No chlorine!!! New chlorinator installed

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Dirtboy36

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Jun 5, 2017
11
Archdale NC
I have an inground 26000 gallon pool. I replaced the chlorinator with the upgraded Hayward Extended life T-15.(actual part is T940 i believe) The water is balanced but im getting no chlorine in the pool. Ill try to post a pic of the test results. I called Hayward and the went thru diagnostics with me and said everything looks right. It was reading +26V and 6A if im not mistaken. The chlorinator has been running over a week and chlorine levels are still almost 0. I put a total of 4...3" chlorine tablets in the skimmers but still pretty much zero. Any thoughts?
 
If you have no CYA, any FC generated by the SWG will be gone within minutes. Even if you leave it on all night to build it up, an hour or two in sunlight will destroy it all

Also, the beginnings of an algae bloom can suck up the FC as fast as it's created and you'll be at a stalemate. The symptom will be cloudy water.
 
Hello and welcome to TFP! :wave: We should be able to help you once you post a full set of test results. That will be key. They do need to be from one of the recommended test kits to ensure reliability, so either a TF-100 or Taylor K-2006C. That will be key. In the meantime, you might reconsider moving those tabs from the skimmer(s) and placing in a floater instead. They're a bit acidic and we don't recommend them in that location.

Don't forget to update your signature with all of your pool info, and have a great day.
 
Those look like pool $tore results! You need to do your own testing, we recommend Taylor 2006C or TFT-100. CYA for a salt pool should be around 80, but dont add anything to your pool until you get proper test result from the kits above. Post your test results and we can go from there!

Welcome to TFP!

Felipe
 
A salt water chlorine generator (SWG) is best used to maintain your chlorine level. So you can initially get to the correct free chlorine level (FC) by using regular chlorine bleach (not low-splash or scented). Then use the SWG to keep it in the desired range. You can use the pool calculator here to calculate the amount of bleach (depending upon strength) to get your pool to the initial desired chlorine level, which would be about 3pp per chart here.

Note we also recommend raising your CYA up to at least 60 as well (see same FC/CYA chart above).

-- corrected - min of 60
 
I agree that it may be more accurate to do my own testing and i have with my test kit...but either way the chlorine level is extremely low and not coming up even using tablets with the chlorinator running almost 24/7 at 85%. Ive had low chlorine levels in the past and turned up the chlorinator and everything was fine. It puzzles me why its not doing it now. Granted im taking a pool that was almost black and trying to turn it around but all the debris and green color have been gone for over a week...but still no chlorine. Is it possible the new cell can show that its running correctly on the panel but its actually not producing anything?
 
Dirtboy36 said:
I agree that it may be more accurate to do my own testing and i have with my test kit...but either way the chlorine level is extremely low and not coming up even using tablets with the chlorinator running almost 24/7 at 85%
Click to expand...

I was just sold on pool store testing and keeping my phosphates low and had to learn to use the recommended test kits here. Since then I checked the pool store and they always told my my CYA was anywhere from 60 to 100 when in reality it was over 200, they were always off with the chlorine also. So now that I'm testing regularly I went in (just out of curiosity) and they told me I had 0 FC when in fact I have tested 5 times before and after at 5.8 to 6.8 it was never anywhere near 0. So if your CYA is 0 and your CC is high or your FC reading is just dead wrong, no one here can help until they see the accurate reading such as provided by the Taylor 2006 kit I have or the other ones they recommend

Regards,

-Tim
 
Dirtboy36 said:
I agree that it may be more accurate to do my own testing and i have with my test kit...but either way the chlorine level is extremely low and not coming up even using tablets with the chlorinator running almost 24/7 at 85%. Ive had low chlorine levels in the past and turned up the chlorinator and everything was fine. It puzzles me why its not doing it now. Granted im taking a pool that was almost black and trying to turn it around but all the debris and green color have been gone for over a week...but still no chlorine. Is it possible the new cell can show that its running correctly on the panel but its actually not producing anything?
Click to expand...

Hello and welcome to TFP! We're glad to have you here!

I'm going to be friendly but blunt. Your SWG is not producing chlorine quick enough to bring your FC level up. It is being annihilated faster than it can be produced and that is showing as zero FC. You need to use bleach to bring your FC up. Please try this and see if that works. I'm unsure of your reasons & hesitation to do this. To you, the pool may look clear, but there is still organics and they're consuming your FC.
Tablets and SWGs are meant to release FC slowly throughout the day and won't give you the initial burst of chlorine that you need.

If your CYA is zero then you need to get some in there this will help protect the FC from the Sun's UV.
 

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Ok im sure some of you may shake your head at what im about to say and thats fine lol. Ive spent $1500-2000 in chemicals, chlorinator and filters over the last month. Ive spent countless hours and day cleaning, going to pool store, researching online and on the phone with Hayward. To do all that and still see no chlorine was juuust a tad frustrating lol. I looked up the bleach calculator and for the life of me couldnt get it to work or generate any numbers. So out of frustration i bought a gallon of food lion regular bleach at 8+%...poored almost half the gallon jug in a bucket of water and poured it in.
 
We know you are frustrated, but you have been Pool $stored, there is no way around it. Now the good news, in your moment of frustration and dumping the half gallon of bleach, that is exactly what we want you to do. For a 26K gallon pool you need to add at least a full gallon a day just to keep it from getting worst. You will need to add bleach until you it appears on your test. After that you can test every hour to see if your FC will hold.

We will be waiting for update!

Felipe
 
Dirtboy36 said:
I looked up the bleach calculator and for the life of me couldnt get it to work or generate any numbers.
Click to expand...

Are you referring to PoolMath? It looks daunting at first but it's not too hard.
Enter the pool volume on top(without comma). Left column is current values. Right column is desired values. Make sure to set appropriate chlorine %. It will tell you how many ounces of bleach (or other types) to add.
Other values below follow that same steps.
Down at the bottom (yellow section) you can setup for better details (TFP, bleach for now, pool surface material)
 
Dirtboy36 said:
This is the kit i use.
Taylor Technologies K-2005 DPD Complete Chlorine Kit
When testing FC, Total chlorine or combined chlorine....the tester is as clear as drinking water
Click to expand...

You should be able to trust this kit except it apparently doesn't have the best chlorine test DPD vs FAS-DPD (which is probably something you really want with this problem). I'm new here so I'll let the others make suggestion, but as a new guy I was really convinced I could trust my pool store and I was really wrong, just wanted to share that because your results looked like pool store results
 
Dirtboy, as a quick check on whether or not you are getting any fc into the pool, try collecting a sample straight from the nearest return jet. not going to solve your problem but might ease your mind on whether your swg is working.
 
As stated, use chlorine bleach ASAP to get to good level, adjust CYA to good level so it will hold. Then you can set SWG to 100% and see if it holds. HOWEVER, from being low in FC its not possible that you could have stuff growing, so why we recommend examining the CC level (TC-FC) and if >0.5 should consider SLAM to kill anything as things like active algae can eat FC very quickly. I would not attempt a slam with my SWG, even though its rated 3x my pool size - using liquid bleach is much better since you can quickly maintain the SLAM level.

pookiesunshine said:
Dirtboy, as a quick check on whether or not you are getting any fc into the pool, try collecting a sample straight from the nearest return jet. not going to solve your problem but might ease your mind on whether your swg is working.
Click to expand...

Depending upon your SWG, you may need to turn to BOOST or 100%. For example, only generate for certain times (for x minutes out of every y). So if yours has a BOOST, use that as it should make sure it is on.
 
Chlorine level is up to 1...1.5. I tested cya and could still vaguely see black dot as it filled the entire tube. So im guessing under 30. Pool store says its 46. I added 3 pounds cya and will test again. The odd thing is, since chlorine levels have come up from almost zero to 1.5....its gotten greener!!! This pool is gonna kill me. Also added a gallon of bleach this morning and 4 new filters in this afternoon.
 
You need to SLAM -- Pool School - SLAM - Shock Level And Maintain

The SLAM was recommended in post #16. Follow the SLAM based on the total amount of CYA you have added. It will not show up on testing until fully dissolved (use the sock method of adding CYA -- do not sprinkle it into your skimmer or in the pool!).

Take care.
 

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