New Salt system in place, "Check Cell" light on?

[cflannagan]

First of all, I should say I'm a total newbie to the SWG system, and we got one recently installed for our pool (no more chlorine).

It was installed by the contractors who resurfaced our pool. Once it was started up, the number was 2800.

Then the next day, it fell all the way down to 1400, and "check cell" light was on.

We have a bag of salt ready to be put in to bring the level up, but we are concerned as to why the number fell down all of sudden, we think this might be misreported by the system, due potentially to other issues we are having at the moment: Lots of peebletec "debris" on bottom of pool that needs to be removed. The resurfacing team removed a lot of it the other day, but some still remains. Our cartridge filter also needs to be replaced (it is "full", and is causing flow issues at the moment). We have new filter cartridge on the way to replace this old filter. Also considering collecting loose "peebletec" stuff via a new "canister" somewhere in middle of our vacuum hose (one-time thing) to protect our new cartridge filter as much as possible.

Could flow issues be causing "check cell" light and low salt numbers to surface, or is this more likely something else wrong with the salt system?

Thanks in advance.

 

[JasonLion]

The check cell light will come on if the salt level is really low. Also, the salt level display on the unit is likely to be wildly wrong, or blank, for as long as the first 24 hours after the SWG is installed.

Do you have any independent reason to believe the salt level is correct? Did you add salt recently, if so how much? Do you have a salt level test result other than from the SWG?

 

[cflannagan]

The check cell light will come on if the salt level is really low. Also, the salt level display on the unit is likely to be wildly wrong, or blank, for as long as the first 24 hours after the SWG is installed.

Do you have any independent reason to believe the salt level is correct? Did you add salt recently, if so how much? Do you have a salt level test result other than from the SWG?

The contractor himself added salt and advised us that we might need to add more salt as the numbers go lower - to bring it up to 3,000 level. But our impression was that we would slowly see the level fall down from 2800 to something like 2400.. not all the way down to 1400 (seems like a claustrophobic loss of salt to me).

I could put in a new bag of salt to see what the numbers would be reported afterwards, but I'm not sure if it's considered harmful to put in too much salt into our pool (again we are total newbies to salt-based pool, so right now it's back to "pool school" for us on that topic). I will do so if you advise. I have no independent reason to believe the salt level is correct, except that the contractor had supposedly put in some himself and said to keep eye on salt levels for the next few days.

 

[Killer95Stang]

Get yourself a real test kit for the salt before you go any further. Also, how long has your plaster been done? Every salt kit I've seen says wait 30 days on new plaster before adding the SWG system.

 

[cflannagan]

Get yourself a real test kit for the salt before you go any further. Also, how long has your plaster been done? Every salt kit I've seen says wait 30 days on new plaster before adding the SWG system.

Well, we do have TFT-100 test kit (something we used for 2 straight years) which I think most here consider a "real test kit" but yeah, nothing in there for measuring salt (we did not get "optional" salt strips last time we bought it. I'm simply reporting numbers from our new SWG. Are you saying that savvy people here for the most part don't rely on numbers reported by SWG themselves but rather the salt strips? I think that's a good idea, it should confirm whether or not salt levels in our pool is at proper levels.

The peebletec finish has been done for more than 30 days now. This is also why we were told we can go ahead and use the pool heater (for the spa), and the pool cleaner.

 

[JasonLion]

The salt reading on the SWG can easily wander around dramatically for up to 24 hours after salt is added. If the original 2400 reading is from shortly after salt was added, then it was almost certainly wrong. The SWG salt reading should not be believed at all until you have had the pump running for 24 hours after a salt addition.

Generally the salt reading from the SWG is more reliable than the salt test. However, it is always nice to have some kind of reality check to confirm what is going on. You don't appear to have any idea how much salt was added, so there is nothing to cross check the SWG reading against.

Another possibility would be a significant leak in the pool being masked by an auto fill system. That would cause the salt level to go down and keep going down over time.