Hello-
I am having an issue with white and blueish flakes showing up in the bottom of the pool and hot tub at the returns and have traced the issue back to the SWG. See pics (I suspect the blue-ish tint is from my clear blue?). There is a lot of context further below but here is my current water chemistry-
All per Tyler 2005 test kit
FC- 4 (a little high b/c we have a security cover and didn't use the pool for over a week)
CC- <1
Salt PPM- 3050 (this is per the Pentair app; I suspect it is reading low as last time I had the water tested it came back about 200ppm higher than this app; I have the green light "good" salt level at the SWG unit)
Ph- 7.6
Alkalinity- 120
CYW- unclear. The Tyler 2005 test kit seems to be lacking in this one's accuracy. The black dot gets blurry about 50 but never fully disappears. Last time I had the water tested this was 50.
Calcium hardness- 300
Temp- been in the high 70's the last month
The [long] history-
Pool was installed and turned on in May 2022. All last summer, no issues and minimal maintenance was required beyond some acid here and there. The pool was closed for the winter and hot tub kept open. Because I was a new pool owner with no experience, and limited instructions from the installer, I let the FC get very high in the hot tub over the winter because we didn't use the hot tub, nor open the cover for a couple weeks at a time. I figured this out when a pair of shorts actually faded! I tested the free chlorine and it was darker than 10. After that, I rotated the SWG between off and 7% and checked the FC nearly daily and would leave the cover open on sunny days if it started to get above 5. PIA, but the best I could do.
Opened the pool this May and from day 1 seemed to have little to no chlorine production. Also had the white specs from day one but I ignored that and focused on the lack of FC. Last year I kept the SWG at 20% and for our use that was sufficient. This summery I kept cranking it up until we had it at 100% for a few days and started to get a slight FC reading. Then the algae moved in. (Side note- we had a very wet and stormy back half of May and all of June in Denver. With the security cover it made it very cumbersome to open the pool and test the chemicals but I tried to stay on it at least 3x/week.) The rest of the chronology goes something like this-
- Treated the algae outbreak with 1 lb of shock, GLB algecide and lots of scrubbing with a wire brush. Lots of of dead algae the next day that I vacuumed out (didn't vacuum to backwash)
- FC reading the next day was about 8. The day after that, virtually zero again.
- Checked the SWG for build up and it was clean.
- Used chlorine tablets for the next few weeks to try and keep the FC up.
- Had another algae outbreak...etc. etc. Battled with the algae for a few weeks. Ultimately got rid of it with lots of shock, some more algecide, lots of scrubbing and also cleaned out the cartridge filter.
- Still couldn't get consistent FC readings. Pool guy and gal came by and said my CYA was likely off so added 1 gallon of liquid conditioner (something from Amazon). Added another lb of shock (I'd say in total, this summer I put about 7lbs of HTH cal hypo powder shock in). That helped for a week or so then started losing FC readings again (all the while my SWG was at 50% or higher)
- Had water tested and salt was low so added nearly 40 lbs.
- About here I checked the SWG and found quite a bit of build up on it. Gave it an acid was with 5:1 mixture.
- Had a pool guy out a couple weeks later who really cleaned out the filter cartridges (he said they were "sludgy") acid washed the SWG because it had build up and left me a nice bill. Checked the sale with strips and get a reading of about 3,500
- That was about mid-August and since then we've had good FC production and no algae.
- But, the flaking is bad as ever and I've scraped the SWG with a popsicle stick twice in the last 3 weeks. No doubt I'll have to do it again this weekend.
Not sure if I have a chemical or mechanical issue. If my description above doesn't provide a clear answer, which I doubt it does, I'd be curious to know the common causes for this issue and I can start trouble shooting. Thank you in advance!!
PS- my weekly maintenance:
- 2 oz GLB super blue
- 8 oz GLB natural clear
- 4 oz GLB sequa sol
- For the next few weeks after the last algae outbreak ,1.5 oz of Clorox algeside but stopped about 3 weeks ago
I am having an issue with white and blueish flakes showing up in the bottom of the pool and hot tub at the returns and have traced the issue back to the SWG. See pics (I suspect the blue-ish tint is from my clear blue?). There is a lot of context further below but here is my current water chemistry-
All per Tyler 2005 test kit
FC- 4 (a little high b/c we have a security cover and didn't use the pool for over a week)
CC- <1
Salt PPM- 3050 (this is per the Pentair app; I suspect it is reading low as last time I had the water tested it came back about 200ppm higher than this app; I have the green light "good" salt level at the SWG unit)
Ph- 7.6
Alkalinity- 120
CYW- unclear. The Tyler 2005 test kit seems to be lacking in this one's accuracy. The black dot gets blurry about 50 but never fully disappears. Last time I had the water tested this was 50.
Calcium hardness- 300
Temp- been in the high 70's the last month
The [long] history-
Pool was installed and turned on in May 2022. All last summer, no issues and minimal maintenance was required beyond some acid here and there. The pool was closed for the winter and hot tub kept open. Because I was a new pool owner with no experience, and limited instructions from the installer, I let the FC get very high in the hot tub over the winter because we didn't use the hot tub, nor open the cover for a couple weeks at a time. I figured this out when a pair of shorts actually faded! I tested the free chlorine and it was darker than 10. After that, I rotated the SWG between off and 7% and checked the FC nearly daily and would leave the cover open on sunny days if it started to get above 5. PIA, but the best I could do.
Opened the pool this May and from day 1 seemed to have little to no chlorine production. Also had the white specs from day one but I ignored that and focused on the lack of FC. Last year I kept the SWG at 20% and for our use that was sufficient. This summery I kept cranking it up until we had it at 100% for a few days and started to get a slight FC reading. Then the algae moved in. (Side note- we had a very wet and stormy back half of May and all of June in Denver. With the security cover it made it very cumbersome to open the pool and test the chemicals but I tried to stay on it at least 3x/week.) The rest of the chronology goes something like this-
- Treated the algae outbreak with 1 lb of shock, GLB algecide and lots of scrubbing with a wire brush. Lots of of dead algae the next day that I vacuumed out (didn't vacuum to backwash)
- FC reading the next day was about 8. The day after that, virtually zero again.
- Checked the SWG for build up and it was clean.
- Used chlorine tablets for the next few weeks to try and keep the FC up.
- Had another algae outbreak...etc. etc. Battled with the algae for a few weeks. Ultimately got rid of it with lots of shock, some more algecide, lots of scrubbing and also cleaned out the cartridge filter.
- Still couldn't get consistent FC readings. Pool guy and gal came by and said my CYA was likely off so added 1 gallon of liquid conditioner (something from Amazon). Added another lb of shock (I'd say in total, this summer I put about 7lbs of HTH cal hypo powder shock in). That helped for a week or so then started losing FC readings again (all the while my SWG was at 50% or higher)
- Had water tested and salt was low so added nearly 40 lbs.
- About here I checked the SWG and found quite a bit of build up on it. Gave it an acid was with 5:1 mixture.
- Had a pool guy out a couple weeks later who really cleaned out the filter cartridges (he said they were "sludgy") acid washed the SWG because it had build up and left me a nice bill. Checked the sale with strips and get a reading of about 3,500
- That was about mid-August and since then we've had good FC production and no algae.
- But, the flaking is bad as ever and I've scraped the SWG with a popsicle stick twice in the last 3 weeks. No doubt I'll have to do it again this weekend.
Not sure if I have a chemical or mechanical issue. If my description above doesn't provide a clear answer, which I doubt it does, I'd be curious to know the common causes for this issue and I can start trouble shooting. Thank you in advance!!
PS- my weekly maintenance:
- 2 oz GLB super blue
- 8 oz GLB natural clear
- 4 oz GLB sequa sol
- For the next few weeks after the last algae outbreak ,1.5 oz of Clorox algeside but stopped about 3 weeks ago
