SWG not producing Chlorine?...

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SweetSmiles

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May 28, 2009
12
This is only our second year with an inground pool....we finally got everything balanced out and looking super! Then we didn't check our stuff for like two days and when we did check it, we had '0' chlorine level in the pool...turned super chlorinate on and levels back up to normal...this was on like Sunday..

Our salt levels are showing 3300, everything else is showing right on as far as ph and stuff...

Yesterday the water turned green (a see through green!) in a matter of hours...literally...took a water sample to pool place and everything came back fine? Chlorine fine, no copper, ph fine...everything was fine....so they sent us home with some metal wizard...

Now this morning, chlorine isn't registering on our strips again...we have two different types of testing strips...the regular dip in the water kind and compare to the back of the bottle and we have the digital read out kind...no chlorine on either strips...(thought first it may be defective strips!!)

We did clean the cell last night in the acid mixture...

It seems when we turned the super chlorinate up the last time it worked...and brought everything back up in a days time...and almost like the only time we are getting chlorine is when it is super chlorinating.

Does anyone have any ideas to what may be going on here? Like mentioned earlier we are new to all this!
 
Hi there.... :wave:

First, when you want to raise the FC quickly, you should use bleach or liquid chlorine and not the "superchlorinate" feature. The cell just can't generate it quicly enough for your needs - liquid is much more suited for this purpose. :wink: Use the pool calculator to figure out how much to add.

What is your CYA/stabilizer level? did they test that for you?

Second, It sounds like you have iron in the water - did they test for iron?
If iron is present, you do need metal sequesterant, but not necessarily "metal wizard". What is on the active ingredient label? You want an HEDP based sequesterant, like Jack's Magic, Proteam Metal Magic or GLB Sequasol. When it comes to sequesterant, you get what you pay for. The cheaper kinds do not work very well.

Lastly, strips are basically worthless, digital or not. You need one of the recommended drop based test kits:
http://www.troublefreepool.com/pool-school/pool_test_kit_comparison

Hope this helps. :)
 
Since you can turn on the SWCG to super chlorinate and get chlorine in the pool, this would suggest that the generator is working. All superchlorinate does is turn on the SWCG all the time that the pool pump is running. Since you can't maintain chlorine in the pool, and it's green, it would suggest you have algea. Cant rule out metals that is causing the green, but I highly suspect algea. You need to shock your pool. Read pool school and the article on how to shock. You need liquid chorine to shock. Bleach will do just fine.
You didnt post the test numbers from the pool store. They can be fairly inaccurate, but in this case it's all we have to go on. Please post:

FC
pH
TA
CYA (stabilizer)
CH

Also, what kind of pool is it (plasert, vinyl, fiberglass), wat type of SWCG you have, gallons in the pool, filter type.
 
(BK beat me to it)

Green tint in the water is usually related to copper. Iron would be more brownish.
Algae tends to cling and grow on the walls. Adding some chlorine will help distinguish between the two, quickly.

The Superchlorinate/Boost modes are designed to put your salt system to 100% output for a 24 hr period. In some cases, this is enough to get your chlorine residual back on track. Most here will recommend increasing your chlorine by manual additions of chlorine, rather than the boost mode, so as to save your self life...not really that the boost mode will not get it up quick enough, because as you said, it did it the last time.

If the pool store is using a test kit that gives a result in OK, High, Low, have them check it so that they give you the results in parts per million. "everything was fine" doesn't help us help you.
Check and report for the following:
Free Chlorine
Total Chlorine
pH
Total Alkalinity
Calcium Hardness
Cyanuric Acid (stabilizer and conditioner are the same)
Salinity

Phosphates, Copper, and Iron are all good tests to run also. High levels are not good.

What is your pump run time per day?
Which salt system do you have? and how old is it?
What's your water temperature?
Any warning lights on the salt system?
 
Our pool people gives actual numbers, just didn't get my paper yesterday!!

We have come to the conclusion that we have metals...copper is negative, they tested that. We do have phosphates and pretty much think it is manganese (sp) since we have known that our home filtered water had it...We are thinking when we superchlorinated earlier, the quickness of it chlorinating reacted with the metals.

We 'feel like' if it was algae, when we added the Stain Eliminator it would not have cleared up so quickly to its original clearness! We are talking less than 15 minutes to clear up a 54K gallon inground pool..

We are adding more metal wizard and some clarifier to help with the metals in the filtering...hope this works!

(As far as the stabilizer..just added some of it yesterday, so it is still low.

Our pump right now is running all day~pool and system is all new, completed July 09, I cannot recall off top of my head name of SWG! Water temp this morning at 7 was 73*...I'm sure its way warmer as I type.
 
Sweetsmiles,

54K gallons is a rather large pool for a single cell salt chlorinator system. You're going to need to make sure you keep the operating parameters at manufacturers recommended guidelines, and/or run longer pump run times.
Running over the winter months would not provide too much a challenge for salt systems that are marginally sized. However, when temps increase, chlorine demand will increase.

Not to discourage you, but just keep an eye on it and keep us posted on your progress.
 
Be very leery of what the pool store tells you. It's ok to listen to them and then report back here what they say.

Before you buy or add anything for or to your pool, I would recommend getting the opinions of the very knowledgeable people on this board. Remember that the pool store has a profit motive built into the advice they provide. Those on this board have nothing to gain (other than good karma) by giving you advice. Many people on this board are far more knowledgeable about pool chemistry than the pool store clerk.

Also you should consider getting your own high quality test kit. Two of the best are the TFTestKit sold by a member on this board and the Taylor K-1006.

Please post exactly what salt cell you have. Like Poolsean said,, it is likely to small for your pool.

BTW - We love pool pictures.
 
....and I have read that this cell will do up to 40k! Please note that at the end of last year, we had everything leveled out and had no problems..we are new to all this and are still in the questioning stages of why things are they way they are and what we can do to prevent it!! This is our first time to 'open' our pool after the winter months!
 

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Poolsean said:
54K gallons is a rather large pool for a single cell salt chlorinator system. You're going to need to make sure you keep the operating parameters at manufacturers recommended guidelines, and/or run longer pump run times.
Click to expand...
Depends on a system. Autochlor manufactures single cell systems to cover pools of those size. But it is very close to where commercial range starts.
 
SweetSmiles said:
We are adding more metal wizard and some clarifier to help with the metals in the filtering...hope this works!
Click to expand...

Sequesterant keeps metals suspended "in solution" - it is unlikely you will be able to "filter them out". Clarifier won't help.

Again, you want a different brand of sequesterant. :)
 
Strannik said:
Poolsean said:
54K gallons is a rather large pool for a single cell salt chlorinator system. You're going to need to make sure you keep the operating parameters at manufacturers recommended guidelines, and/or run longer pump run times.
Click to expand...
Depends on a system. Autochlor manufactures single cell systems to cover pools of those size. But it is very close to where commercial range starts.
Click to expand...

I know that Strannik...just didn't find it appropriate to promote the Pool Pilot SC-60 cell, which can handle the volume, since there's already a system there.
:hammer:
 
SWG not producing Chlorine?..
Click to expand...
enough to keep up with pool demand (increase caused by algae bloom?)

not much else can be done when the system is seriously undersized
Click to expand...

except to manually add chlorine.

You need to properly "shock" your pool and kill what is driving up demand.

Read "Pool School" and "How to shock your pool" (you'll need lots of chlorine, added quickly.) Find out what your stabilizer (CYA) level is, it is not uncommon for it to drop over winter, and/or under sanitation attack; and you'll need to know what it is to find what your FC shock level should be (look at the Pool Calculator.)

Strips are useless for shock level testing, as is the pool store, unless it's next door.

If your CYA is low, wait until after successfully shocking to raise it (you'll use less chlorine.)

Maintaining proper FC residual (Pool Calculator)after successful shocking may be possible with current ECG by increased run time of ECG, increasing stabilizer level to 80 and/or using manual chlorine additions. Run time of ECG can be increased with power level setting, and pump run time, ie.. pump run of 8 hours with 50% power setting is the same ECG run time as pump run of 4 hours at 100%. If power setting of 100% and pump run time won't maintain FC, manually adding chlorine WILL be required.
Good Luck, and Best Wishes!!!
 
down under, phosphates are a big issue as it is the food for algae, remove the phosphates to zero and the algae will have nothing to feed on, this will then let the chlorine do its job and sanitise the pool water. I am not sure what you have over there to remove phosphates but we have products called "Starver" and "Phosphate remover".
 
malcolmb5325 said:
down under, phosphates are a big issue as it is the food for algae, remove the phosphates to zero and the algae will have nothing to feed on, this will then let the chlorine do its job and sanitise the pool water. I am not sure what you have over there to remove phosphates but we have products called "Starver" and "Phosphate remover".
Click to expand...

I will contradict this advice. Phosphates are algae food, but provided you maintain proper FC levels according to the CYA chart, it becomes irrelevant and phosphate remover is unnecessary. Our own board admin JasonLion has phosphate levels in the thousands and never has an issue, because he maintains the proper FC.
 
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