First time pool owner

[yonny24]

Hi all,

Proud owner of our first pool. Moved into a new house (built 2009), swimming pool installed 2011, and just learning the basics as I intend to maintain it myself. The previous owner had it maintained by a company weekly.

About 18,000 litres of salt water. 0.5HP pump with a Volcano sand filter (VC30).
JustChlor J100SC chlorine generator.

Made my first mistake of relying on the reading of the chlor generator to read the salt level!
Readings were low so I added salt. Then bought some salt strips to double check. (I know I should have done it the other way around).

Too much salt now (about 5000) so in the process of diluting it down.

Adjusting pH as it is a little acidic.

Tested the backwash - some dirty water came out through the jets!!
Went to my local supplier.
Changed the multivalve and now it works as it should.

Now I'm suspecting the chlorine generator is not working very well especially considering the output readings are very low. It was installed in 2011.

Thanks

[Teapot]

Unusual for a salt pool to be acidic, they normally climb the pH ladder.
Salt cell usually lasts about 5-7 years so look to change it. 3000-5000 is near normal salt range unless yours says must be 3000

[yonny24]

Unusual for a salt pool to be acidic, they normally climb the pH ladder.
Salt cell usually lasts about 5-7 years so look to change it. 3000-5000 is near normal salt range unless yours says must be 3000

That's what I thought. Using Pentair strips. We did have some torrential storms a couple of weeks ago raising the pool about 2 inches. Possible acidic rain?

The cell produces quite a stream of fine bubbles from the plates while running. So something is happening there.

Also when I moved in about 3 weeks ago the generator main unit was tripped off. No idea how long it was off for.
Reset it and been running fine since.

[Denniswiseman]

Unusual for a salt pool to be acidic, they normally climb the pH ladder.
Salt cell usually lasts about 5-7 years so look to change it. 3000-5000 is near normal salt range unless yours says must be 3000

If you change your SWCG make sure you get one twice the size for your pool

[Denniswiseman]

Unusual for a salt pool to be acidic, they normally climb the pH ladder.
Salt cell usually lasts about 5-7 years so look to change it. 3000-5000 is near normal salt range unless yours says must be 3000

That's what I thought. Using Pentair strips. We did have some torrential storms a couple of weeks ago raising the pool about 2 inches. Possible acidic rain?

The cell produces quite a stream of fine bubbles from the plates while running. So something is happening there.

Also when I moved in about 3 weeks ago the generator main unit was tripped off. No idea how long it was off for.
Reset it and been running fine since.

The SWCG does produce bubbles which dissipate soon after so it is working
Get some better numbers, strips are pretty useless, even if you have to go to a pool store but your own FAS/DPD kit is best
FC:
TC:
pH:
TA:
CH:
CYA:

[yonny24]

I had purchased a pH kit with the 15ml Phenol bottle and tube/color matching guide.
First test showed it was <6.8. I added a small amount of pH stabiliser (much less than calculated) then the same test was red with the phenol. Did not make sense with the small amount of PH increaser added. Such a sharp increase? Above 8.0.

I had to go to another pool supplier (for a multivalve) and after talking they said often here in Uruguay the phenol bottles can be very old and produce very inconsistent results.
They recommended the pentair strips. At the moment the strips are showing about 7.0 and consistently. Clorine at about 1.0.

There is not much option of pH kits here. Maybe try to source of new bottle of phenol or rely on the pentair strips? (none are cheap here)

Thanks for the tips

[Denniswiseman]

It may be worth importing a Taylor K2006c from the states