Help with SWCG and New Solar Heater (Florida)

[Kpax755]

Hi everyone, we have a 5 year old small salt pool and spa combo in SW Florida, roughly 12k gallons or so. It has a gas heater, and we recently added a solar heater. Since we are only living at the house part of the year, we have a pool service who is supposed to be cleaning and maintaining chemicals (mainly salt). However, over the years our chlorine has been consistently low or non-existent, causing the pool company to shock or add manually. Now, with the recent addition of the Solar heater, I again noticed today our chlorine was non-existent and the water smells funky. We have kids so the pool is used daily. The SWCG is Jandy TruClear with an iAquaLink controller. Right now the filter pump runs from 7am to 6pm, (the Solar will operate when sunny).

My questions are below, any experience or help is appreciated!

1) Should we increase the amount of chlorine being generated on the SWCG? I don't think it's ever been adjusted since install.
2) We noticed the filter pump flow is now lower due to the Solar heater, does this mean the SWCG should be adjusted? Is the lower flow a problem? Should we run the filter pump longer since the flow rate is now lower?
3) Our Jandy SWCG LCD screen is almost completely unreadable, assuming from sitting in the sun? Has anyone else seen this before? I can still tell it says "Chlorinating" at least.
4) How long does it typically take a pool this size to reach a consistent chlorine level?

Thanks in advance!

 

[ajw22]

How old is your TruClear cell?

What is the current % the TruClear is set to?

What is your pool salt level?

How are you measuring your salt level?

What pool test kit do you use?

Post a complete set of test results from your own test kit int he format:

FC
CC
pH
TA
CH
CYA
SALT
WATER TEMP

Water flow does not matter to the SWCG as long as it is sufficient to engage the flow switch and it is generating.

 

[Kpax755]

How old is your TruClear cell?

What is the current % the TruClear is set to?

What is your pool salt level?

How are you measuring your salt level?

What pool test kit do you use?

Post a complete set of test results from your own test kit int he format:

FC
CC
pH
TA
CH
CYA
SALT
WATER TEMP

Water flow does not matter to the SWCG as long as it is sufficient to engage the flow switch and it is generating.

Thanks Allen, I am trying to get this info now. It is actually the in-laws pool and trying to help them. SWCG is same age as the pool, roughly 5 years. Pool temp is around 82-87. SWCG is set for 60% right now. I will report back with more once I get it.

 

[ajw22]

SWCG is set for 60% right now. I will report back with more once I get it.

What is the filter/pump runtime schedule?

60% generation would only be good if the pump was running around 15 hours or more a day.

 

[Kpax755]

What is the filter/pump runtime schedule?

60% generation would only be good if the pump was running around 15 hours or more a day.

Currently 7am to 6pm. I was considering changing to run longer, or would is be better to increase the generation %? We also sometimes run the spa mode, which basically stops the filter in the main pool for several hours a day.

 

[ajw22]

Currently 7am to 6pm. I was considering changing to run longer, or would is be better to increase the generation %?

Does not matter. Longer pump runtime or higher % accomplish the same greater chlorine generation objective. Until you get to 24 hour run time then you just up %.

Without knowing more here is my basic logic. The Truclear is a 30K cell. Running at 60% you will generate chlorine for an 18K pool in 24 hours. You have a 12K pool. So the cell and therefore pump need to run for 66% of the day. That is 16 hours.

That is a ballpark time and then you tweak the pump run time of % up or down depending on if FC is rising or falling every few days.

My sense is 11 hours runtime is too low.

We also sometimes run the spa mode, which basically stops the filter in the main pool for several hours a day.

Depending on how the SWG is placed in the water flow is it generating to the SPA when in SPA mode?

If the SWCG only generates in POOL mode and you keep the pool in SPA mode for a few hours you are further short changing the chlorine generation.

And with constant low chlorine I would do a Overnight Chlorine Loss Test and check if you have some algae in the water that is further consuming the chlorine.

 

[Kpax755]

Depending on how the SWG is placed in the water flow is it generating to the SPA when in SPA mode?

In spa mode it still runs through the SWG, basically main pool is bypassed.

 

[ajw22]

In spa mode it still runs through the SWG, basically main pool is bypassed.

Then the chlorine is being generated on SPA mode and will eventually get dumped into the pool when they go back to POOL mode.

Do they have a different setting in the Aqualink for the % generation when in SPA mode?

 

[Kpax755]

Then the chlorine is being generated on SPA mode and will eventually get dumped into the pool when they go back to POOL mode.

Do they have a different setting in the Aqualink for the % generation when in SPA mode?

No, it's not connected to Aqualink at all, should it be? It is just on the wall mounted unit to control it.

So right now I set it for 12hr run time with 80% generation. I believe that matches your rough math?

 

[ajw22]

No, it's not connected to Aqualink at all, should it be? It is just on the wall mounted unit to control it.

The control box should be connected to the Aqualink box. Then depending on what they use to control the Aqualink they may be able to see the cell settings on the Aqualink control panel.

So right now I set it for 12hr run time with 80% generation. I believe that matches your rough math?

My estimate was 15-16 hours pump runtime. Given your problem I would actually run the pump 24/7 until you get too much FC and then start reducing it. But if you don't want to run 24/7 then at least 16 hours.