Hi everyone. New pool owner who has finally started to learn about pool chemistry and just come out of a successful first SLAM.
tldr - based on the attached images, does my salt cell look as bad to you as it does to me (my untrained eye is telling me that is not good, but it's an untrained eye) ?
Longer version:
Present water chemistry:
pH - was set to 7.2 before SLAM, FC still too high to measure properly
FC - 21 ppm (reducing from SLAM level 31)
CC - 0
CYA- 75 (treated as 80)
Salt - 5400 ppm (Australian equipment as per signature, recommended salt is ~5000 for my equipment)
TA - unreliable as pool shop reading, waiting on drop test to arrive. However their other readings agreed well with my first proper tests, so I'll post it - 120
CH - 300
One of the things I'd spotted before the present algae problem two weeks ago, was the old unit reporting chlorine output at 3 lights out of 8. About 5 months ago (yes, thanks to this forum I have learned much since then and will never be checking my equipment this infrequently again!) it was reporting 100% output.
My first salt test revealed I'd let it get too low (~2800 ppm). As I've inherited the equipment from a house purchase and wasn't smart enough to ask about it, I'm piecing things together with clues. What I suspect has happened is that I've let an aging salt cell quickly deteriorate to needing replacement by not keeping salt high enough. Would be interested to see if you agree. There is no real other diagnostic output available. All I know about the power pack is that it is from a company that was apparently 'OK' (Poolrite) but went under in 2012, so this is mis-matched equipment (AIS Aquachlor RP25 salt cell). Other clue maybe on the image with the cell housing, some brown build-up still visible on the right. The whole inside of the housing was covered in this brown coating. I cleaned it a bit to check for bubble production when running the system.
Anything else...it looks like the previous owners probably had a salt cell fail sometime between 2012 and ? (2012 is when the makers of the power unit ceased to exist), and ended up pairing the power unit at 35A with a 25A salt cell. Not sure if this is a no-no or not but if anyone feels like commenting, I'm all ears.
Also at this point I don't suspect the aging power unit as we are generating some chlorine, but if a complete SWG is just the smart thing to do here, I'd consider it.
Thanks.
tldr - based on the attached images, does my salt cell look as bad to you as it does to me (my untrained eye is telling me that is not good, but it's an untrained eye) ?
Longer version:
Present water chemistry:
pH - was set to 7.2 before SLAM, FC still too high to measure properly
FC - 21 ppm (reducing from SLAM level 31)
CC - 0
CYA- 75 (treated as 80)
Salt - 5400 ppm (Australian equipment as per signature, recommended salt is ~5000 for my equipment)
TA - unreliable as pool shop reading, waiting on drop test to arrive. However their other readings agreed well with my first proper tests, so I'll post it - 120
CH - 300
One of the things I'd spotted before the present algae problem two weeks ago, was the old unit reporting chlorine output at 3 lights out of 8. About 5 months ago (yes, thanks to this forum I have learned much since then and will never be checking my equipment this infrequently again!) it was reporting 100% output.
My first salt test revealed I'd let it get too low (~2800 ppm). As I've inherited the equipment from a house purchase and wasn't smart enough to ask about it, I'm piecing things together with clues. What I suspect has happened is that I've let an aging salt cell quickly deteriorate to needing replacement by not keeping salt high enough. Would be interested to see if you agree. There is no real other diagnostic output available. All I know about the power pack is that it is from a company that was apparently 'OK' (Poolrite) but went under in 2012, so this is mis-matched equipment (AIS Aquachlor RP25 salt cell). Other clue maybe on the image with the cell housing, some brown build-up still visible on the right. The whole inside of the housing was covered in this brown coating. I cleaned it a bit to check for bubble production when running the system.
Anything else...it looks like the previous owners probably had a salt cell fail sometime between 2012 and ? (2012 is when the makers of the power unit ceased to exist), and ended up pairing the power unit at 35A with a 25A salt cell. Not sure if this is a no-no or not but if anyone feels like commenting, I'm all ears.
Also at this point I don't suspect the aging power unit as we are generating some chlorine, but if a complete SWG is just the smart thing to do here, I'd consider it.
Thanks.
