Cleaning up my SWG

[mShark]

I'm doing maintenance on my plumbing so I had the SWG out of the system and it was a mess. I didn't get a before picture, but the pic below shows a small part of what came out of it. The chunks were plentiful, but came loose with vinegar and a long zip tie as an agitator, and water jet from a garden hose. My concern is I have been keeping the CSI on my pool in the range of -0.3 to 0, yet there was considerable deposits of something in the pool. Exposed to vinegar or muriatic acid it fizzes up quick. My CH has been in the 550 to 600 range, but that will be changing. What has been going wrong? Apparently I'm not properly managing the water chemistry.

I had to drain 25% of the pool to stop water from flowing through the pipes and making more mud for me to track in the house. I intend to drain a bit more, then refill from my softened spigot I installed for this purpose, so my CH value should be dropping.

 

[PoolStored]

I would recommend 2 things.

Try running your CSI -.4 and be consistent. @mas985 has to do this to keep his cell clean.

IF that doesn't work, you might try borates. Borates strongly buffer against high pH changes inside the cell as the pKa is around 9.0 for the boric acid/borate ion buffer system. Keeping the pH in check means that calcium scaling is less likely and thus the cell can run without getting coated with scale.

 

[mas985]

How old is the cell? I have found that the older the cell is, the lower the CSI needs to be to keep it clean. Near end of life, it is almost impossible to keep it clean even at very low CSI.

 

[mShark]

mas985: the cell is less than a year old. It was still making chlorine, it just looked ugly.

PoolStored: I already have the bags of borates on hand. When I get the pool filled with the softened water I will be adding the borates. Which leads to another question - what is the procedure to add borates? Since it will be difficult to change the TA and pH after the borates are added, I assume the chemistry should already be at the desired TA and pH?

 

[ajw22]

Borates in pool - Further Reading

www.troublefreepool.com

 

[PoolStored]

PoolStored: I already have the bags of borates on hand. When I get the pool filled with the softened water I will be adding the borates. Which leads to another question - what is the procedure to add borates? Since it will be difficult to change the TA and pH after the borates are added, I assume the chemistry should already be at the desired TA and pH?

To put it in, just broadcast over the water. It dissolves quickly. If any gets to the bottom (unlikely), just brush it.

Use "effects of adding" in pool math. You will likely see about a .2 drop in pH. I recommend that you get your TA where you want it, and your pH .2 high than you want after (or whatever in pool math for your addition).

Borates don't LOCK your TA and pH. It buffers (slows down) pH change. You can move TA easily. pH just takes more muriatic to make the change after borates.

Read the full borates article that @ajw22 posted.

 

[tcat]

A cell cleaning tip (I believe I read about here), I just did my first cleaning with one of these. Perfect thickness and length.

https://a.co/d/8uKHS6L

Also redoing some plumbing and planning on adding 30# of borates.