Intex Krystal Saltwater system CG-54605

[Wojo]

Hello,

For the first time I have setup an 18' 42" above ground pool and decided to go with salt water in it. I bought the Intex CG-54605 saltwater system thinking it will be very easy system to get working. I live in Arizona, where the tap water hardness is very high, and unfortunately I don't have a water softener. After two weeks of of plying with the system I can't get this chlorinator working. The unit always shuts down with error 92 (high salt). The saltiness of water right now measures 3400 ppm (with digital meter), which it should be OK according to the manual. The hardness of water is very high and is around 800 ppm, but I don't think I can control it. The calcium can be easily seen on the cell plates as white deposit. I tried to clean that deposit many times with vinegar and by washing it water. The cell plates appear to be clean. Anyhow, when the chlorinator starts to work for 15 seconds it produces gas bubbles and then shuts down with error 92. Very strangely, I managed to get it to work for 8 hours twice, having even more salty water than right now. At this point I don't know what is causing this system not to work. I read elsewhere that when AC supplying voltage is too high the system passes to high current between the plates, which in turn causes false reading for high salt. The system is for US market, 110 - 120 V. I measured voltage with volt meter and got 122V today. Would this be a problem?

Also, I use a standard paper filter/pump that came with the pool. I think it has enough power to make water flow at minimum required 700 gph (2650 L/h). I read sand filters are better, but I'm not sure if wrong filter type causes an issue with the chlorinator at this time.

Is there anything else I should try?

Thanks.

 

[linen]

Welcome to tfp, Wojo

With your high calcium using a swg will be challenging but it can be done. Specifically keeping TA and ph lower will help. Please post a full set of test results including TA, CH, ph, cya...and might as well post FC and CC while your at it.

 

[Charlie_R]

One thing you could try is lime softening.

Get a large plastic kids splash pool, fill it with your pool water and add lime. I don't know how much it would take, but I think you could research this.

Once the calcium precipitates out, use a sump pump held off the bottom of the treatment pool and pump the water back into your pool.

Rinse the precipitate out of the kiddie pool and repeat as needed to reach your target.

This will take many cycles to reduce your pool's CH, but it can be done.

You can also use this to pretreat your fill water, which will eventually bring your pool's CH down.

 

[Wojo]

I need to make a correction to the information about Calcium Hardness I made earlier. I have been using test strips that were showing hardness between 800 and 1000 ppm. Each test strip was showing different results. Today I went to the pool supply store and had my pool water professionally analyzed. It turned out that calcium levels are OK, 325 ppm. The only thing that was wrong was no Cyanuric Acid. I added a gallon, per recommendation and now levels are (according to test strip) between 50 - 100.

Here are the results from the professional testing:

Free Available Chlorine: 0
Total Available Chlorine: 0
Salt: 3200
Calcium Hardness: 325
Cyanuric Acid: 0
Total Alkalinity: 90
pH: 7.7
Phosphates: 100

After adding Cyanuric Acid, and what it seems levels are OK now, cleaning cell plates in the chlorinator, the chlorinator still shows high salt levels. It starts for 15 seconds and throws error 92.

 

[Charlie_R]

Test strips and "professional" pool store testing is highly suspect. Neither can be trusted. There is a reason all of us with constantly pristine pool have either the TF-100 or K-2006 kits.

We have learned that proper accurate testing is paramount to keeping our pools this way.

Now, since the SWG unit is probably still under warranty, you should contact Intex about the problem. If they say replace it, then do so.

 

[linen]

Not sure if I would trust those numbers, pool stores tend to be unreliable. If we assume those numbers are right then your csi is around 0.06 (I assumed 90F water) which is pretty good, yet you got scaling on the plates. How did you remove the scaling, did you use vinegar or muriatic acid dilution?

Sometimes the intex throws the 92 error when the flow if too low. I would try running breifly without the intex filter cartridge installed and see if it works.