Added 11 boxes of Borate yesterday evening, but pool store now reads lower level?

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Species 8472

Species 8472

0
Feb 1, 2014
95
Jersey side of Philadelphia
I suspect the pool store's measurement is off. My borate level went from 12 PPM to 7 PPM in a week's time?

My levels:

Hardness 251
TA: 101
CYA: 66
PH: 7.5
FC: 3 PPM

Also, my SWG does not seem to be producing chlorine. It has read in the range of 0 to .55 PPM for the last few weeks. I've had to add bleach to keep things in range. Any thoughts about that too? I wonder if there is an algae issue, though my water is crystal clear. My pool temperature the past few weeks has been in the 84 to 88 range.

Thanks!
 
Species 8472 said:
Not for borate levels. I just ordered one from Discount Pools moments ago.
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Got it. The CYA 66 confused me because there is no real way to determine it to that level of accuracy with Taylor reagents. You can't equate “just a little over" any number marked on the tube to a specific number, the tube is not intended for such extrapolation.

Other than testing error I'm not sure there is any way the number can go down unless there was a water exchange.
 
Borates, like salt and CYA, only decrease with large water exchanges. They do not dissipate over time. As well, I'm curious how your pool store is measuring borates because there's no simple test I know of that can distinguish 12ppm from 7ppm. It sounds totally bogus to me.

What borate test did you order?

As for your SWCG, you need to post reliable test results from a TF-100 or K-2006 test kit in order to properly diagnose this problem. You could have a nascent algae bloom eating up all your FC or a malfunctioning cell. It's hard to know without proper test information.

Do you have your own test kit (Taylor test chemicals)?


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I had the water tested at an Anthony & Sylvan retail store. I just ordered the Taylor 2006c water testing kit. I purchased an A&S pool master kit which tests for the usual stuff (cya, ph, chlorine, acid demand, TA) but it is hard to use. Wasted $$ on that test.

I just ordered test strips for borate and I already have a Taylor Salt test kit which usually reports a higher salt reading than what the A&S pool store reports.

I will be curious to see what the borate levels are with the test strips. I also want to figure out what is going on with my Pentair IC 40 SWG system. It is one month old -- the Pentair person replaced my year old device because it was reporting low salt when I pumped up the salt to 4400 PPM. Thanks for your perspective.
 
If the test strips are the LaMotte InstaTest strips, then just be warned that they are color matching strips and not very discrete in their test values (0, 15, 30, 50 & 80ppm). They are designed more to tell you what range you're in than to give you a precise read on the borate levels. There are drop-based titration tests for boron, but they are really designed for lower boron levels (not more than 2ppm) and so they are not well-suited for pool water testing when borates are 50ppm. Hopefully the strips will give you a good enough determination of where you are in terms of borate levels.

As for the one month old IC40 possibly going bad right after installation, wow, that's terrible. Well, if the unit is indeed malfunctioning, then you definitely deserve a replacement for a defective unit. Please post results from your K-2006C as soon as you get it. I'd be happy to help you out if I can as will countless others on this forum. Lots of good advice here.
 
Re: FC = 2.0; CC=0. Does this make sense?

Species 8472 said:
Thanks for the suggestion for the Taylor test kit. It just arrived.

I used a Taylor 2006c test and have the following results:

PH=7.6
CYA=60 to 70
Hardness=250
TA=100
SWG system


But, having zero CC does not make sense to me when the FC is 2.0??????
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Yes, the numbers eeem to make sense, but you are low on FC If you are running a SWG pool with 70 CYA that you are reporting your FC should never be below 3, and you should target 5 to keep it above 3.

A splash of bleach will bring you up and maybe you need to turn up th eSWG% or add time to it's run.
 

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Does the SWG run the entire time the pump is on, or is it on it's own timer? Where do you have the % set now?

Can you do us a favor an add your city and state to your profile as it helps us deliver better answers to questions asked.
 
The Pentair Intellichlor IC40 is supposed to output 1.40 pounds of chlorine in 24 hours which in your 24,500 gallon pool would be 0.285 ppm FC per hour (with 100% ontime). At 60-70 ppm CYA in full sunlight and with the FC at 3-4 ppm then I'd expect around 0.12-0.13 ppm FC per hour loss so in theory you should be able to run your SWG at around 50% during sunny hours. If you need to run it much higher than that, then you may have nascent algae growth that you need to kill off by adding chlorinating liquid or bleach to elevate the FC level (i.e. a SLAM). I presume your cell is clean so doesn't have calcium carbonate built up on it. At your TA level, your pH may rise and if it did too much then you could get more scaling in your salt cell though the use of borates should significantly help to prevent that.
 
Thanks for that feedback about SWG and FC. Here's another issue--unfortunately, and before I received my Taylor test kit, I relied upon the pool store's calculations for CH. They reported a level of 250.

I conducted the CH test twice and it reports a level of 470 PPM! I added the Calcium on Saturday. Is this level a problem? I suppose it will lead to scaling. Yikes! You all are correct about the utter miscalculation of the pool store tests.
 
Make sure you don't have static electricity affecting your dropper tips -- wipe them with a damp cloth. Assuming your test is correct and that you overshot the CH, it's not a disaster since a doubling of CH only raises the Calcite Saturation Index by 0.3 units. So you should still be able to manage your pool without scaling if you keep an eye on pH and TA. It's the salt cell that is most at risk for scaling. If you are using 50 ppm Borates, you cut down that risk significantly since the borates cut down the pH rise at the salt cell roughly in half.
 
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