Hello TFP members,
I recently took over an 11500g saltwater pool, which is 1.5 years old and has less than subpar parameters (I mean almost zero for everything but NaCl, Ca, Alk, TA and TDS @5000 with pH well over 8). Today, I already maintain several marine reef aquariums and after many years I have almost all of it automated. What I'm hoping is to attain the same with this pool/spa as I get the parameters in line with general cell maintenance, muriatic acid, stablizer, baking soda and possibly bleach if needed. I've already cleaned out the skimmers and purchased new socks, cleaned the pump basket with filter too. My water is a little hard, so some of this is expected of course but what I was surprised to see is no algae yet. The system in place is a Jandy Aquapure with the same matching cell. After connecting it, I found the cell to be set at 80% and reported salinity of 2700ppm but otherwise added salt and are in the process of adding the remaining items to get the pool balanced, including time for aeration. I will likely boost the TC/FC way up this week in hopes it will assist with nitrate reduction before I add the stabilizer and testing to balance.
Now I realize this is a much, much larger volume of water but I have far less parameters to adjust or maintain at precision and others, such as pH, ORP and salinity are very easy to monitor. I already have plenty of test equipment from Hanna and others but they do require me to always be testing with reagents. I don't expect to automate additions of salt, etc but it would be nice to minimize use of reagents unless I know I need to and I would really like to automate the pH regulation as evaporation is a real issue for me. I am aware TFP has four "recommended" test kits, all titration-based with reagents. Dilution and titration tests still serve many well, but my observations are that ion selective probes are more practical and consistent without the need of "putting the drops in". I have a decent solution I have built, but I'd like to actually purchase one that doesn't require me to keep mine running outside. It was about $600 or so to build during lock downs last year and I'm not entirely certain all the parts (other than probes) are easy to come by and I've not designed a means to test for TC/FC or CYA with a probe at this time.
Has anyone found anything they use to automate their daily water tests or a mobile solution that works well with home automation solutions?
Brian
I recently took over an 11500g saltwater pool, which is 1.5 years old and has less than subpar parameters (I mean almost zero for everything but NaCl, Ca, Alk, TA and TDS @5000 with pH well over 8). Today, I already maintain several marine reef aquariums and after many years I have almost all of it automated. What I'm hoping is to attain the same with this pool/spa as I get the parameters in line with general cell maintenance, muriatic acid, stablizer, baking soda and possibly bleach if needed. I've already cleaned out the skimmers and purchased new socks, cleaned the pump basket with filter too. My water is a little hard, so some of this is expected of course but what I was surprised to see is no algae yet. The system in place is a Jandy Aquapure with the same matching cell. After connecting it, I found the cell to be set at 80% and reported salinity of 2700ppm but otherwise added salt and are in the process of adding the remaining items to get the pool balanced, including time for aeration. I will likely boost the TC/FC way up this week in hopes it will assist with nitrate reduction before I add the stabilizer and testing to balance.
Now I realize this is a much, much larger volume of water but I have far less parameters to adjust or maintain at precision and others, such as pH, ORP and salinity are very easy to monitor. I already have plenty of test equipment from Hanna and others but they do require me to always be testing with reagents. I don't expect to automate additions of salt, etc but it would be nice to minimize use of reagents unless I know I need to and I would really like to automate the pH regulation as evaporation is a real issue for me. I am aware TFP has four "recommended" test kits, all titration-based with reagents. Dilution and titration tests still serve many well, but my observations are that ion selective probes are more practical and consistent without the need of "putting the drops in". I have a decent solution I have built, but I'd like to actually purchase one that doesn't require me to keep mine running outside. It was about $600 or so to build during lock downs last year and I'm not entirely certain all the parts (other than probes) are easy to come by and I've not designed a means to test for TC/FC or CYA with a probe at this time.
Has anyone found anything they use to automate their daily water tests or a mobile solution that works well with home automation solutions?
Brian
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