New to water balance with high FC

[DeliciousBass]

Good morning, new pool owner learning the ropes of water balance. I’ve been testing water myself for about a month and a half now and in the last week my chlorine has shot up and looking for a the proper plan to lower it (if needed). We filled the pool on 3/7 and the PB had only added salt and acid. They did a pool school with us about a week later, but it was mostly focused on how to operate and maintain the equipment. I have a Taylor 2005 kit they provided and began performing all the tests and found I had 0 CYA and 20-30 ppm TA, so I focused on increasing these two all while trying to maintain the pH. I was able to get the TA to 90 and the CYA around 60, then last weekend noticed my FC level had gone to 10 or higher with the 2005 FC test. The PB had set the SWG to 80% output and had the pump running 11 hours a day, so throughout this week, I've lowered the run time to 9 hours and decreased the output to 30%, but the levels remain high. That all led me to this site, which is fantastic by the way, and I ordered the FAS-DPD refill kit on Amazon, which arrived yesterday.

Yesterday, I performed all my tests again, using the new chlorine test and below are those results:
FC: 9
TC: .5
pH: 7.6
TA: 60
CYA: 50
CH: 350

I understand the CYA is low, but didn't want to add more stabilizer while the FC is still high, unless that is what I should do? Also, the TA could use a bump and I still have baking soda on hand, but also wanted to understand what to do with the FC first. It was about 3 weeks ago since I added the baking soda and stabilizer to get those numbers up and since then we had 8" of rain in 4 days, and we have not been using the pool much bc of weather, until this past week where we were able to use it some. Would appreciate any advice on which numbers to work on first, or any other advice as well.

In case it is not in my signature, pool is 20k gallon, concrete, SWG (IntelliChlor IC40), variable speed pump. If any other info is needed, please let me know!

Thanks!
Chad

 

[DeanP66]

You are good right where you are. If you want to bump up the CYA a little, no problem. If you're worried about the high chlorine, you could turn off the SWG for a day or 2 and it will come down to 6 or 7. That's a good level for a SWG at 70 or 80 CYA. A little extra is always better than too little because it gives you some leeway if something happens so you don't come back to a green pool. Good job getting the FAS-DPD chlorine add on. You now, in effect, have the Taylor K2006!

Do you have a salt test kit or are you relying on the builder's word for it? Definitely get the Taylor K1766 salt test kit. It's the best one on the market and will help you troubleshoot any high or low salt readings that the IC40 may throw out at you over time. Don't trust the IC40, it could just be dirty. Always check your salt level with the K1766 before adding more salt so you don't go overboard.

I would leave the TA alone. SWG's tend to force the pH up and it will only climb faster with a higher TA. Also, check your fill water for pH, TA, and CH so you know what to expect when you top up your pool.

 

[cowboycasey]

What a great first post, you have already figured out the system GREAT JOB..

You are all over it... the FC is coming down, you can shut the SWG off for the day and turn it on tomorrow and your FC should be perfect at 7 FC.. then adjust your runtime and SWG output to keep it between 6 to 7 FC..

Bring your CYA up to 70 and you will be good..

What RPM are you running your pump at?

sit back and relax looking at your trouble free pool

 

[DeliciousBass]

Do you have a salt test kit or are you relying on the builder's word for it? Definitely get the Taylor K1766 salt test kit. It's the best one on the market and will help you troubleshoot any high or low salt readings that the IC40 may throw out at you over time. Don't trust the IC40, it could just be dirty. Always check your salt level with the K1766 before adding more salt so you don't go overboard.

Thanks for the advice! I have been trusting the screen logic app telling me the salt level, but I will pick up this test as well if it’s not a great idea to trust the app.

 

[DeliciousBass]

What a great first post, you have already figured out the system GREAT JOB..

You are all over it... the FC is coming down, you can shut the SWG off for the day and turn it on tomorrow and your FC should be perfect at 7 FC.. then adjust your runtime and SWG output to keep it between 6 to 7 FC..

Bring your CYA up to 70 and you will be good..

What RPM are you running your pump at?

sit back and relax looking at your trouble free pool

Thanks, when I’m going to be responsible for something, I like to know as much detail as possible! So to turn off the ic40, I just set the percentage to 0 via the ScreenLogic app, will that work? I will work on the cya level as well. Not sure about the pump rpm, I’ll have to check the app or panel and see if there is a setting, all I know is it is vs and variable flow

 

[DeliciousBass]

What RPM are you running your pump at?

Found this on the app, 3330 RPM and 90 GPM

 

[cowboycasey]

WAY to high.. It is a VS pump and the whole reason you have it is to run it low RPM to save you money... I take it they set it up and did it like a 1 speed pump..

Take it down to 1000 rpm tomorrow and turn on your SWG

see if it turn on or gets a low flow light.. turn it up 100 at a time until the SWG turns on..

Add 200 rpm after that and that is your normal RPM daily... I bet about 1300 to 1500 rpm..

You can turn it up if you need to run the heater or clean the pool.. but do it the same way..

turn on the heater at your normal 1300 or whatever it turns out to be and raise it until the heater turns on and add 200 rpm..

And watch your power bill go down

 

[DeliciousBass]

WAY to high.. It is a VS pump and the whole reason you have it is to run it low RPM to save you money... I take it they set it up and did it like a 1 speed pump..

Take it down to 1000 rpm tomorrow and turn on your SWG

see if it turn on or gets a low flow light.. turn it up 100 at a time until the SWG turns on..

Add 200 rpm after that and that is your normal RPM daily... I bet about 1300 to 1500 rpm..

You can turn it up if you need to run the heater or clean the pool.. but do it the same way..

turn on the heater at your normal 1300 or whatever it turns out to be and raise it until the heater turns on and add 200 rpm..

And watch your power bill go down

Good to know. When I was in the app looking for the RPM, I hit something that ramped it down in the 1500 range on accident and noticed the spa overflow stopped working properly, basically running down the face instead of overflowing. We have a spa that is higher than the pool and once I turned it back up to 3300, the overflow worked properly. I feel like they told me there are valves that control the overflow, but that may be an issue if the pump has to run wide open for the overflow to work properly?

 

[mknauss]

What automation do you have? Setting up a Spillway function will let you control how long each day you run the spa overflow. It is only needed for a short time each day to keep the spa water chlorinated.

 

[DeliciousBass]

It is a pentair system and I have the ScreenLogic app. I do know that when we turn the spa on, there is an electric actuator (not sure if right word) that closes the valve that fills the spa so the heated water does not overflow

 

[mknauss]

Most likely Easytouch. It would be nice to show that in your signature.

A picture of your return valves would help us determine if you have a make up line or not. Sounds like not.

Do you work with Screenlogic on a computer or laptop? Much easier to program there.

 

[DeliciousBass]

Most likely Easytouch. It would be nice to show that in your signature.

A picture of your return valves would help us determine if you have a make up line or not. Sounds like not.

Do you work with Screenlogic on a computer or laptop? Much easier to program there.

Yes, it is an easy touch. Here is a picture of the pipes, assuming this is what is meant by returns. Pool guy labeled them, so I can respond with that info as well

I went down 10 rpm at a time and 2720 is when the waterfall starts running down the side, 2750 is where I have it now with the overflow working correctly.

 

[mknauss]

Try a couple different angles on the picture. Hard to see with the one you posted.

Do you want to set up a Spillway to turn off the overflow? Or are you OK with running the pump at that rate all the time? It is using quite a bit of electricity.

 

[DeliciousBass]

Other than bubblers on tan ledge, the overflow is our one “water feature.” However, I’d like to not run the pump wide open all the time. If I could set it up where I can hit an option on the app that would increase the rpm to make overflow come on, that would be nice. I’ve attched some additional photos, lmk if that helps. Thanks!

 

[mknauss]

So what mode was the pool in when you took the pictures? Pool or Spa?

Are the bubblers on when the overflow is on? What are the markings on the pipes in the picture on the right?

 

[cowboycasey]

I can't help with the automation but they did a GREAT job with your equipment pad

 

[DeliciousBass]

So what mode was the pool in when you took the pictures? Pool or Spa?

Are the bubblers on when the overflow is on? What are the markings on the pipes in the picture on the right?

Pool was in pool mode when photo was taken. Yes, bubbler and overflow have always been on together. From
Left to right in photo, 1st pipe has no marking, second is SOF, spa overflow I assume, third is BL, have a note that is bubblers, and last one just has R, not sure about that one. I know the other set of 4 pipes has the 2 skimmers, spa drain and main drain.

 

[mknauss]

OK - so the pool builder did you no favors.
You cannot turn off the spa overflow when running the pool in normal pool mode. The R is for pool returns I suspect.

So, do you want to be able to run the pump at much lower rpm most of the time? The issue will be the spa overflow and bubblers will not be running at the same time without manual intervention if you set the system up to run the spa overflow separately from the pool returns/bubblers. And you would need to replace the check valve on the spa overflow return to a two way valve.

 

[DeliciousBass]

OK - so the pool builder did you no favors.
You cannot turn off the spa overflow when running the pool in normal pool mode. The R is for pool returns I suspect.

So, do you want to be able to run the pump at much lower rpm most of the time? The issue will be the spa overflow and bubblers will not be running at the same time without manual intervention if you set the system up to run the spa overflow separately from the pool returns/bubblers. And you would need to replace the check valve on the spa overflow return to a two way valve.

Ideally would want to run at lower rpm for energy savings most of the time. I’m going to go and lower rpms and find where there is no overflow at all. I’d like to have the bubblers on all the time if possible, but don’t need the overflow all the time. If I could have a low speed and higher speed setting I could easily switch between, that would probably work. When we have people over or just want the water feature of the spillover, could switch to higher speed? Looks like I can set speeds on the panel, but did not want to botch any settings. I still have 3 weeks of “free” service from the pb and am still in contact with them so might also question them about some of these settings. Thanks again for all the info

 

[mknauss]

The piping is not set up for this to be easily managed. And continuous use of over flow and bubblers simply pushes your pH up quickly.

A full repipe of the return side needs to happen. You need to tell your pool builder what you want to happen.