Pentair Clean & Clear Plus CCP420 with very rusty interior

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Vegas Mike

Bronze Supporter
Mar 30, 2019
50
Las Vegas, NV
Is it typical for the Pentair Clean & Clear Plus to corrode excessively? Just bought a house with existing equipmentPentair CCP420 Rust Interior.JPG. The filter is dated 2014, and while cleaning today noticed lots of iron stain inside the filter housing, coming from the steel band around the inside. Thought this was supposed to be stainless! But I don't have much longevity in pool care, so maybe this is typical. Would think the iron contamination will be a problem, so might need to replace the filter. Any other brand more reliable? Or is it likely that the previous owner did poor care, and water chemistry did this? Photo of corrosion after cleaning attached. (Not my signature pool -- still own that house too for now.)
 
Mike,

Seems to be a little worse than normal, but we have seen several reports of them rusting.. I have a CCP 520, which is about five years old, and it shows rust at all the spot welds...

I am not personally worried about it..

Thanks,

Jim R.
 
Mine looks about the same. Installed in early 2015. Do not see any issues with it.
 
I had one that was from 2006 and the band was rusty. Replaced it in 2016 with a C&C 420 when I hoped a new one would make the fiberglass less ‘itchy’ for me and a endlessly leaky drain plug. After a short while it has surface rust on the band. Does seem strange, but never concerned me much. That said, I’d take a rusty 10 year old Pentair Clean and Clear cartridge filter over my new house’s Hayward Filter. Yuck!
 
The chemistry was horrible. Previous owner used trichlor exclusively with two floaters in 13,000 gallon pool. I measured about 250ppm CYA (with a 4x dilution to get in range), FC around 25ppm (again, 4x dilution), pH 7.3, Alkalinity 90ppm, CH 575ppm. Refill water is 220ppm CH. But, I'm going to remodel and replaster the pool within a month. Just concerned that I needed to replace the CCP420 before starting up the remodeled pool. Going with PebbleTec finish. Planning SWG, EasyTouch8 (old technology I know, but familiar to me), and DIY acid injection.

And I agree with the itchy fiberglass. Got to remember to wear gloves before touching fiber reinforced plastic!
 
In case this thread is viewed later by others, first do not clean the rust using a steel-bristled brush! Or steel wool, or similar. That apparently leaves iron smears and makes future corrosion worse. Second, found that 316 stainless can tolerate (only) up to 5ppm chlorine, so over-chlorination is a problem. During the next filter cleaning, I'm going to polish with Scotch-Brite scouring pads and see what happens from that point with proper water chemistry. Also consulted with Pentair, and their response: "The inner ring rusting out can be replaced, but the rust is always due to something in the water eating at the ring itself. It could be either extremely high chlorine levels or low pH levels, it is hard to say. It is not going to damage or hurt anything, considering all debris is caught by the filter cartridges, but to replace it you need a whole new locking ring kit."
 
The paper on stainless steel corrosion did not discuss CYA, only chlorine. I realize I'm dangerously close to an algae bloom even with 25ppm FC when I have outrageously high CYA. Hoping the pool remodel starts in a few weeks, and we can dodge that bullet. The corrosion reference was from Tuthill et. al., NACE Corrosion '98 technical paper no. 708.
 
I suspect that the pH probably was below 4.0 at some point. Current test results are just a snapshot and don't tell you what the worst conditions were.

Most likely, someone found the TA to be below zero and added a bunch of bicarb or pH increaser to get it back in range.
 

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