Hello everyone! We purchased a house in Southern California (Winchester to be exact) that has a salt water pool. When we first moved in everything seemed fine with the pool, it looked good but there seemed to be something "off" about the water. It seemed that when I swam in the pool my hands would feel "Slimy" and there was a lot of what looks like calcium chunks on the sun deck area of the pool. I started checking my chemicals with a simple Chlorine and Ph test kit and test strips. and there never seemed to be any chlorine in the pool. I finally realized that the IC60 has last replaced in 2016 and was not operating. I replaced that and started generating. In the meantime I had started tweeking on the CYA levels, bought a test kit on Amazon and started testing the levels. From what I was seeing the CYA levels were either very low or non-existent so I started adding powdered stabilizer using the sock method, got my levels up to around 30 but somewhere I had heard that on a salt water system you want them up around 80-90, so I added more and now I'm currently sitting around 70-80 CYA. Well all of a sudden I'm getting what looks like algae growing just below the water line in the pool. I picked up the Taylor K-2006C test kit and really started digging into the chemical readings. I previously had my pump running for 8 hours a day at 60% but then it seemed my total chlorine was too high so I turned it down to 30% according to the pool math app. We are only at the house on the weekends and every weekend I'm still having to brush the sides of the pool. Last weekend I pulled and cleaned the filters and tested my levels, here are my results:
3950 PPM salt level according to the IC60
Total Chlorine using OTO 3-6
3.5 free chlorine using Taylor test kit FAS-DPD kit
.5 combined chlorine
P.H. 7.8-8 I added muriatic acid in it a few weeks ago and got the PH down to around 7.4 but it always seems to go up.
CYA using the kit the black dot is partially obscured around 80 but totally gone at 70 so I'm calling it 70
Alkalinity 110
Hardness is at 1650, I questioned the first hardness result then tested it again and it came back the same so I'm assuming its right. I'm still getting what looks like calcium on on the sun deck part of the pool (the cleaner doesn't get up there so I have to brush it)
Saturation index is at 1.6
then I tested the house water, here are my results:
0 Chlorine
7.8 P.H.
337 PPM TDS
90 Alkalinity
250 hardness
My question is do I need to to a complete drain and refill to reduce the hardness? and possibly the CYA? I'm assuming the calcium deposits on the sun deck are due to the hardness of the water and could my CYA be too high causing the chlorine to not work properly and that's why I'm getting the algae on the walls? I have attached a few pics, the first one is the filters with all the green on them and the 2nd shows where I'm getting the algae growing (I'm assuming its algae, it brushes off very easily) I tried to take a pic of me brushing the sun deck and the stuff coming off of it but it didn't come out real well.
Also there are a few permanent stains on the bottom of the pool (mainly under the waterfall) maybe if I did a complete drain and refill I could address those at that time. Thanks in advance!!!
3950 PPM salt level according to the IC60
Total Chlorine using OTO 3-6
3.5 free chlorine using Taylor test kit FAS-DPD kit
.5 combined chlorine
P.H. 7.8-8 I added muriatic acid in it a few weeks ago and got the PH down to around 7.4 but it always seems to go up.
CYA using the kit the black dot is partially obscured around 80 but totally gone at 70 so I'm calling it 70
Alkalinity 110
Hardness is at 1650, I questioned the first hardness result then tested it again and it came back the same so I'm assuming its right. I'm still getting what looks like calcium on on the sun deck part of the pool (the cleaner doesn't get up there so I have to brush it)
Saturation index is at 1.6
then I tested the house water, here are my results:
0 Chlorine
7.8 P.H.
337 PPM TDS
90 Alkalinity
250 hardness
My question is do I need to to a complete drain and refill to reduce the hardness? and possibly the CYA? I'm assuming the calcium deposits on the sun deck are due to the hardness of the water and could my CYA be too high causing the chlorine to not work properly and that's why I'm getting the algae on the walls? I have attached a few pics, the first one is the filters with all the green on them and the 2nd shows where I'm getting the algae growing (I'm assuming its algae, it brushes off very easily) I tried to take a pic of me brushing the sun deck and the stuff coming off of it but it didn't come out real well.
Also there are a few permanent stains on the bottom of the pool (mainly under the waterfall) maybe if I did a complete drain and refill I could address those at that time. Thanks in advance!!!
You are starting to get the hang of this pool stuff. Yes, if your CH testing is correct, that is not manageable and would explain scale throughout the pool and on the salt cell plates. A water exchange may be your first course of action. Funny, the CYA is fine for a salt pool, but it will come down with the water exchange anyway. 
