What the heck - "91" on SWG again

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I

imcj

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May 18, 2010
182
I've only had this SWG running since May I believe and about a month ago I had a "91" - low salt flashing, but I thought that was a possibility since I had to drain a significant amount of water due to high salt. I added more salt, but it was still flashing. I soaked in vinegar as I read I should try. Well, for a month things have gone without a hitch, now a couple of nights ago it is flashing again. It is not low on salt. I actually had to go a little high on salt to get the SWG to stop flashing "low salt" last month and it the sticks still read higher than manual states. Do I really need to do the vinegar thing this often? I don't see how, but could this be happening because I unplugged the copper thing? Everything was fine before that. Sorry, so many questions - just a little frustrated. I'd really appreciate your help.

Also, since I'm asking questions - I've read several things about borax softening the water. My daughter's hair is very coarse on the bottom 3-4 inches every time she gets out of the pool, so I have to be sure to rinse and condition it. Would adding this keep her hair from feeling this way?
 
If your chemical balance is off you might need to clean the SWG cell quite often. If you post a full set of test results we can give you more specific advice. This has nothing to do with the copper thing.

Borax won't have much effect on hair damage, might help just a little. Again, other levels being wrong can aggravate hair damage. If you post a full set of water test results we might see something else that might be causing it.
 
I just tested...

FC 6
CC .5
TC 6.5
CYA between 90 and 100
TA 150
pH 7.8 (I know a little high - it gets to 7.5 when I add the acid amount from pool calculator
even though my goal is set at 7.2. ??
Salt 4080 (Aquacheck test strips)

FC changes a lot doesn't it? It was 6 on the morning of 7/16 and I was gone until 7/20. I tested that evening and it was 2. I added chlorine and m.a. as pool calculator told me, then I covered for a few days since no swimming was going to happen. When I uncovered it on 7/23 FC was 10. Obviously no loss from swimming or sun. The temperature was also felt very warm to the hand so we didn't get in. I left it uncovered. We swam yesterday and as you see above FC is 6. I hope all of that fluctuation is normal?

So, does any of this give you any help on the "low salt" reading. Thank you.
 
You are right on the edge of calcium scaling, which is going to be causing problems for the SWG. You need to get PH down now and TA down in the long run to prevent future problems.

There probably is scaling in the cell, so it will need to be cleaned. If you can get PH/TA down you should stop having repeating problems.
 
Thank you for your help. I haven't been able to get the TA down very much since I opened the pool. I believe I've read before (correct me if I'm wrong) try to get ph down to 7.2 and each time it gets to 7.6 get it back down again and that will help TA. I'm on my way out to add the acid now.
 
I'm going to clean the cell again by soaking it in the vinegar as the manual says. It calls for house grade vinegar - apple cider vinegar is what I have - does it have to be white or is apple cider vinegar okay?

Do you have a better method to clean the cells, or is that the best way? Thanks.
 
Many kinds of SWG are cleaned by soaking in a mixture of one part muriatic acid and four parts of water, soak until it stops foaming.

Either way you clean it, you want to make sure that all white chalky residue is removed.
 

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Well, I used the muriatic acid and water to clean the cells. I saw nothing left on them even though I only saw a very, very small amount of a greenish or whitish substance. Anyway, I turned on the SWG and it ran smoothly for about 20-30 minutes then it started beeping and flashing low salt. I am very frustrated. I keep adding liquid bleach because my FC keeps going down.

Here are the results from this a.m.
FC 6
CC 0
TC 6
CYA 90-100
TA 120
pH 7.5
CH 360
Salt 4020

What do I do? :rant:
 
Well, this is interesting. My daughter and I went swimming today, so I turned on the SWG just to see what would happen. It ran the complete 4 hours as it should. This evening when I got home it came on by itself at the "normal" time and it was flashing "low salt". Water temp this afternoon was 81 and this evening it is 83. That seems odd to me. Isn't it or is there something going on that you all understand that I don't?
 
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