Saltron Mini, Marquis spa, and dead heater with corrosion

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dndrich

dndrich

Silver Supporter
Apr 19, 2015
83
Sebastopol, CA
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Last year I put a Saltron Mini in my spa. I have a Marquis with an inline heater. This year the heater corroded and died. The spa is 10 years old, and this is the first heater change. I really love the salt water setup, but I am concerned about the corrosion and possible need to keep changing the heater! There is not a salt resistant replacement heater coil for this spa. I understand that there are some with titanium or some such that prevents corrosion. So, I replaced the heater, but really want to go back to the salt, since maintenance of sanitation is so much easier. Have others had better luck with salt conversions? Did I just suffer from an old heater? Thoughts?
 
While the age of the heater would contribute to it's demise, the biggest enemy to the heater is continued low pH.

All chlorine pools contain salt, added by all forms of chlorine, muriatic acid, and body sweat. While I cannot argue the fact that salt will accelerate corrosion, as I have stated, all chlorine pools contain salt.

Maintain the proper pH & CSI and you should enjoy many years out of your new heater.
 
Ok resurrecting an old thread since I’m the OP. I have been happily using my Saltron mini since this thread was started in 2017, and my replacement heater finally died. Corrosion at the poles in the pack. So 5 years is pretty good in my book for the convenience of salt. I replaced the heater myself after ordering the part on Amazon and watching a few videos. The heater was $140. It is a Balboa 5.5 kw at 240 volts. It was easy to do. So I’m satisfied with this arrangement.
 
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D,

Thanks for the feedback... :goodjob:

Not sure if the heater died a normal death, or if the saltwater had anything to do with it???

Pretty hard to tell one way or the other.

Thanks,

Jim R.
 
Thanks very much for this datapoint @dndrich! Mine (old, second hand, unknown history) just died a few weeks after switching to salt / Saltron, but I had salt up at 3000ppm rather than 2000ppm. What ppm were you running? I'll be sure to post here when the replacement goes (which is a stainless steel pipe with titanium coated element). Would love to know if a sacrificial anode might help as well.
 

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dndrich said:
… I would bet a sacrificial anode would help.
Click to expand...

Sorry to say but this is a very common misconception and one that is not supported by the facts or the science of how anodes work both in principal and in practice. Sacrificial anodes are sold in the pool market as “necessary” with salt water pools but not one vendor of these products can clearly show any data as to their efficacy, what improvements they yield, or even how their setup works to protect anything. Just dunking a dissimilar piece of metal into the water and letting it corrode away is not proof that it is protecting anything … one has to show both implementation and yield in order to definitively say “product XYZ works” otherwise it is simply snake-oil that enriched the seller at the buyers expense.

Not trying to call you out or be rude, but statements like yours pop up all the time on TFP with no proof or justification as to why a person should implement them.

As a side note, I have been running my salt water pool for 10 years now without any such anode product at all and my pool is perfectly fine with no excessive corrosion detectable anywhere. Lack of evidence is certainly not proof but neither is simply stating that something “works” without evidence to support it.
 
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