures get scaled up quickly?
Just passed our overnight test with 0 drop in chlorine (48 drops last night and 48 drops this morning) with CC at .5 and water that is most definitely more clear. It was a crazy process but I'll definitely be doing that as a first when not seeing super high levels of calcium, etc... although calcium should no longer be an issue with liquid chlorine and supplementing until we get our new swg cells in. With that being said and our cells no longer working properly, what would be an ideal level of chlorine to maintain? our salt is sitting at 3370 with a range between 3000 and 3500, and I have read that liquid chlorination typically needs a 7-9ppm range whereas the swg typically needs considerably less. I don't believe our swg is doing anything at all but I can fully test that tonight though as with the small outbreak I had, I didn't think it was keeping up as in the mornings we would have 0 chlorine across the boards albeit this was with test strips.
 

Enjoying this content?

Support TFP with a donation.

Give Support
Just passed our overnight test with 0 drop in chlorine (48 drops last night and 48 drops this morning) with CC at .5 and water that is most definitely more clear. It was a crazy process but I'll definitely be doing that as a first when not seeing super high levels of calcium, etc... although calcium should no longer be an issue with liquid chlorine and supplementing until we get our new swg cells in. With that being said and our cells no longer working properly, what would be an ideal level of chlorine to maintain? our salt is sitting at 3370 with a range between 3000 and 3500, and I have read that liquid chlorination typically needs a 7-9ppm range whereas the swg typically needs considerably less. I don't believe our swg is doing anything at all but I can fully test that tonight though as with the small outbreak I had, I didn't think it was keeping up as in the mornings we would have 0 chlorine across the boards albeit this was with test strips.
Can you see bubbles or cloudiness in your SWg when it says it’s generating? My Intex SWG couldn’t keep up with such a large pool with heavy swim load or really hot days. It still worked, just couldn’t produce enough chlorine. If it’s still generating, you could leave it running and supplement with liquid chlorine.
 
  • Like
Reactions: digidoggie18
To end the SLAM, it should be crystal clear.

For FC levels, follow the FC/CYA Levels
We are crystal clear here finally!! No blue or green tinge to anything at all
Can you see bubbles or cloudiness in your SWg when it says it’s generating? My Intex SWG couldn’t keep up with such a large pool with heavy swim load or really hot days. It still worked, just couldn’t produce enough chlorine. If it’s still generating, you could leave it running and supplement with liquid chlorine.
Yep, we can and yes it has a really hard time keeping up especially when we have more than just our two kids in it. We are planning on upgrading to a pentair for a 20k pool when prices come down.. 1k to 1300 is rough. We will supplement with liquid chlorine then and just keep it running.
 
To end the SLAM, it should be crystal clear.

For FC levels, follow the FC/CYA Levels
I was looking at that chart previously but was unsure if needing to supplement our swg if I followed the swg chart or the liquid chart as much of it will be in fact liquid till our cells are warrantied
 
We are crystal clear here finally!! No blue or green tinge to anything at all

Yep, we can and yes it has a really hard time keeping up especially when we have more than just our two kids in it. We are planning on upgrading to a pentair for a 20k pool when prices come down.. 1k to 1300 is rough. We will supplement with liquid chlorine then and just keep it running.
Just FYI
 
  • Like
Reactions: JeaniB
Whoa!!! That's absolutely something I've been wanting to see. I really need to search on here more and dig. Sometimes it's hard to find stuff though as new posts tend to populate at the top. I really appreciate that!
Looks like we are going with the edge-25 by circupool. We figure it being oversized would help prolong life a little more and keep our chlorine levels up where we need them! Would it be a bad thing to oversize by slightly over 10k gallons?
 
Looks like we are going with the edge-25 by circupool. We figure it being oversized would help prolong life a little more and keep our chlorine levels up where we need them! Would it be a bad thing to oversize by slightly over 10k gallons?
Always oversize! Buy as big as you can afford. You should have a minimum of twice your pool size. They have a sale, you can upgrade to the next size for $10. I have a 45k SWG for my 15k pool.
 
Always oversize! Buy as big as you can afford. You should have a minimum of twice your pool size. They have a sale, you can upgrade to the next size for $10. I have a 45k SWG for my 15k pool.
Did some testing last night and found that our chlorine generator on boost and while only running at night provided only an additional 1.5ppm of chlorine. Its safe to say that it just cant keep up.
 
I was looking at that chart previously but was unsure if needing to supplement our swg if I followed the swg chart or the liquid chart as much of it will be in fact liquid till our cells are warrantied
I run my Intex SWG on boost to raise the FC until it reaches 8 or so then I run it for 12 hours a day until it drops into the mid 4's and turn boost on again. That way I'm not buying or playing with chemicals if I don't have to.
 

Enjoying this content?

Support TFP with a donation.

Give Support
Thread Status
Hello , This thread has been inactive for over 60 days. New postings here are unlikely to be seen or responded to by other members. For better visibility, consider Starting A New Thread.