Do I have a problem here?

[Belldiver]

Hello folks!

I have a good handle on the whole water chemistry thing, but seem to be having a problem maintaining a good 3-4 FC level in my pool lately. I have a Pool Pilot with a SC-60 cell. When I first opened the pool and activated the salt cell about 6 weeks later, I used to be able to maintain FC levels with the cell power set to 1 and the power around 75%. I can't to do that anymore. I've bumped the power from level I to level II to level III now and am running at 80%. I check the water every morning and end up with a FC of about 1 ppm. I've been supplementing after my morning testing with bleach to keep my FC up to 3-4. The water looks good and I do not believe I have any algae problems.

I can see the tiny bubbles coming from the nearest return to the equipment pad, so I think the cell is making some kind of gas or could this be from something else? I don't have a leak in my system and my pump strainer lid has no bubbles floating in it and my filter housing is not collecting air.

Do I have a problem with my salt cell?

Here are my morning numbers, and these have been about the same over the last week or two. I went through the borate adding process over the last three days and everything went well and rebalanced out.

pH: 7.6
FC: 1
CC: 0
TA: 70
CH: 350
CYA: 70
Borates: 40-50
Salt: 3300
Temp: ~91

Am I missing something or do I possibly have a bum cell?

Thanks...

 

[frustratedpoolmom]

You need to turn off the SWG tonight, and do an overnight FC loss test. This will take sunlight out of the equasion, it will rule out organics as the issue - and pinpoint the cell, if the unit isn't functioning properly...

If you lose more than 1ppm FC overnight with the SWG off, you have organics and the SWG can't keep up. This means you'll need to shock with liquid chlorine.

Let us know what you find.

 

[kenmccall]

I had the same problem about two weeks ago. I had the SWG set to about 25% and had to keep turning it up about 10% everyday. My test kit did not show any CC (TFP100) but I did shock the pool and now the SWG is back holding the FC right at 4PPM at the 25% position. I took a sample to the PS and they did say I had .5 CC but I did not show it.

 

[mas985]

One thing to remember is that CC is the result of chlorine killing algae so even if you don't have any CC, you can still have algae. It may take a day or so of killing algae before CC shows up in any measureable amount.

 

[Belldiver]

I'll bring the pool up to shock level tonight and see how it goes in the morning, just to make sure I don't have any algae lingering around somewhere. I've shown a couple trace amounts of CC over the last week, but just barely enough to register on the test. I would say less than 0.5.

Is it normal to see those tiny bubbles coming from the nearest pool return? That would be a good sign of the SWG working as far as I can tell.

Thanks for the input.

 

[Belldiver]

One more small thing...

The water is very clear, but I am getting some small white dusty stuff down in the deep end that the Polaris robot won't even pick up. It just whisks it around and blows through the bag.

Would that white dusty/flaky stuff be dead algae? Or some kind of calcium flakes? I generally keep my CSI just on the negative side, so I wouldn't expect Calcium deposits. Maybe I'm just keeping up with the algae so I'm keeping the water clear but not killing it all the way?

Thanks...

 

[Belldiver]

OK, so I did the overnight FC loss test and I did lose some FC. I actually brought the FC up to 17 and waited half an hour to let the water circulate for a re-test so I wouldn't overshoot too far. I was expecting a similar number and actually lost 3 ppm (went down to 14) so I had to hit it again to get over 20. When I tested early this morning my FC was down around 12, so I've hit it with bleach again up to 21.

Can you have this bad of a chlorine demand from algae and still have good clear water? What are the other possibilities?

Thanks...

 

[Ohm_Boy]

You can certainly have that sort of loss and still have clear water, especially with your SWG running. The problem is that algae is killing your chlorine. Now with your FC at shock level, the chlorine can begin winning the battle. Once all the algae is dead, you can let the FC drop back to normal and use the SWG to maintain it.

 

[JasonLion]

You have an ammonia like contaminate, probably left over from the winter and still not cleared out yet. You need to keep shocking till you don't lose chlorine overnight.

All SWGs produce bubbles when they are on. Often they are very difficult to see, and many people never notice them.