Just installed New Salt Chlorine Generator

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Jason, thats a bit tough when the tap water here is already 400-500ppm in CH. I was cleaning my Aqua-Rite every three months with mucho buildup. The new cell chamber is clear, so I can inspect it with disassembling! It runs best about 4,000 ppm of salt and can go as high as 6,000 ppm.
 
salp said:
Jason, thats a bit tough when the tap water here is already 400-500ppm in CH. I was cleaning my Aqua-Rite every three months with mucho buildup. The new cell chamber is clear, so I can inspect it with disassembling! It runs best about 4,000 ppm of salt and can go as high as 6,000 ppm.
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I will back up what Jason said. If you are cleaning your cell that often then your water balance is off. Where were you keeping your TA and how high did your pH rise before you lowered it?
 
TA is always around 90 and PH gets no higher than 8.0 (avg 7.2 - 7.8 )

I check the water chemistry twice a week and adjust.

Even after a 3/4 partial water change, my CH is around 500ppm.

I just installed a new T-CELL from Goldline about three months ago. I had to run my pump for 10-12 hours for the AQUA-RITE system to barely keep up (and its not even summer yet). I have been adding a gallon of chlorine about every three weeks to keep my chlorine at the proper level.

Here are my current levels

FC - 3.0
CC - 0.0
PH - 7.8
TA - 95
SALT - 4000 PPM
CA - 60
CH - 520 PPM

Any other thoughts?
 
Keeping your pH down lower may be very helpful. If you lowered it now to 7.2, your TA would drop along with it and may help in the total quantity of acid you use.

With that high CH, I would keep pH 7.2 - 7.6
 
Thanks, thats all good stuff, but still didn't help with having to run the pump for shorter durations to create more chlorine. The fact my CH is high is making it difficult to balance water. It tends to fluctuate more. Things should hopefully be better in about 8 weeks!
 
salp said:
Thanks, thats all good stuff, but still didn't help with having to run the pump for shorter durations to create more chlorine. The fact my CH is high is making it difficult to balance water. It tends to fluctuate more. Things should hopefully be better in about 8 weeks!
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pH has an effect on chlorine production with a SWG. NEVER let the pH climb above 7.8! Your TA is also way too high with a CH up where yours is. Lower it to abut 60-70 ppm
Which Tcell did you have? They make 2 with different chlorine production capacities. Also, in your locality it 's better to have the CYA at 80 ppm! 60 is a bit low. I have even seen recommendations as high as 100 ppm in your locality and I tend to agree based on the chemistry that occurs in the pool.

I have had cusomers on well water here in FL with CH higher than yours and no problems whatsoever. However, their water balance was a bit better than you keep yours! It really does boil down to water balance.
When you say the goldline does not keep up does that mean you are running it at 100% for 10-12 hours to maintain the FC?
 

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Yes, that's running at 100%. I am almost sure that somewhere in this forum, CYA should only be between 30-50ppm but a little higher for SWG's? If I run my CYA up to 100ppm, then my shocking level is going to be around 18ppm and there is no way in the superchlorinate mode the Aqua Rite will keep up and that's about 4 gallons of chlorine at 10%. If my CSI is balanced with a TA of about 90 (I have had my TA around 60-70 and it really made no difference with chlorine production) My CSI 0.26, thats pretty balanced. I had the T-15 Cell. I'm just guessing that my pool was just to big for this system. Why am I debating this. The new generator works at 60% for about 7 hours!

Enjoy!
 
salp said:
Yes, that's running at 100%. I am almost sure that somewhere in this forum, CYA should only be between 30-50ppm but a little higher for SWG's? If I run my CYA up to 100ppm, then my shocking level is going to be around 18ppm and there is no way in the superchlorinate mode the Aqua Rite will keep up and that's about 4 gallons of chlorine at 10%. If my CSI is balanced with a TA of about 90 (I have had my TA around 60-70 and it really made no difference with chlorine production) My CSI 0.26, thats pretty balanced. I had the T-15 Cell. I'm just guessing that my pool was just to big for this system. Why am I debating this. The new generator works at 60% for about 7 hours!

Enjoy!
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you STILL need CYA at 80-100 ppm with a SWG. This will help with your pH stability! 30-50 ppm is for manually chlorinated pools! 70-80 ppm is the normal recommendation for SWGs and where there is MUCH sun such as Arizona and other areas like Palm springs and other desert locations, southern California and South Florida upping the CYATO 100 ppm often proves beneficial!
water-balance-tips-for-a-swg-t3663.html

I suspect (rather, from my experience with SWGs and pools in general, I know) that your previous problems were caused by too low a CYA level. Also, remember that when your pH spikes to 8.0 your CSI changes drastically and this leads to scaling in the cell!

If you run your CYA in the recommended level and keep your FC around 4-5 ppm you should never NEED to shock your pool!

If you ever do need to shock you are better off in dumping in the right amount of chlorine all at once instead of trying to raise the FC over a 24 hour period with the SWG running at 100% (shock mode). This creates far fewer undesirable oxidation byproducts that are difficult to eliminate and the shocking is much more effective.

Finally, in the type of climate you have you will probably do better with a slightly longer pump run time and a lower cell ouput during the day to maintain a more constant FC level. This will greatly eliminate the possible need to shock and possible algae outbreaks.
 
Waterbear,

Thanks for the input and all is well taken. AGAIN, The new SGS generator works great at 60% and only for six to seven hours of pumptime. I am trying to avoid $700.00 electricity bills during the summer. That might happen anyways based on the State of California's financial status. Longer hours are not an option. The last couple of months (Not summer yet) I was running my pump and Aqua Rite for 12 HOURS and I was having to add chlorine every 2-3 weeks. I will bring my CYA from 60ppm to 70-80ppm, but I am much happier with the new generator from SGS. If anybody is interested, I will post pictures!

All is good!
 
Jason,

You are 100% correct and that's what I did... It just happen to be SGS. This post was to let everyone know that I purchased a new SWG that is working for me. Never asked why the old one didn't work and why it wasn't.
 
FWIW,

I have an intellichlor and run it at 15% 12 hours a day. I keep an FC ~5-6 ppm with cya levels at 40. I know everyone here says run CYA a lot higher with a SWG, but if high CYA is bad for manually chlorinated pools, by my thinking its bad for SWG pools too. I think maybe people dont run the pump enough. If your not running the pump, you aren't cleaning nor sanitizing. I think a lot of the algea problems people have could be averted by chlorinating with a SWG and running the pump more.
 
Brad,

I agree, unfortunately running the pump longer is not an option. I would like to keep it around 6 hours a day during the summertime. Electricity in California is outrageous. My bill for May was $570.00 and that's with no air conditioner. So if I can run my cell at 60 - 80 % and 6 hours, I will be happy.
 

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