pentair 320 question

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C

carlos31

0
Oct 18, 2007
104
Central Texas
Should the canister be allowed to fill with water or should there just be water on the lowest couple of tabs? To fill the canister, I must allow the water to rise before I put the lid in place.

I am not happy with the chlorine output I am getting so far. I run a low pressure plumbing system so I may need to convert to the high flow option for the 320 but I am going to try the 1 inch tabs first as suggested in the 320 manual. Either way, I was wondering if the canister should be filled with air or water.
 
In the bottom fed, factory configuration, water only washes over the lowest tabs. The air in the chamber compresses some to when the pump is off, the water drains out. This slows the dissolving of the tabs. This prevents a high buildup of chlorine when the system restarts in the morning.

When the 320 is set up in the high feed configuration, water washes over all the tabs, but the air is still present and gets slightly compressed so the canister still drains. This is useful when more chlorine needs to be fed to meet the pool's demand or when a variable speed pump is used for an extended period on a smaller (under 20K) pool.

The use of a variable speed pump, it should be noted, regardless of the erosion feeder make or model, will effect the ability of the feeder to introduce chlorine. Most erosion feeders are expecting a minimum of 4 to 5 feet per second in the plumbing to supply an adequate fresh water flow through it, be it an in line or an off line feeder.

Scott
 
Thanks, I will try it with air in the canister. Maybe having the canister full of water reduces the aggitation of the water and tablets. I am running at 45gpm in 2 inch pipe which is 4.6 fps but I am not getting alot of chlorine production. If that doesn't work I will try 1 inch tablets.
 
People seem to get a lot of variability with those tablet feeders. I had the same one as you and deplumbed it. Now, if I go out of town or something, I just use a floater. Works as advertised and is a lot less trouble.
 
Set the 320 for a top fed config and you will get enough, assuming you running 14 hrs for a turn.

Watch you CYA level. It will rise pretty quickly with the number of tabs you will be eating. Start thinking about putting an IC-60 salt cell on. Seriously.

Scott
 
I was very close to getting an AutoPilot but thought I would try the cheap route first and see how much I would be spending on water refreshes. My concern about the salt chlorinators is the same as the 320; my pump speed. I am currently at 45gpm (I run my pump 24x7 with the theory that long run time is easier on the pump than daily start/stop and lets me maintain low energy use by running a low water velocity) because the LQ required that speed to work properly. In reality I would like to run at 30gpm because it gives a little over 1 turnover per day. However, is this or even 45gpm enough speed for the salt cell to work properly?
 
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