Added 40 lb solar salt to 13,000 gal pool - Salt level stayed the same after 24 hrs

[martinfm]

Hi friends at TFP,

I'm new to the forum, but already benefited a lot from the pool school materials and the pool math calculator. Thanks to you who created those resources.

I have a 13,000 gal salt water pool. I started maintaining it myself end of August and everything worked out well. I use the Taylor K-2006 test kit for FC, pH, TA and CYA, and the AquaCheck test strips for testing salt level. So far, all I needed to do was adjusting the chlorinator level for proper FC and adding Muriatic Acid from time to time to lower pH.

Recently, I noticed the salt level dropped to about 2690 (reading of 5.8 on the test strip), probably due to a lot of rains. So I grabbed a 40 lb bag of "Diamond Crystal, Solar Naturals Water Softener Salt Crystals" for $5.93. It's advertised as "Made naturally and contains up to 99.6% pure salt". The pool math showed that the 40 lb solar salt can raise the salt level to above 3000.

I added the whole bag yesterday morning at the deep end of the pool, near the main drain. The crystals disappeared in a few hours. The pump had been running for at least 12 hours. I tested the salt level yesterday afternoon, and got the same result of 2690. I thought maybe the salt hadn't dissolved evenly across the pool, so I tested again today. Again, I got the exact same reading of 2690 (5.8).

I don't know why the salt level didn't raise even a little bit. So I'm hesitant to add more bags before I find out the cause.

I tested salt level a few times and it wasn't always 2690. So I don't think it's the test method. Here are my test results in the past couple of months:

8/30 4110
9/15 3770
10/4 2930
10/14 2690
10/17 2690
10/18 2690

Any ideas? Please let me know. Thank you in advance.

 

[mknauss]

The amount of salt you added was in the error range of the test strip

 

[Divin Dave]

The effects of adding 40 lbs of salt to 13000 gallons will raise the salt level 368ppm. (which still doesnt raise the level enough to be in recommended range of most SWG's).

Salt strips are only accurate to 500 ppm if they are any good. They do have a shelf life and go bad with time.
So... even if the strips are good, the salt level probably didn't rise enough for the strips to detect it.

Lots of us who have SWGs use the Taylor K1766 salt test kit which is much more accurate and dependable than the strips. Its worth the money to have one.

PoolMath