Taste of 3000 ppm salt water pool?

Water_man · May 17, 2009

I read here about the benefits of adding salt to a non SWG pool.
Nobody mentioned anything about the taste. I recall swimming in a few hotel pools which must have used SWGs and the taste wasn't good at all.
I wonder what would be the taste like for a 2000-3000 ppm salt water.

mas985 · May 17, 2009

I can barely taste the salt in the pool but I can't really say it is worse than normal pool water. Pool water is not that great to begin with but you can taste a little bit of the salt. Some cannot tell the difference.

One of the advantages of a non SWG salt pool, is that you can get most of the benefits at about half the salt level. So you really don't neetd 3000 ppm when 1000-1500 ppm will do.

Water_man · May 17, 2009

mas985 said:
Pool water is not that great to begin with but you can taste a little bit of the salt. Some cannot tell the difference.

My pool water tastes very good, even better than my faucet water.
I wonder if the salt would change it.

JasonLion · May 17, 2009

Most people can taste salt at 3000 ppm. It isn't a bad taste, but it is different than without salt.

mas985 · May 17, 2009

It is pretty easy to mix up a small batch and taste it. If I did the math right, I think a teaspoon of salt in a gallon of water is about 1500 ppm. 6 grams of salt in a teaspoon and 4000 grams of water in a gallon.

Water_man · May 17, 2009

mas985 said:
It is pretty easy to mix up a small batch and taste it. If I did the math right, I think a teaspoon of salt in a gallon of water is about 1500 ppm. 6 grams of salt in a teaspoon and 4000 grams of water in a gallon.

Duh.. I should have thought about it :hammer:

Will try it with my own pool water.

digger01 · May 18, 2009

We added salt to the pool last year, I dont have a swg but we are never going back (we are to add the boarates this year ). Not everyone picked up on the salt. Now where ever I go I can tell if there is the slightest bit. Its nothing like the ocean and it doesnt make you float anybetter.

1500ppm Slight salt taste, no one noticed.

3000ppm salty tast, some people noticed (pool owners) and the kids really didnt notice-I like this level.

3750ppm strong salt taste, everyone noticed this and I would say it is alomst spa like...

The Fountain Bleu hote salt pool was said to be well over 5k but I think salt water is well beyond that.

I have had our pool 3700ppm but the salt test strips are sometimes hard to read the charts so I dont know if that is exact.

It would take a couple of weeks to get enough splash out to even seem to make a diff. or to lower the salt level. I think I added two 70 bound bags to get to about 2500 (20k pool). Just dragged them in and laid them on a piece of submerged plastic (vinyl liner), took about an hour or 2 for them to dissapate. This openning my salt numbers are below 500, so it seems to have gone down alot over the winter (drained pool below skimmer).

dmanb2b · May 18, 2009

ours is at 3400ppm...you can taste the salt, but it is not unpleasant like seawater

funny story...I brought a cup of pool water in last night to test with my Tf100....I've also tried to change my eating habits recently and completely cut out diet soda from my diet....about an hour later, wife walks into the living room and asks me how I can stand drinking flat seltzer water "it almost tastes salty too?" I almost cracked my head on the floor when I fell off the couch laughing...oops...I guess I forgot to empty the cup of pool water after I was done testing. :hammer:

I love her...we just started laughing for about 10mins straight.

dpool · May 22, 2009

That's funny about 'drinking the pool test water.' I've been afraid of doing that just absentmindly when I pull a cup of water to test inside. I keep thinking - I need to get a squirt bottle or something that I WON'T accidentally pick up to drink if I forget and leave it on the table.

okay - We got in our pool for the first time last week and EVERYONE complained about the saltly taste. Since I've NEVER added salt I can only figure that it has come from the fact I haven't had to DRAIN our 5,000gal AG Splasher pool the last three season since I discovered the BBB Method. However, I have put LOTS of gallons of 10% bleach in the pool to clear up some nasty algae problems that spring up in the spring. I did order a SALT test kit from TFP and got a reading of 2450. I'm thinking that's high or at least more than we need because we all tasted it.

So here comes the question and the math problem - how much water would I need to drain off to get the levels down to a less salty tasting point. I'm thinking I should mix up some salt water to see where everyone SALT TASTE point is before I go draining and refilling but I don't know how to 'work the problem'

If 4,500 (not filled to the top right now) gallons of water taste too salty at 2450 how much water do I need to drain to refill with no salty water to get it to 2,000 ppm or 1800 or 1600 or 1200 or 1000?

I found help with THE POOL CALCULATOR (THANK YOU!) It gave me the different numbers needed (should have gone there first!) to get to the different levels of salt. However, I still need some help with the how many minutes does it take to drop the pool x amount of gallons of water ... need to make a phone call.

Okay - I just got off the phone with my 'go to guy' for math problems and we decide that I need to run the sump pump for about 2 hours to drop about 1,000 gals of water. That's what I thought. I think I'll do this in increments just so that I don't take the pool out of commission for too long on this holiday weekend - I do know I need to drain and then FILL so I'm not draining my 'new' water, too. Then, I'll just go from here. Woo Hoo!

Thanks,

dpool