Issues with getting FC up and stable with SWG

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L

lauerr

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May 19, 2013
4
Hi - Want to thank this forum ahead of time for all the insight in pool water balancing. Looking for some advice on what to do here to get my FC in the 3 ppm range for my SWG pool

Test results -
Salt - 3.0 ppm
FC - .17
TC - .56
CC - .39
PH - 7.6
TA - 105
CH - 160
CYA - 76

I've read through the pool school and tried shocking the pool with liquid bleach which drastically lowered my CC. I've raised the pool PH to appropriate levels and will have to lower TA with the by aerating. Also raised my CYA up to 76. I do not seem to be able to get my FC up though in the pool with the SWG. I've tried the boost setting to generate chlorine. My guess is that the SWG is working because I am getting some chlorine readings. Any suggestions on what to try next?

Thanks for your help
 
Welcome to the forum!

Recheck your salt. A normal level is going to be around 3500ppm.

Don't worry about TA. It is fine where it is.
 
Thanks for the responses -
Couple pieces of additional information -
Just checked again and the Salinity is 3.1 GPL = 3100 PPM - recommended settings from the manual are 3.0 - 3.5 GPL. Have you seen better chlorine production with higher salinity levels?
I use the Lamotte ColorQ test kit to get the results. Been testing for the past week and readings appear accurate based upon chemicals I've added through the pool calculator.
I did follow the shocking the pool process last week - brought the FC up to 28 just to make sure I killed the contaminates (found 2 dead mice in the pool when I opened it). Also ran two 24-hour chlorine boosts with my SWG after my FC levels came back down.
I have the PLC 1400 model and SWG is running at 70% currently. Pump is running 24 hours a day until I get the issue cleared up.

Thanks
 
So have you recently passed an OCLT with the pump running and the SWG off? That will determine if the low FC is due to something in the water.

Now that the FC has been low, something could be growing. You should have been supplementing with liquid chlorine if the SWG was not keeping up.
 
lauerr said:
I'll go buy some more bleach and try the Overnight test to see if there is still something growing in the water. - Thanks
Click to expand...
That would be your best option at this point.

The 1400 should be able to maintain your size pool if its properly balanced. It just seems you are still fighting some organics. At 70% for 24 hours the SWG is only able to contribute approximately 4 ppm of chlorine. Doesn't take much sun or organics to eat that up and that the fact it's introduced over 24 hours doesn't make it very effective at shocking.
 
Sorry for the delay in posting here but I've finally fixed my problem. I completed the overnight tests and saw my chlorine level drop. Assuming that there was something eating the chlorine I stocked up on bleach and shocked for two days. I brought FC up to 28 only to watch it drop off to almost 0 overnight. After spending over a hundred dollars on bleach only to see it getting eaten overnight I decided to change up my strategy. So against the boards general guidelines I switched to shocking with potassium monopersulfate (non-chlorine shock) to see if I could attack the issue a different way. Luckily it seems to have fixed the issue because I am now maintaining the following levels over the past week

Test results -
Salt - 3300 ppm
FC - 4.1
TC - 4.1
CC - 0
PH - 7.6
TA - 90
CH - 160
CYA - 76

Thanks for all the advice here. I never knew there was so much to pool chemistry.
 
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