IC 40 woes

[papadoppa]

Howdy

I had my IC40 replaced under warranty. Yay! Last year I had the output set to 20% and that kept my FC levels pretty darn good. Occasionally had to add liquid chlorine and acid.

Regardless this season with the ‘new’ ic40 things aren’t going well. 20% isn’t keeping up at all.

Any thoughts on how to diagnose the IC and prove it’s working? I turned it up to 50% as of now fyi. I have a heater running on hood weather days. I also keep the pump running constantly. My levels are as follows:
Ph 7.4
TA 90
cH 550
Cya 35
Salt 3050
Temp is 90

I added a few pounds of stabilizer to increase my CYA maybe 2 weeks ago. It didn’t change. I used a powder stabilizer…I think a Clorox pool powder. Maybe a tab will increase the CYA and allow the chlorine to stabilize? I did find it strange that my cya fell from last year. I was under the impression that cya only rises unless you remove/replace water and normal evaporation wouldn’t change that level.

Tell me how wrong I am please and thank you.

 

[Jimrahbe]

P,

Your CYA is way too low..

I just said in another thread, that when my cell has to work harder to keep my FC where I want, it is almost always because my CYA is too low.

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[mknauss]

I did find it strange that my cya fell from last year. I was under the impression that cya only rises unless you remove/replace water and normal evaporation wouldn’t change that level.

CYA degrades with time, more so in water above 80F.

CYA - Further Reading

www.troublefreepool.com

Do an OCLT before adding anymore stabilizer.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

I’m south of you in Tucson. My CYA was 50ppm a few weeks back. I adjusted it up to 80ppm. If my CYA falls below 70ppm, there is a very noticeable increase in my daily FC loss rate that requires me to run my IC60 at higher output. The minute I add enough CYA to get above 70ppm, my FC will go up right away if I leave the SWG output elevated. Where we live here in AZ, the UV is intense and an SWG adds chlorine to a pool very slowly. So if you don’t protect it with higher CYA levels, you’ll never have enough output to overcome the loss rate.

But I would echo what @mknauss said and check for algae first by doing an overnight chlorine loss test. If you have the beginnings of an algae bloom (which is invisible to the naked eye), the algae reproducing can easily swamp the chlorine output of the SWG.

 

[papadoppa]

CYA degrades with time, more so in water above 80F.

CYA - Further Reading

www.troublefreepool.com

Do an OCLT before adding anymore stabilizer.

I was unaware of that. I will do the oclt tonight.

 

[papadoppa]

P,

Your CYA is way too low..

I just said in another thread, that when my cell has to work harder to keep my FC where I want, it is almost always because my CYA is too low.

Thanks,

Jim R.

Thank you. Will do the oclt then add more stabilizer. Thanks.

 

[JJ_Tex]

Thank you. Will do the oclt then add more stabilizer. Thanks.

Just making sure you only add more stabilizer after you pass the OCLT. If you do not pass, you may have to do a short SLAM and a lower CYA is better when doing that.

 

[papadoppa]

CYA degrades with time, more so in water above 80F.

CYA - Further Reading

www.troublefreepool.com

Do an OCLT before adding anymore stabilizer.

I reread that whole article. My memory was spot on except the very last part. I seriously don’t recall anything about it degrading. I must’ve gotten distracted or something because I’ve read that more than once but still managed to not read the very last part.

I have almost had fear of putting tabs into my pool (which I still haven’t to date) and have always been fascinated by pool guys that add tabs weekly.

Thank you for telling me I’m wrong.

 

[papadoppa]

Just making sure you only add more stabilizer after you pass the OCLT. If you do not pass, you may have to do a short SLAM and a lower CYA is better when doing that.

Yes. Thank you for confirming that. My plan is to do the OCLT. If things point to algae I will adjust ph then slam as iirc Ph readings aren’t accurate during slam. Then slam slam slam. At that point make adjustments if need be.

 

[papadoppa]

OCLT was good. Been adding stablilizer and lowering the swg % daily. Down to 25% and CYA is up to 65. Slowly adding and waiting for it to get to 70-75

Thanks for the help folks