Switch over to SWG? Question about Clear Blue ionizer

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AlexGTA

AlexGTA

Member
Jun 18, 2022
6
Mississauga, Ontario
Pool Size
14438
Surface
Fiberglass
Chlorine
Liquid Chlorine
I have been reading a few treads on the conversion over to a SWG. When we had the pool installed back in 2017 I came to conclusion that SWG could damage or void the warranty on equipment due to corrosion. The last few years I've grown tired of Pool water testing results with adding 1 cup of PH down, 13 cups of this and that. Plus I start the season with stabilized pucks and then later in the season the pool company recommends to switch over to un-stabilized pucks. All pucks are put directly into the skimmer basket. Sometimes they dissolve quickly sometimes slowly. This makes it hard to keep the FC level at 2.5-3.5 difficult. Recently we started getting more skin sensitivity, because of that I'm considering to switch. I found in one of the treads the link to a comparison chart for SWG. A very useful tool.

Compare and Review Saltwater Chlorine Generator Prices and Features | DSP

www.discountsaltpool.com www.discountsaltpool.com

I have read that Circupool has warranty that is longer than any or many others giving it a clear advantage. Given the size of my pool (approx 14,500 gallons) I believe it was recommended in one of the forums to get a SWG that can handle twice the capacity of the pool. So its between the RJ-30Plus and the Core-35. We live close to Toronto, Ontario Canada. So the summers are short. Open up the pool in May and close end of September or beginning of October. During this time we can have some hot weather.

A couple of questions:
1) Am I correct in assuming that the SWG cell gets installed after the water heater to the feeds (Jets) back to the pool and or Spa?
2) Also I have a Clear Blue Ionizer cell installed after the water heater. Is there an issue running these two inline? Should one be before the other?

I have added some equipment photos with the location of the blue ionizer.

I look forward to your feed back
 

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Welcome to TFP Alex!

Both of the SWGs you have listed would work for your pool. Take a look at chlorine production in lbs. per day for each unit as part of your decision-making process.

Ionizer systems use copper to prevent algae. Copper can cause staining in pool and turns blonde hair green. With a properly sanitized pool, mineral systems, UV lights and pool store magic potions aren't needed. We can show you how to do it.

Copper in Pool Water - Further Reading

www.troublefreepool.com www.troublefreepool.com

Let us know if you have any questions.

www.troublefreepool.com

Pool Care Basics Archives

Your one-stop shop for all things TFP to include: ABCs of Water Chemistry, Recommended Chemicals/Levels, Test Kits, Troubleshooting, and much more!
www.troublefreepool.com www.troublefreepool.com
 
Welcome, Alex. The only people that tend to come around these parts and rave about their ionizer end up being connected with manufacturers or vendors of ionizing equipment. Interesting, that. Ionizers are pointless at best, and damaging at worst, as copper has no real place in proper pool chemistry. Search back for old threads where @chem geek has gone into detail about copper and ionizers over the years.

Get the SWCG, disconnect/remove the ionizer and move on with life. No more buying stupid mineral cells or mineral test kits, just a truly trouble free pool.
 
AlexGTA said:
A couple of questions:
1) Am I correct in assuming that the SWG cell gets installed after the water heater to the feeds (Jets) back to the pool and or Spa?
2) Also I have a Clear Blue Ionizer cell installed after the water heater. Is there an issue running these two inline? Should one be before the other?
Click to expand...
Alex,
Welcome to TFP! Very nice pool and great pad layout plus very neat controls/power positioning. Great choice you are making to switch to salt. I did the same thing after several years of jug-lugging. Worked like a charm and our new pool (in design phase now) will have salt from start partly because my wife won't ever let me go back. I used Circupool also and was very happy with them but the market changes a lot so I would check to make sure that's still the right choice for your selection criteria. I used 3 criteria: $/lb chlorine, warranty, reputation (especially warranty service). On your questions yes it goes after the heater as you suggest. There are multiple ways to mount it in vertical or horizontal orientation. Your pad layout is great and you should have no problems adding a cell in the piping.. As everybody else says on here nix the ionizer. Look through the pool care basics link that @Rancho Cost-a-Lotta gave you. You will need to maintain an FC that's dependent on your CYA level. FC/CYA Levels. And you will need to increase your CYA level for a salt pool. Also get a K1766 kit to test salt and check it before you add salt. You'll be surprised that you already have a lot of salt in your water and if you assume zero you'll end up with too much salt. Salt cell reading for salt content are notoriously inaccurate.

I hope this is helpful.

Chris
 
Rancho Cost-a-Lotta said:
Welcome to TFP Alex!

Both of the SWGs you have listed would work for your pool. Take a look at chlorine production in lbs. per day for each unit as part of your decision-making process.

Ionizer systems use copper to prevent algae. Copper can cause staining in pool and turns blonde hair green. With a properly sanitized pool, mineral systems, UV lights and pool store magic potions aren't needed. We can show you how to do it.

Copper in Pool Water - Further Reading

www.troublefreepool.com www.troublefreepool.com

Let us know if you have any questions.

www.troublefreepool.com

Pool Care Basics Archives

Your one-stop shop for all things TFP to include: ABCs of Water Chemistry, Recommended Chemicals/Levels, Test Kits, Troubleshooting, and much more!
www.troublefreepool.com www.troublefreepool.com
Click to expand...
I appreciate you taking the time to respond. I will take your comments to hart.
Rancho Cost-a-Lotta said:
Welcome to TFP Alex!

Both of the SWGs you have listed would work for your pool. Take a look at chlorine production in lbs. per day for each unit as part of your decision-making process.

Ionizer systems use copper to prevent algae. Copper can cause staining in pool and turns blonde hair green. With a properly sanitized pool, mineral systems, UV lights and pool store magic potions aren't needed. We can show you how to do it.

Copper in Pool Water - Further Reading

www.troublefreepool.com www.troublefreepool.com

Let us know if you have any questions.

www.troublefreepool.com

Pool Care Basics Archives

Your one-stop shop for all things TFP to include: ABCs of Water Chemistry, Recommended Chemicals/Levels, Test Kits, Troubleshooting, and much more!
www.troublefreepool.com www.troublefreepool.com
Click to expand...
Thank you. Love the website.

I appreciate the time you took to respond. I understand taking a look at the lbs. per day chlorine production. I however have no real understanding of what my pool will require in lbs of production per day. The only thing I can go by is the amount of water the pool has and based on other treads to get a SWG twice the size for my pool.

The other unknown I have is that the SWG doesn’t work below a certain temperature.
1) what is this temperature?
2) what do you do below this temperature. Add liquid chlorine or stabilized pucks or unstabalized pucks?

Thank you!

Alex.
 
dfwnoob said:
Welcome, Alex. The only people that tend to come around these parts and rave about their ionizer end up being connected with manufacturers or vendors of ionizing equipment. Interesting, that. Ionizers are pointless at best, and damaging at worst, as copper has no real place in proper pool chemistry. Search back for old threads where @chem geek has gone into detail about copper and ionizers over the years.

Get the SWCG, disconnect/remove the ionizer and move on with life. No more buying stupid mineral cells or mineral test kits, just a truly trouble free pool.
Click to expand...
Thanks!
Will do.
 
AlexGTA said:
The other unknown I have is that the SWG doesn’t work below a certain temperature.
1) what is this temperature?
2) what do you do below this temperature. Add liquid chlorine or stabilized pucks or unstabalized pucks?
Click to expand...
Minimum operating temps vary by model. MOST popular models, like my CircuPool, shut down chlorine production at around 60f degrees. My last model, a Calimar Platinum Series continued production down to 50 degrees.

When the SWG shuts down, use liquid chlorine If your CYA or calcium levels will allow it, you can use solid forms of chlorine. If operating temps are important to you, this should be one of your deciding factors.
AlexGTA said:
I however have no real understanding of what my pool will require in lbs of production per day.
Click to expand...
This is why a good test kit is needed. During swim season, most pools lose 2-4 ppm of chlorine per day. In Canada, that number may be less, but it's a good starting point. For reference, I run my SWG, which produces 2.0 lbs of chlorine gas per day, 8 hours at 80% to raise FC by 3.5 ppm daily.
 

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setsailsoon said:
Alex,
Welcome to TFP! Very nice pool and great pad layout plus very neat controls/power positioning. Great choice you are making to switch to salt. I did the same thing after several years of jug-lugging. Worked like a charm and our new pool (in design phase now) will have salt from start partly because my wife won't ever let me go back. I used Circupool also and was very happy with them but the market changes a lot so I would check to make sure that's still the right choice for your selection criteria. I used 3 criteria: $/lb chlorine, warranty, reputation (especially warranty service). On your questions yes it goes after the heater as you suggest. There are multiple ways to mount it in vertical or horizontal orientation. Your pad layout is great and you should have no problems adding a cell in the piping.. As everybody else says on here nix the ionizer. Look through the pool care basics link that @Rancho Cost-a-Lotta gave you. You will need to maintain an FC that's dependent on your CYA level. FC/CYA Levels. And you will need to increase your CYA level for a salt pool. Also get a K1766 kit to test salt and check it before you add salt. You'll be surprised that you already have a lot of salt in your water and if you assume zero you'll end up with too much salt. Salt cell reading for salt content are notoriously inaccurate.

I hope this is helpful.

Chris
Click to expand...
Hi Chris.

Sorry for the delayed response.

Thanks you for the input. What a helpful community this is.

I’m glad to see that my thoughts of changing are being confirmed here. Also happy that the current choice of SWG seems to be one you’ve made as well with your new pool set up. I believe that double the quantity req’d should do the job. I ordered it yesterday. I had some trouble of getting it shipped to Canada so I had to resort going through a third party in Niagara Falls NY. The ionizer was unplugged last week.

I will order the kit you recommended to test the salt level. Does that kit also test the FC, CY level? Or is there a kit that for this and tests the Salt level.
Thanks again.
Alex
 
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