intex pool first year on SWG, GREEN POOL! HELP!

[Taterfink]

When I set up my pool, I hooked up the pump and went ahead and set up the swg at the same time. I put in enough chlorine to reach the level I wanted. Then I added the salt, ran the pump alone for 24 hours. My salt level was 2/3 of where I wanted it. I then turned on the swg and ran it for abt 12 hours as per intex instr. I found even at that salt level I rarely had to add extra bleach. I have over the past weeks added more salt each time running the pump alone for 24 hours. I generally run the pump/filter/swg 6 hours a day and the equipment seems happy and my FC generally sits at 4.5. The extra chlorine I've had to add on the rare occasion is when we've had a LOT of rain or the heat is off the charts.

Ffmedicwife, it seems that you've gained contol of your pool. I would think that now is just the fine tuning stage. Hope the weather is good for the kids to happily help you adjust your salt levels. I gave my story above only to give you an example of how it can work.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I777 using Tapatalk 2

 

[ffmedicwife1997]

Thanks frog. I have the swg going on the timer, still have to dial in my CYA, and my FC was right at 3 if i read the chart right its right one the lower end. The chart i went off is the recommended levels. the one question i want to ask that im not sure on if my fc is at the bottom end with an SWG should i add a little chlorine to help the SWG keep it up?

 

[UnderWaterVanya]

From your cya test if the cylinder was full and you could still see the dot that means you have less than 30 ppm there is where your fc is going put enough stailizer is a sock in front of the return to bring your cya up to 30 ppm. On the pool calc put you current cya as zero and 30 in the target box that way if you do have 20 or 30 in there already you won't over shoot your 70 ppm. Remember don't let the sock rest on the side of the pool as it can discolor your liner.....Mike

Just got my nylon ready to be filled lol
it has me adding 20 ozs of stabilizer

I saw in the thread that you had lost track of how much CYA target level was and thought I'd requote this for you. You had < 30ppm and added 20oz of CYA which in a 5000 gallon pool = 30ppm gain in CYA levels. If you figure you have > 0 < 30 ppm you are probably going to measure a CYA level between 35-60. I'm betting you'll see 40 (just a guess).

Measure it and let us know where you stand. Then give us a FC level from morning and night with the SWG running along with other numbers (pH, TA, CH, CC's etc.) just to keep us appraised of where you are with things.

 

[ffmedicwife1997]

From your cya test if the cylinder was full and you could still see the dot that means you have less than 30 ppm there is where your fc is going put enough stailizer is a sock in front of the return to bring your cya up to 30 ppm. On the pool calc put you current cya as zero and 30 in the target box that way if you do have 20 or 30 in there already you won't over shoot your 70 ppm. Remember don't let the sock rest on the side of the pool as it can discolor your liner.....Mike

Just got my nylon ready to be filled lol
it has me adding 20 ozs of stabilizer

I saw in the thread that you had lost track of how much CYA target level was and thought I'd requote this for you. You had < 30ppm and added 20oz of CYA which in a 5000 gallon pool = 30ppm gain in CYA levels. If you figure you have > 0 < 30 ppm you are probably going to measure a CYA level between 35-60. I'm betting you'll see 40 (just a guess).

Measure it and let us know where you stand. Then give us a FC level from morning and night with the SWG running along with other numbers (pH, TA, CH, CC's etc.) just to keep us appraised of where you are with things.

This is what I got when I tested earlier this evening. FC 3. CC 0. CYA 55. I thought a couple of those other tests you asked me to run I was tol not to worry about some of them because my pool is a vinyl index pool I am running swgc 6 hours a day on a timer and still running filter 24/7

 

[UnderWaterVanya]

Measure it and let us know where you stand. Then give us a FC level from morning and night with the SWG running along with other numbers (pH, TA, CH, CC's etc.) just to keep us appraised of where you are with things.

This is what I got when I tested earlier this evening. FC 3. CC 0. CYA 55. I thought a couple of those other tests you asked me to run I was tol not to worry about some of them because my pool is a vinyl index pool I am running swgc 6 hours a day on a timer and still running filter 24/7

Do you have the SWG turned on at this time? If so you are just barely within range for your Free Chlorine. 3 is the minimum but the target recommended for a 60 CYA is 4. I'd adjust the SWG up to try to get to 4 or 5ppm as your target.

If you don't have the SWG turned on - you need more Chlorine ASAP! The minimum FC for 55 CYA is around 5ppm. Get that boosted up if you are not running the SWG and do it as fast as you can to avoid things growing! You've made a lot of progress - let's not slide back.

Assuming the SWG is ON then I would work on raising the CYA up to 70; at 55ppm CYA the SWG will have to work harder to maintain FC. If the SWG is NOT on then do not do this 55 is plenty for bleach pools. To raise the CYA to 70 you'll add another 15ppm which is half of what you did originally. As this gets up to 70ppm you may find you can readjust the SWG to a lower %, lower run time.

After that? Check everything and post them here. Then adjust pH if it is outside of 7.2-7.8.

After all that? Who knows - let's see the test results at that point and we'll see if anything else needs tweaking.

 

[frogabog]

The problem with the Intex SWG is that it's running for a number of hours per day instead of a percentage. Finding the amount of hours that will maintain FC above minimum is a little tricky. I do not think for my pool, anything less than 8hr/day is enough. I also am hesitant to reduce filtering hours as last time I only had it filter for about 8hr and kids swam the water hazed up afterwards. I ran it 12 hours after that.

Any time you test and find the water to be at or near minimum, it means you've got to run the SWG immediately with the intention of raising the FC up enough to run a full day on. If that's at the beginning or any time mid day with sun you're going to lose some of what the SWG produces to the day. So you've got to test at night and see what it produced for the hours you ran it. Then, since you ran the SWG and pump at whatever time you did that day to boost the FC, take into account if that same time will be early enough the next day to produce enough chlorine to keep the FC high enough to get through a whole day. If not, then you have to make sure to go reset and turn on the pump on timer at the appropriate time the next day.

All that above plus evaluation of the number of hours to ultimately run each day... blech. Not exactly simple. I'm still working on getting the pump to run early enough in the day each day because every time I turn it off for something like vacuuming, or backwash, or if I find the water lower than 4.5ppm (call me paranoid), I'm messing with the run time of both units all the time and then the schedule is gorked.

 

[ffmedicwife1997]

Do you have the SWG turned on at this time? If so you are just barely within range for your Free Chlorine. 3 is the minimum but the target recommended for a 60 CYA is 4. I'd adjust the SWG up to try to get to 4 or 5ppm as your target.

If you don't have the SWG turned on - you need more Chlorine ASAP! The minimum FC for 55 CYA is around 5ppm. Get that boosted up if you are not running the SWG and do it as fast as you can to avoid things growing! You've made a lot of progress - let's not slide back.

Assuming the SWG is ON then I would work on raising the CYA up to 70; at 55ppm CYA the SWG will have to work harder to maintain FC. If the SWG is NOT on then do not do this 55 is plenty for bleach pools. To raise the CYA to 70 you'll add another 15ppm which is half of what you did originally. As this gets up to 70ppm you may find you can readjust the SWG to a lower %, lower run time.

After that? Check everything and post them here. Then adjust pH if it is outside of 7.2-7.8.

After all that? Who knows - let's see the test results at that point and we'll see if anything else needs tweaking.


Here are my results from this morning
FC 4 have target set at 5 (telling me to add 5 ozs of chlorine)
CC is 0
PH 8.0 I have my target set at 7.6(wants me to add 14 ozs of muratic acid)
TA 300 I have target set at 70 (Pool Calculator isnt telling me what to do) but i thouhgt i was told that since i have a vinyl pool this doesnt really matter
CH 80 I have my target set at 175 (wants me to add 135 of calcium chloride)
CYA 60 I have it set at 75

My swgc is on its just a simple unit it has and on and off switch and timer on it....then on the top it says boost then of course warning and working lights....

 

[ffmedicwife1997]

The problem with the Intex SWG is that it's running for a number of hours per day instead of a percentage. Finding the amount of hours that will maintain FC above minimum is a little tricky. I do not think for my pool, anything less than 8hr/day is enough. I also am hesitant to reduce filtering hours as last time I only had it filter for about 8hr and kids swam the water hazed up afterwards. I ran it 12 hours after that.

Any time you test and find the water to be at or near minimum, it means you've got to run the SWG immediately with the intention of raising the FC up enough to run a full day on. If that's at the beginning or any time mid day with sun you're going to lose some of what the SWG produces to the day. So you've got to test at night and see what it produced for the hours you ran it. Then, since you ran the SWG and pump at whatever time you did that day to boost the FC, take into account if that same time will be early enough the next day to produce enough chlorine to keep the FC high enough to get through a whole day. If not, then you have to make sure to go reset and turn on the pump on timer at the appropriate time the next day.

All that above plus evaluation of the number of hours to ultimately run each day... blech. Not exactly simple. I'm still working on getting the pump to run early enough in the day each day because every time I turn it off for something like vacuuming, or backwash, or if I find the water lower than 4.5ppm (call me paranoid), I'm messing with the run time of both units all the time and then the schedule is gorked.

Frog,
I agree with you on the intex swg it is so hard to dial in..we are gonna see how finances are next year and maybe get a better SWGC unit for the pool. with the swgc going i can add my liquid chlorine correct? i have been running it for about 6 hours a day.

 

[UnderWaterVanya]

Here are my results from this morning
FC 4 have target set at 5 (telling me to add 5 ozs of chlorine)
CC is 0
PH 8.0 I have my target set at 7.6(wants me to add 14 ozs of muratic acid)
TA 300 I have target set at 70 (Pool Calculator isnt telling me what to do) but i thouhgt i was told that since i have a vinyl pool this doesnt really matter
CH 80 I have my target set at 175 (wants me to add 135 of calcium chloride)
CYA 60 I have it set at 75

My swgc is on its just a simple unit it has and on and off switch and timer on it....then on the top it says boost then of course warning and working lights....

Sounds like you are on the right track. I'd adjust the target to 7.4 at least. The SWG has a tendancy to drift pH upward. The good news is that as you add acid, you'll be bringing down TA. Right now your pH is going to constantly race up due to the SWG and the high TA. Don't sweat the TA too much - regular drops of pH will keep bringing it back into line slowly.

CH at 80 is fine - don't add anything to adjust this for now. 50-300 is a good range for Vinyl so you have some wiggle room.

I'd add the chlorine and see if it holds and think about adding some CYA as I indicated. See if your day to day results keep you in range after that.

You're doing great.

 

[ffmedicwife1997]

Thank you under. im sure i bore people because i list my numbers but im style trying to keep everything in my brain lol..It is nice to know that i have all the great people on here and my friend who got me addicted to this website..i hate to bother her all the time about pool stuff because i know after awhile she is probably sick of hearing me talk about it..so if its not an emergency i just post it on here..off i go to add chemicals

 

[ffmedicwife1997]

Here are my results from today. I know a few wanted to see my TA ad CYA again I think.
FC 6
CC 0
PH 7.8 telling me to add 18 ozs of Muratic Acid
TA 280
CYA 70 Add 3.4 ozs of stabilizer
Water is Crystal Clear and SWGC is on Im running it 8 hours a day and running the filter 24/7 still

Didnt test Salt SWG isnt screaming at me so im leaving it lol

 

[ffmedicwife1997]

Well i just found out we have a hole on the bottom of our brand new pool!!!

 

[UnderWaterVanya]

Well i just found out we have a hole on the bottom of our brand new pool!!!

UGH!
That stinks, what happened?

 

[ffmedicwife1997]

Well i just found out we have a hole on the bottom of our brand new pool!!!

UGH!
That stinks, what happened?

Not sure but have been looking online at some underwater patches with good reviews. I need to call intex because right after we put the pool up we noticed a pin size hole in the liner probably a few days to a week later .So I'm gonna see if we can get a new liner for next year or some kind of discount on one

 

[UnderWaterVanya]

Here are my results from today. I know a few wanted to see my TA ad CYA again I think.
FC 6
CC 0
PH 7.8 telling me to add 18 ozs of Muratic Acid
TA 280
CYA 70 Add 3.4 ozs of stabilizer
Water is Crystal Clear and SWGC is on Im running it 8 hours a day and running the filter 24/7 still

Didnt test Salt SWG isnt screaming at me so im leaving it lol

Great! SWG seems to be working then. I wouldn't add more CYA unless someone else here with more experience says to. I have no SWG and have an Inground pool with zero Intex experience but what I have read says you're in the ballpark.

May want to tweak the pH again - drive it back to 7.2 and that will help drop the TA and keep things humming. Even with a leak you should be able to fix things. The nearby home depot and leslie's and Lowe's have vinyl patch kits where I am. Grab one and put it on there! Keep things going even if you cannot run the pump. Brush and use bleach for now to keep the pool from slipping back into green slime!

 

[GreatCanadian]

Here are my results from today. I know a few wanted to see my TA ad CYA again I think.
FC 6
CC 0
PH 7.8 telling me to add 18 ozs of Muratic Acid
TA 280
CYA 70 Add 3.4 ozs of stabilizer
Water is Crystal Clear and SWGC is on Im running it 8 hours a day and running the filter 24/7 still

Why is the note to add 3.4 oz stabilizer? 70 is good. That TA is high though. You would ideally want to have that below 100. 70 would be great.

Didnt test Salt SWG isnt screaming at me so im leaving it lol

That's it!! You're learning to relax a bit!!

 

[ffmedicwife1997]

Here are my results from today. I know a few wanted to see my TA ad CYA again I think.
FC 6
CC 0
PH 7.8 telling me to add 18 ozs of Muratic Acid
TA 280
CYA 70 Add 3.4 ozs of stabilizer
Water is Crystal Clear and SWGC is on Im running it 8 hours a day and running the filter 24/7 still

Why is the note to add 3.4 oz stabilizer? 70 is good. That TA is high though. You would ideally want to have that below 100. 70 would be great.

Didnt test Salt SWG isnt screaming at me so im leaving it lol

That's it!! You're learning to relax a bit!!

How do I lower TA? I have no clue why the pool calculator told me to add stabilizer.

 

[ffmedicwife1997]

Here are my results from today. I know a few wanted to see my TA ad CYA again I think.
FC 6
CC 0
PH 7.8 telling me to add 18 ozs of Muratic Acid
TA 280
CYA 70 Add 3.4 ozs of stabilizer
Water is Crystal Clear and SWGC is on Im running it 8 hours a day and running the filter 24/7 still

Didnt test Salt SWG isnt screaming at me so im leaving it lol

Great! SWG seems to be working then. I wouldn't add more CYA unless someone else here with more experience says to. I have no SWG and have an Inground pool with zero Intex experience but what I have read says you're in the ballpark.

May want to tweak the pH again - drive it back to 7.2 and that will help drop the TA and keep things humming. Even with a leak you should be able to fix things. The nearby home depot and leslie's and Lowe's have vinyl patch kits where I am. Grab one and put it on there! Keep things going even if you cannot run the pump. Brush and use bleach for now to keep the pool from slipping back into green slime!

It's on the bottom of the pool. Hubby is going to buy an underwater repair patch kit...the reviews we have read on them have been good

 

[UnderWaterVanya]

Why is the note to add 3.4 oz stabilizer? 70 is good. That TA is high though. You would ideally want to have that below 100. 70 would be great.

How do I lower TA? I have no clue why the pool calculator told me to add stabilizer.

Lowering TA is detailed here. Essentially you add acid to bring the pH down to 7.2 and then aerate to bring it back up. The SWG already trends up so that makes it a bit easier. When it gets back to 7.8 or so, knock it back to 7.2 again. Over and over until your TA goes down.

The PoolCalculator has a current and target slot - check to see if the target is higher than 70. 70 is fine per what I read here.

 

[ffmedicwife1997]

Ok I will do my testing see where I'm at with the TA and start that. My pool calculator is set at 70