White flakes in pool and pump basket

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Rancho Cost-a-Lotta said:
Please post a full set of results.

How long and what percentage are you running the SWG? Running it 24/7 at 100% should raise FC by 11 ppm.

Have you estimated your daily FC loss based on your test results? Most pools will lose 2-4 ppm daily during the swim season.
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I had been running it 24/7 at 100 for 10 days with no improvement in FC. I just got this test kit, so I will start tracking it and will post full results today.

My pool professional who is generally conservative and knowledgeable is at a total loss for what's going on with this pool. He says he manages 400 pools weekly and has never seen this. He wants to shock it today as a last resort (this problem has been ongoing for over a month). Should we hold off on that given I don't meet criteria for slam? Wondering if there's any harm to the equipment by shock to 30 ppm. The calculator says I should slam to 16 ppm based on my cya, but he wants to slam to 30.
 
I looked up the wrong SWG for your FC production. The iChlor30 should produce 8.0 ppm of FC daily.

When you did your OCLT, are you sure the SWG was off? If you passed the OCLT, there's no reason to SLAM or to "shock" as your pool professional recommends.

How have you been maintaining FC? Your FC level is within range now.

VST said:
Wondering if there's any harm to the equipment by shock to 30 ppm. The calculator says I should slam to 16 ppm based on my cya, but he wants to slam to 30.
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Your pool professional is lost. Adding too much chlorine is just a waste and can cause damage.

See if this article helps with your SWG.

Pentair iChlor SWG - Further Reading

www.troublefreepool.com www.troublefreepool.com
 
Rancho Cost-a-Lotta said:
I looked up the wrong SWG for your FC production. The iChlor30 should produce 8.0 ppm of FC daily.

When you did your OCLT, are you sure the SWG was off? If you passed the OCLT, there's no reason to SLAM or to "shock" as your pool professional recommends.

How have you been maintaining FC? Your FC level is within range now.


Your pool professional is lost. Adding too much chlorine is just a waste and can cause damage.

See if this article helps with your SWG.

Pentair iChlor SWG - Further Reading

www.troublefreepool.com www.troublefreepool.com
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Yes, I made sure my SWG was off.

I added 0.5 gallons of chlorine (10.5% sodium hypochlorite) 1.5 hrs before initiating the overnight test.

He had my cya up to 60-70 when we first noticed no free chlorine about 6 weeks ago. It took some effort to get it there because the cya wasn't holding initially for some reason. We finally got it there, but it has decreased over the last 6 weeks to 40. We have so much rain these days in fl that I've had to drain about 6 inches from the pool over the last 2 weeks, so guessing that's why the cya has dropped. But we weren't sure why the cya wasn't holding initially.
 
Do you have a single-speed or VS pump?

Are you sure your pump and SWG are running 24/7?

Is the pump running at a high enough speed (24/7) to keep the SWG flow switch closed?
 
Rancho Cost-a-Lotta said:
Do you have a single-speed or VS pump?

Are you sure your pump and SWG are running 24/7?

Is the pump running at a high enough speed (24/7) to keep the SWG flow switch closed?
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Both are running 24/7. The swg is connected directly to the pump. It doesn't have its own dial. When the pump is on, the swg is on. The flow light is green. I have a VSP, but never run it less than 40 gpm.

Salt has been 3600, but now 3100 after I've drained 6 inches.
 
Rancho Cost-a-Lotta said:
What test kit are you using for the salt test?
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My pool professional has a digital salt reader. It showed 3600. I called out a company to replace the salt cell thinking it went bad. They came out with their own reader, which also showed 3600. The cell itself reads just under 4200.
 
VST said:
My pool professional has a digital salt reader. It showed 3600. I called out a company to replace the salt cell thinking it went bad. They came out with their own reader, which also showed 3600. The cell itself reads just under 4200.
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They actually did swap out the salt cell, but that didn't help the situation. My pool professional thought it could be the wiring or electrical box, but the voltage to the cell reads normal.
 
Your salt test results are all over the place. You need a reliable test kit (Taylor K-1766 salt test kit) to ensure the level is accurate. Please post a full set of test results.
 

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After 6 weeks of this struggle, the system finally started holding free chlorine again. We're not sure how we fixed it because we did two things really close together in time as last ditch efforts.

1) Even though my phosphates were reading less than 300 ppb by multiple sources (I didn't have my own test kit back then to verify), we added 1 oz of commercial grade phosphate remover on Wednesday of last week. By Monday, we still had no free chlorine beyond the 0.5 gallon of liquid that I had added. We didn't believe phosphates were the issue because not only were our readings not very high, but when I added two gallons of liquid chlorine (10.5%), the free chlorine maintained itself for 1 week, which would be expected in pools without SWGs.

2) On Monday, we cleaned the filter and did a system reset of the pump from my pentair app. Immediately following this system reset, we began holding free chlorine. The SWG defaulted to 40% 24/7 at very low speed (30 gpm) and today I have 3-4 ppm of free chlorine (up from less than 1 without supplementation). The system reset doesn't make sense to me either because during these 6 weeks, I cut the power to the pool at the circuit breaker in the garage for an hr and also had the SWG replaced under warranty. Neither of those two things fixed the problem.

So, still confused, but glad it's working for now. After the system reset, I did notice that whenever the three indicators on the salt cell are green (salt, cell, and flow) a wheel is turning on the display next to the output percentage. Before the system reset, all three lights would be green, often without a rotating wheel next to the output reading. Is that normal? We had always suspected the SWG was only intermittently producing chlorine, even when set to 100% 24/7. The instruction manual for the ichlor 30 isn't completely clear to me, but implies that a wheel should be rotating when chlorine is being produced. Wondering if I'm on to something here.
 
Unfortunately, the system stopped working after a week.
I have FC of 1 to 1.5 after boosting for 24 hrs.
CC 0
TA 100
pH 7.8
Salt 3600
No loss on overnight chlorine test

Water is crystal clear.

Please tell me what I need to do next to figure out why I'm not holding FC
 
Use liquid chlorine to bump FC up to target level for your CYA level.

Repeat the Overnight Chlorine Loss Test to rule out algae.

If it was my pool, I would turn off the SWG and see how things go for a few days. Your daily FC loss should be 2-4 ppm per day. See if you can stabilize things without the complications of the SWG.

Try to diagnose your iChlor 30 SWG. You might try posting a separate thread for troubleshooting. The link below might help.

I looked up the instruction manual regarding the spinning wheel icon. It spins while generating chlorine. It reverses direction when polarity changes to slough scale off the cell.

Pentair iChlor SWG - Further Reading

www.troublefreepool.com www.troublefreepool.com
 
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