Hi - We have a ~15k gallon above ground salt water pool that we installed a few years ago. We had an AquaTrol right from the start and until this year, everything has been perfect with it. Keep it around 3200ppm salt, add maybe a bag or two per year to keep it around that number. Opened the pool this year, and like usual, it was 2700 or so, added some salt, and got it back up to 3200. All good for a few weeks to open the season.
After a few weeks, it seemed like our initial cell went bad. We had definitely neglected cleaning the cell, so fair enough. It stopped producing chlorine, pool got green, etc. We then ordered a new cell about a month ago. Installed it, and things were back to normal. Chlorine levels good, water perfectly balanced, clear, salt ~3200. Fast forward to a week or so ago and I noticed that our chlorine was pretty much 0 again. Checked out the AquaTrol, and it's showing a salt level of 2000, which obviously doesn't make sense since by now I'm pretty familiar with how to keep the salt level in the range I want (aka generally do nothing). Mind you this is a brand new cell throwing a solid Inspect Cell and Check Cell light.
I then went out and got a salt test kit to verify what I already knew - test kit showed right around 3200. Next thing I did was clean the cell...looked fine to me and not much chemical reaction from the acid (which makes sense - it's new!). After trying quite a few different troubleshooting things I found online, I've been able to get the system to read up to ~2300 live reading, but I just can't figure out how to get it up to not only the correct ~3200, but even 2700 to work at full efficiency. Every time it starts to look good and starts to climb, it goes back down. Went out this morning and it was reading 1000. Turned it off and back on, now showing 2100.
I've done everything I can think of. The pump is good, baskets are emptied routinely, the filter is routinely backwashed and rinsed, no air in the system, flow from the outlet is as strong as ever, everything is plugged in nice and tightly, it never throws "No Flow", have reversed polarity multiple times and both show the same low number, etc...
TLDR - brand new salt cell showing incorrect low salinity reading and thus not generating chlorine, after working perfectly for a couple of weeks.
Does anybody have any clue what may be happening here? I'm completely out of ideas.
After a few weeks, it seemed like our initial cell went bad. We had definitely neglected cleaning the cell, so fair enough. It stopped producing chlorine, pool got green, etc. We then ordered a new cell about a month ago. Installed it, and things were back to normal. Chlorine levels good, water perfectly balanced, clear, salt ~3200. Fast forward to a week or so ago and I noticed that our chlorine was pretty much 0 again. Checked out the AquaTrol, and it's showing a salt level of 2000, which obviously doesn't make sense since by now I'm pretty familiar with how to keep the salt level in the range I want (aka generally do nothing). Mind you this is a brand new cell throwing a solid Inspect Cell and Check Cell light.
I then went out and got a salt test kit to verify what I already knew - test kit showed right around 3200. Next thing I did was clean the cell...looked fine to me and not much chemical reaction from the acid (which makes sense - it's new!). After trying quite a few different troubleshooting things I found online, I've been able to get the system to read up to ~2300 live reading, but I just can't figure out how to get it up to not only the correct ~3200, but even 2700 to work at full efficiency. Every time it starts to look good and starts to climb, it goes back down. Went out this morning and it was reading 1000. Turned it off and back on, now showing 2100.
I've done everything I can think of. The pump is good, baskets are emptied routinely, the filter is routinely backwashed and rinsed, no air in the system, flow from the outlet is as strong as ever, everything is plugged in nice and tightly, it never throws "No Flow", have reversed polarity multiple times and both show the same low number, etc...
TLDR - brand new salt cell showing incorrect low salinity reading and thus not generating chlorine, after working perfectly for a couple of weeks.
Does anybody have any clue what may be happening here? I'm completely out of ideas.
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