New to SWG - need advice

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heidilynn4080

heidilynn4080

Member
May 2, 2022
14
Riverton, NJ
Hi - I have a fiberglass salt water pool that they never fully briefed us on how to care for it. It was only open for a few months last year and we never had any issues, but I also didn't really test all that often because the water was always clear and we never seemed to have much trouble.

This year however, I've been testing and trying to stay on top of things, and it seems that all I am doing is making things worse. Our FC is at 16 ppm. My CC was at less than 1, which the local pool store told me was the problem and told me to shock the pool, which I did this morning, but now I'm worried that I'm creating a bigger problem by adding more chlorine to my pool. My sister has a regular chlorine pool and she thought that didn't sound right, so she told me to come here and ask.

My ph is around 7.5, my free chlorine is at 16, my CC was at 0.5 or less. My TA is 110, my calcium is at 150 ppm and my CYA is at 70. I'm worried that now that I added shock I probably just made my problem even worse based on what I'm reading here briefly. Help?
 
Welcome to TFP!

You are fine. Your FC will come down with sun, usage and pollen. Your other chems are fine. CYA is a bit high.

Do you know how your SWCG is setup? It is likely that it is setup for summer (higher %) and is why your FC is higher.

What are you using for testing. Look into a good test kit: Test Kits Compared

When it comes down, just keep your FC in the recommended range: FC/CYA Levels

Let it come back down to range, then adjust your SWG to maintain the right levels.

All good, ask any questions.
 
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PoolStored said:
Welcome to TFP!

You are fine. Your FC will come down with sun, usage and pollen. Your other chems are fine. CYA is a bit high.

Do you know how your SWCG is setup? It is likely that it is setup for summer (higher %) and is why your FC is higher.

What are you using for testing. Look into a good test kit: Test Kits Compared

When it comes down, just keep your FC in the recommended range: FC/CYA Levels

Let it come back down to range, then adjust your SWG to maintain the right levels.

All good, ask any questions.
Click to expand...
Ok. The issue for me is that I just added the granular shock, so my chlorine and CYA may get even higher? Or no? Unfortunately it's going to be cloudy here all week so it's going to be a bit before the chlorine burns off, and we have been experiencing skin irritation when we do swim.

And no, I don't know how my SWCG is set up - they never told us how to use it other than just setting it themselves and telling us to make sure the green light stayed green, and if it didn't to add salt. They said to shock the pool and clean the filter once a week, and as long as the water stayed clear we were fine. Which seems a bit haphazard, but maybe I should have stuck with that.

I have a good testing kit that my sister recommended to me from here, I believe. But just as a quick summary - my target FC number is based on the CYA in my pool, right? I had none when we opened, and thought for some reason that my CYA should be 60, so added a bottle of CYA to help based on what the app told me would get me to 60. Which maybe it didn't help. I don't really know how on earth our FC got so high?
 
Post the model of your SWG and any automation you have. Someone here will be able to help you get dialed in. Also, filling out your signature with your equipment will help, too.

As PoolStored said, you're doing fine. The chlorine is a little on the high side, but isn't going to hurt anything at that level.

What kind of shock did you add? Do you still have the package?
 
MITBeta said:
Post the model of your SWG and any automation you have. Someone here will be able to help you get dialed in. Also, filling out your signature with your equipment will help, too.

As PoolStored said, you're doing fine. The chlorine is a little on the high side, but isn't going to hurt anything at that level.

What kind of shock did you add? Do you still have the package?
Click to expand...
Hi I added 2 lbs of burnout 3 granular chlorine shock. I also updated my signature to include my pool equipment... I appreciate your help.
 
heidilynn4080 said:
They said to shock the pool and clean the filter once a week,
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You shouldn't need to shock the pool at all if you follow TFP advice.



Also, you only need to backwash your filter when the clean pressure rises by 25%

www.troublefreepool.com

Routine Pump/Filter Maintenance

A working Filter and pump are vital parts for your pool. Read our artiticle on how to clean your filter & other Pool Maintenance Tips.
www.troublefreepool.com www.troublefreepool.com
 
MITBeta said:
You shouldn't need to shock the pool at all if you follow TFP advice.



Also, you only need to backwash your filter when the clean pressure rises by 25%

www.troublefreepool.com

Routine Pump/Filter Maintenance

A working Filter and pump are vital parts for your pool. Read our artiticle on how to clean your filter & other Pool Maintenance Tips.
www.troublefreepool.com www.troublefreepool.com
Click to expand...
right - this is my problem - i need to just stick to what TFP tells me and follow the app that I use based on their advice too.... this is how I get myself in trouble! My filter usually runs for 8 hours a day - and I don't know what my SWG is set at, or how to check it?

At least I didn't add more CYA... and honestly, I didn't even shock the pool once a week last year either because the chlorine was usually at a good level all season. I mostly figured that shock would be good if I had a party and a lot of people in it, but that may also not be true either, as long as my numbers are good. I'll get this right eventually. :)

I haven't backwashed my filter yet this year because it seems to be running just fine. I usually try not to be too proactive, which is what got me in trouble this year! haha.
 
heidilynn4080 said:
and it seems that all I am doing is making things worse.
Click to expand...

Don't worry! We got you covered! Take a breath and relax, as things go your numbers look REALLY good compared with what newcomers usually have. You just added some granular Cal-Hypo shock, so your water may look cloudy for a little while. For SWG pools 70ppm CYA is just fine. Stop adding chlorine and let's watch the FC levels drop back down towards 6 or so.

Do you have the PoolMath app set up? Honestly if your water is clear and you don't see any obvious algae or rapidly plummeting FC levels, it seems like your next step is to check your CSI level and make sure you're slightly negative on that value for the health and longevity of the SWG plates. I'd suspect your TA could stand to come down a bit, but that's going to depend on some other numbers.

Skin irritation is often caused by pH issues, not chlorine.
heidilynn4080 said:
I don't really know how on earth our FC got so high?
Click to expand...
Your FC is high because you're shocking a pool that's set up (cya levels) for a salt generator. There's no need to shock a pool unless you've got algae, and then it's recommended to use liquid chlorine, not granulated shock powder.
 

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An acceptable setting on your SWG is one that produces the amount of chlorine that you need, and no more. In most places you will need to dial this up and down over the course of a season to match the chlorine demand variability of sun angle and duration, number of daily swimmers, temperature, etc.

I don't know if you need to subscribe to calculate CSI (though a subscription is money well spent, imo), but either way you need to turn on tracking for it by clicking the gear icon. Then you should see an option like this:

Screenshot_20220509-140543.png
 
MITBeta said:
An acceptable setting on your SWG is one that produces the amount of chlorine that you need, and no more. In most places you will need to dial this up and down over the course of a season to match the chlorine demand variability of sun angle and duration, number of daily swimmers, temperature, etc.

I don't know if you need to subscribe to calculate CSI (though a subscription is money well spent, imo), but either way you need to turn on tracking for it by clicking the gear icon. Then you should see an option like this:

View attachment 408276
Click to expand...
Thank you. haha. I feel a little silly for not having discovered that myself... I'll go dial it down some and see if that helps, but also start making sure I pay closer attention to my CSI results too. I appreciate all of your help, and I agree, it would be money well spent.
 
heidilynn4080 said:
My FC levels are still way above 5 ppm, so i'm trying to let the sun and other stuff do the work but it's taking foreverrrrrr.
Click to expand...

I brought my pool to SLAM levels just as a precaution before installing my salt cell and it took a few days to come back down. But yeah, if you're running a 30k salt cell at 77% on a 7k pool, that's WAY overkill. You might just want to turn it off and check your FC every day at the same time, that'll give you a good idea of how much your pool loses in a day, and that'll give you a starting point for how high to set your SWG when it's time to turn it back on. CSI is still a good idea to track for the longterm health of your heater and SWG.

As long as your pool FC level is below SLAM for your CYA, another really effective way to bring down chlorine levels is ... GO SWIMMING!
 
Oly said:
You need to use the FAS-DPD test to determine your FC levels. Does your test kit include this?
You need the DPD powder and FAS-DPD reagent to test above 5ppm and at a resolution of 0.5ppm FC. Proper testing is the foundation of a trouble free pool.
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Yes, I have the TF-100 Test kit, so I can determine my FC levels accurately. When I started this thread, it was at 16 ppm, and now it's at 11 ppm. So it IS coming down, it's just taking time.
 
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TexEdmond said:
I brought my pool to SLAM levels just as a precaution before installing my salt cell and it took a few days to come back down. But yeah, if you're running a 30k salt cell at 77% on a 7k pool, that's WAY overkill. You might just want to turn it off and check your FC every day at the same time, that'll give you a good idea of how much your pool loses in a day, and that'll give you a starting point for how high to set your SWG when it's time to turn it back on. CSI is still a good idea to track for the longterm health of your heater and SWG.

As long as your pool FC level is below SLAM for your CYA, another really effective way to bring down chlorine levels is ... GO SWIMMING!
Click to expand...
Haha - Tex I would LOVE to go swimming, but it's been kind of cold here until this week so that's been out of the question. :) I wouldn't mind using our spa, but then the heater needs to be on, and when the heater is on, so is the SWG (until someone here tells me I'm naive and there IS a way to run one without the other, maybe?). I should really give my pool company more Crud for not giving us a proper orientation on how to take care of our pool. Currently, the other issue I'm having is that now I can't get our pool heater "OFF" button to work when it's below temp. That just started to happen, and I don't know why?
 
Ok. I tested my pool today for everything again, and here is what my numbers are:

FC: 11
ph: 7.5
TA: 120
CH: 125
CYA: 40
Water temp: 70
CSI: -0.41

I think that's all ok? I lowered our SWG to 65% for now, although I'm also not really running our filter since I'm trying to burn off FC, lol. So I'll need to troubleshoot that once the FC comes down a bit more. I get confused about what's "right" for my pool though, because the Pool Math Test App and the warranty book I got from Leisure Pools says different targets for my fiberglass pool. According to Leisure, my target FC is 1-3 ppm, my target ph is 7.2-7.4, target TA is 80-120 ppm, and CH is 80-120 ppm. The app says my target FC depends on my CYA levels, which makes sense, but it says ph of 7.2-8.0 is fine, and that I want a higher CH (closer to 250 ppm?). So I'm unsure of which is the best to follow for my pool health/equipment longevity.
 

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