Salt water newbie in Houston - I thought this would be easy!

[EmmaApp]

Hi everyone from a very hot and humid Houston, where a pool sounds such a great idea!

Background:
we just bought a 15-yr old house with a 13-yr old pool that was converted to saltwater at some point with a Jandy pro series. It is an inground, 20,000-25,000 gallon pool with spa, slide, small waterfalls and a cleaning robot thingy. The pool guy came to give us a tutorial, but he seemed to have cut out some of the basics (maybe because he wants business) about maintaining chemical balance. The good news is that the cell looks to be clean and most of the functions of the pool are still working (if only tenuously).

the color of the water is blue and clear, e circulation is good, and the skimmers etc all seem to be doing their jobs. My concern is about the total chlorine levels.... and everything else!

This is my recent test:
FCI 0 ppm
TCI 1 ppm
Alk 120 ppm
pH 7.8
TH 450 ppm
CYA 40 ppm
salt is at 2,000 ppm.

Help! We've already added 2 gallons of Muriatic acid to correct the pH (on the advice of the pool guy), which seems to have helped, but he said nothing about the other results.

On on his advice we're using pool and spa test strips

All help will be appreciated!

 

[Jimrahbe]

Emma,

Welcome to TFP... A Great resource for all your salty problems...

By far, saltwater pools are the easiest to care for, but that does not mean you don't still have things to do...

The first thing I notice is that your salt level is only 2000.. I suspect that is very low as most salt systems like the salt to be somewhere between 2600 to 3400.. You need to find the exact model of salt system you have, and either find the manual or look the manual up on line to see what your system needs and how it operates. I would also suspect that it has a light that says "Low Salt" or something similar.

Next you have zero FC (chlorine)... Even if your cell was working, they are not really designed to take a 25K gallon pool at zero FC and increasing it to 5 ppm. Best thing to do is add plain bleach, not scented or splash-less.. A jug and a half will bring your FC up to 5 ppm.

Your CYA is also too low for a saltwater pool. It should be between 70 and 80... You need to add stabilizer (CYA) to your pool. 6 lbs would bring you up to about 70.

I suspect the numbers you gave us were from a pool store... we never suggest getting your water tested where they also sell chemicals.. I think they call it a conflict of interests...

If you really want to take charge of your own pool, you need to be able to test your own water and then use our Pool Math calculator to determine exactly what your pool needs.

Please look over our Pool School link at the top of this page and see what we are all about.

Thanks for posting,

Jim R.

 

[EmmaApp]

Awesome response, thank you.

The results I gave were from test strips, but I absolutely agree - I don't want to rely on stores to advise me for those very reasons.

I haven't seen anything that digitally indicates salt-low levels.

I'm determined to self-manage. I've already taken apart the salt cell to make sure I can do it and I'm keeping a diary of what works etc.

Thank you, thank you, thank you! How "soon" is too soon to swim or test after doing adjustments? From what I've read, saltwater pools are slower to react, but more constant.....?

 

[Jimrahbe]

Emma,

I'd wait half an hour with the pump running and then you can just jump right in..

Here is the problem... The advice I gave you above is based upon the test results you provided. If they came from strips, they are suspect at a minimum, and flat out wrong in most cases.

Everyone one here uses one of two very accurate test kits.. Either the TF-100 (which I recommend) or the Taylor K-2006C (and yes, the "C" in important...)

The only way we can provide accurate feedback to your questions, is if you are also using one of these two kits. This allows us to compare apples to apples.

Do you have the manual for your salt cell? If not, try to provide us with any P/N, name or model numbers you see and we'll see what we can come up with.

Thanks,

Jim R.

 

[EmmaApp]

OK

So I got my new Taylor test kit! I'm very excited. It took me a while to work my way around it, but here are my results.

FC 0.0 ppm
TC 0.0 ppm
T.Alk 130 ppm
pH 8.0
TH 400 ppm
CYA 65 ppm
Temp 85F = Saturation index 0.9 (I think)

Working with the chemicals I have please, could someone advise quantities please?

I have Muriatic Acid 31.45% (1.5 Gallons)
Clorox Pool & Spa Shock 1 lb bags x 60 (Ingredients:Sodium dichlor-s-tri 63.05%; copper 0.26% (Available chlorine 39%)

Once these are used up, I'll buy the more basic chemicals mentioned on here.

Many thanks!!!

 

[misplacetexan]

I would buy some plain old bleach/chlorine from HEB, Walmart, Home Depot, or Lowes, etc.

 

[Wasted0101]

The bags of shock will raise your cya and the only way to bring it down will be a partial drain. Your cya is close to the proper level for saltwater but if you go over you will be draining.

 

[Fingaling]

Is your salt cell running?
Add some liquid chlorine (bleach). Do 1.5 gallons of it to get your chlorine up, then your salt cell can keep it up.
.
62fl ounces of the acid is what the pool math shows. I'd add half. Then retest after 30 minutes then add more as needed.

Just make sure to add bleach and chlorine 30 minutes apart.

Stay away from that clorox shock. It has copper in it. It can turn your hair green and stain your pool. Also has cya which you have enough of.

 

[Esloser]

The best way to do it, is click on the "Pool Math" link at the top of the forum. And, that will tell you the quantities for your size pool: https://www.troublefreepool.com/calc.html

Also, there is an App coming for Android and iOS that contain these same functions.

if you put in 20,000 gallons and 8.0 to 7.4, I'd add about 1/2 a gallon. I wouldn't use the powder, but would pick up some bleach or liquid chlorine.

 

[EmmaApp]

Hi Fingaling - we're not sure about the salt cell. A pool guy said it was set to 0% but our control panel was set to 60% so I suspect it's not been running for a while. The pool chemistry is getting better. It's been neglected for a while and we were surprised it looked so good when the numbers came back looking so unbalanced.

Re: CYA - we started at 40 and have put about 9 lbs of shock in the last 2 weeks (over 3 shocks)... I'm thinking another 3 lbs won't push us over the 70-80 recommended range for SWG. We also seem to be sucking down Muriatic acid with minimal results (2 gal dropped us 0.4 pH)

I'm thinking 1 gal acid, re-check, add more and/or shock with 3# shock....?

 

[EmmaApp]

OK - So three weeks into owning a pool and I think I'm getting there.

It looked gorgeous when we moved in, but as I mentioned above, the chemistry was all over the place.

I've ditched the pool store, testing my own water with a Taylor kit, disconnected the communication wires at the pool equipment (because the indoor Aqualink RS doesn't seem to be communicating with any of the equipment), moved onto a cocktail of plain bleach, muriatic acid, and salt and here's the current concerns:

I'm not holding chlorine. I put in 2 gallons of 6% bleach yesterday (once I'd got the pH to 7.2), which got me from 0 - 8.4 FC (CC 0.2) 4 hours later, I was down to 8.2 FC (0.2 CC)

This morning my numbers are:
FC 5.2 ppm
CC 0.2 ppm
pH 7.4
T.Alk 90 ppm
TH 320 ppm
CYA 70
Salt 3,200
Saturation index 0.0

In NW Houston, we're getting lots of sunshine, I've also been running the SWCG at 100% for the last 24 hours. We also seem to be adding a lot of salt recently. The SWCG reads a salt reading of about 500-600 ppm above the Taylor readings.

Thanks
Em