I'm in the process of converting my pool to salt water so that I can use my new SWG system from Hayward (Aqua Rite) and was wondering if it is ok to use Diamond Crystal salt pellets (yellow bag). My local Costco is selling 50 lb bags for $4.99 and from the package it is 99.8% pure, however there is no indication on the package it can be used in pools. So my question is: is it ok to use this product in my pool? I know pellets dissolve slower than granular. All comments are welcome.
Diamond Crystal Salt Pellets
- Thread starter novaroam
- Start date
Yes that will work, but the Diamond Crystal Extra Coarse Solar Salt in the blue bags is a better choice and should cost the same.
JasonLion said:
Thanks for your response. Why is the Extra course solar salt a better choice? I know the pellets take longer to dissolve.
I'm pretty sure that's the only difference. I used some of both in mine, since they only had 4 bags of the solar salt. We added the salt while swimming, and the pellets were much easier on the feet!
As Melt In The Sun said, it is just the small difference in time to dissolve. The pellets will work, but usually the solar salt is the same price so you might as well go for faster dissolving.
I think I'm going with the pellets - they are cheaper and dissolving with me feel sounds like a new experience.
Thanks for everyone's comments and feedback.
Thanks for everyone's comments and feedback.
Dissolving the salt makes the water a little bit cold! Not bad, but noticeable and interesting. If you stick your foot in a pile of pellets, the water is quite a bit cooler. Have fun!
When I asked my pool installer (Pulliam Pools) about this they said I HAD to use "Pool Salt" because the other salts had impurities. But I read here that the blue Diamond Crystal Extra Coarse Solar Salt is acceptable. Any thoughts or comments on the alleged "impurities" that may be in it? Maybe Pulliam was overly cautious.
The blue "Extra Coarse" is 4.79/bag and the Pool salt is 6.39/bag so naturally I favor the Extra Coarse.
Thanks in advance.
The blue "Extra Coarse" is 4.79/bag and the Pool salt is 6.39/bag so naturally I favor the Extra Coarse.
Thanks in advance.
Every now and then there is a small pebble in the extra coarse salt, other than that it is exactly the same salt, just not ground up as fine. The pebbles, if you get any, are easy to remove once the salt has dissolved.
Followup to my SWG experience.
Ended up using the Costco salt pellets and had no problem dissolving them - took about 30 minutes. One interesting thing to note - I added 50 lbs less than recommended from the Pool Calculator and too my surprise the salt content was about 20% higher than I expected. I had the local pool store check it which confirmed the SWG digital reading. Maybe there was some salt in the water before I started or the pool is smaller than the mfg claims.
Now I need to fine tune pump run time with the generator dial for the desired FC level. It looks like 7 hours filter time with a 50% setting seems to be optimal.
Overall a pretty good experience and the best part no more adding the daily bleach. I highly recommend a SWG to anyone looking to ease their daily pool maintenance.
Ended up using the Costco salt pellets and had no problem dissolving them - took about 30 minutes. One interesting thing to note - I added 50 lbs less than recommended from the Pool Calculator and too my surprise the salt content was about 20% higher than I expected. I had the local pool store check it which confirmed the SWG digital reading. Maybe there was some salt in the water before I started or the pool is smaller than the mfg claims.
Now I need to fine tune pump run time with the generator dial for the desired FC level. It looks like 7 hours filter time with a 50% setting seems to be optimal.
Overall a pretty good experience and the best part no more adding the daily bleach. I highly recommend a SWG to anyone looking to ease their daily pool maintenance.
There will always be some salt in the pool to start with, so that is presumably where your 20% extra came from.