What is this white substance building on my saltwater cell?

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diamonddog

diamonddog

0
Nov 24, 2012
95
Irvine, CA
What is this white substance building on my saltwater cell?

Its not hard like calcium. You can scrape it off. when I dunk in into and acid solution it doesn't really bubble.It feels like a cross between wet sand and styrofoam. It is bright white and if you squish it between your fingers it will turn to a gritty paste. I tasted it and it is not salty.

 
It is calcium and you should remove it with acid/water solution. It will not bubble very much unless there is a lot of the calcium. Be very careful if you scrape it off as the plates can be easily damaged.
 
ping said:
It is calcium and you should remove it with acid/water solution. It will not bubble very much unless there is a lot of the calcium. Be very careful if you scrape it off as the plates can be easily damaged.
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In my experience, calcium scale has been much harder and almost flakes off and is "flakey". This substance could be broken off with just my fingers where I can access it. It has almost a cauliflower texture. There was a ton of it in some areas which I would think make the acid bubble. Also, without adding water, I could mash it between my fingers and it turned into a gritty paste. This just does not sound like calcium characteristics.
 
I am having the same issue with my SWG. It is so bad that I must clean the white rock off once a week. Calcium hardness is 360 and my fill water as of yesterday was 160. Does anyone have experience with how to deal with this issue? This is really making the SWG useless because I must continually disassemble the cell unit to clean with CLR.
Anybody having the same issue? I live in Arizona, and am wondering if I should look into some type of whole house water mineral eliminator/reducer??


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rockstr66 said:
I am having the same issue with my SWG. It is so bad that I must clean the white rock off once a week. Calcium hardness is 360 and my fill water as of yesterday was 160. Does anyone have experience with how to deal with this issue? This is really making the SWG useless because I must continually disassemble the cell unit to clean with CLR.
Anybody having the same issue? I live in Arizona, and am wondering if I should look into some type of whole house water mineral eliminator/reducer??

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Click to expand...

That CH is fine, but you have failed to report the rest of your test results which would give indication of why you are seeing a lot of scaling. For example, the pH is the largest factor. Also, I am not sure if the Intex SWG have the circuitry to reverse polarity and thus reduce the buildup.
 
Keeping Borates, pH and other values in optimum range appears to do a lot to keep cell clean. In our family pools, the Simpool pH injector is placed right before the Pentair Filter and it also appears to have a positive effect in keeping cell clean.
 
susa said:
Keeping Borates, pH and other values in optimum range appears to do a lot to keep cell clean. In our family pools, the Simpool pH injector is placed right before the Pentair Filter and it also appears to have a positive effect in keeping cell clean.
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Injecting the acid before the filter seems like a bad idea to me. I thought it was supposed to be injected after all the equipment? :suspect:
Although I could see the advantage to injecting it prior to the SWG cell to help keep it clean, but that too may shorten the life of the cell depending on how acidic the water becomes.
 
I have found, as stated above, that keeping pH and TA in check helps. Adding borates for me completely solved the problem. In fact, I never added borates back after replastering, and I just had to clean my cell for the first time. Ordered 165 lbs of boric acid yesterday, can't wait to get borates back up.
 
Yes, injectors are placed before Pentair filters, all according to instructions and all family IntelliChlor cells average 4 years of use and are now swapped out unconditionally at 3 year warranty expiration(s) but are still working fine. No deposits ever on the cells, no cleaning and no issues on any of the systems.
 
jblizzle said:
That CH is fine, but you have failed to report the rest of your test results which would give indication of why you are seeing a lot of scaling. For example, the pH is the largest factor. Also, I am not sure if the Intex SWG have the circuitry to reverse polarity and thus reduce the buildup.
Click to expand...

Hello jbIzzle,

Sorry for leaving that out. Just back from vacation, but this test is pretty typical with the PH just slightly higher than usual. Fill water tested at 160 yesterday.

TC:3.5
Fc:3.0
TA:150
CH:360
PH:8
CYA:30

Added acid to reduce PH per pool app
Added stabilizer to raise CYA per pool app
Added some bleach to raise chlorine a bit per app

Will check again in a week.
Thoughts?


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I suggest to not only get the pH lower and not let it get above 7.8, but to get the TA down to 70 which will help a lot with the scaling and rising pH. You are making the SWG work a lot harder than it needs to also by keeping the CYA so low, raise it to 80 which will also help with the scaling and pH.
 
As your PH rises, the scale in your cell increases because minerals come out of solution more easily at high PH. I have a fussy pool, so I check PH every three days. Once a week is not enough, IMO.

Also your CH is a little high also.

IMO, some cells are more fussy than others regarding chemical balance. If your salt is at the upper range, that can contribute to scale also.
 
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