Salt system - bubbly haze from returns

[Jodester]

Spoke to my pool guy today -- he just said to superchlorinate to bring up the chlorine level, and that the bubbly haze should work itself out in a couple of days. Does this sound reasonable?

I just want to know -- what caused this? I had been running the pool for 6 days and this only began immediately after a pool technician came, added about 3 bags of salt, and made whatever other adjustments to the equipment. I should add that the cell was on when I came home from work, so I wonder if he neglected to turn off the cell when he added the salt (as the instruction manual says you should do), and that's where this all started.

I tested the water today, and the chlorine is just slightly measurable now (before superchlorinating), at about .5. The TA seems to have dropped ever so slightly to 160. I have to say that it seems to have been dropping in these slight increments for the past several days. When I had a traditional system with an automatic tablet chlorinator, I was constantly needing to bring up my TA. I'd bring it up to 120, then it would drop 10 ppm about every day or two, and when it got down to 80, I'd add Alkalinity Up and start the process all over again. My PH would never move through all of this. So I wonder if something about my water and my filter makes my alkalinity drop on its own without affecting PH. Today my PH was the same as yesterday -- 7.6.

Just curious -- what makes the Taylor test kit so much better than the Leslie's reagent test kit I have now? (other than it also tests CYA and hardness)

Oh, and I should mention that I have a Hayward self-priming pump that does not appear to have any speed settings.

Thanks for your help --
Jody

EDIT by Watermom --- Jody, I combined your two posts into one.

[Jodester]

Okay, here's an update.

I tested the water this morning (it's been running since about 1:00 am with the heat on), after having superchlorinated it beginning Wednesday afternoon (it would have finished some time early in the day yesterday). The chlorine levels are FINALLY at the high end of normal - around 3 ppm. TA has continued to come down slightly to 150.

The bubbly haze is less than it was, but still noticeable on the shallow end. I'm developing a new theory. I may be crazy, but I swear my sand filter sounds different -- noisier. When I look at the sight glass over the valve on the return pipe -- located BEFORE the water enters the SWCG -- there are air bubbles. I wonder if the guy made some adjustment to the sand filter fittings or something and that somehow air is getting into the system somewhere in there. Could this, combined with the natural "carbonation" that occurs in the SWCG itself, be what's causing this haze??

-- Jody

[mas985]

You might have additional air getting sucked in from the suction side of the pump. You can usually tell by the air in the pump basket.

[Jodester]

Okay, more weirdness. A few hours later, I no longer hear the water movement noise coming from my filter, the sight glass by the return valve is clear, and there is no more bubbly haze at all!!

As a side note, why would my readings and that of the Leslie's store for TA consistently be discrepant? They use the same reagents as I do (I use Leslie's), right? This morning my 150 was read by them at 100. This has gone on for years. My reagents were just bought this year, too. ???????

--Jody

P.S. I never saw any bubbles at the pump basket.

[mas985]

Just curious, did you check to see if the SWG was off at the same time the bubbles disappeared?

As for the testing, some pool store employees could really care less about doing an accurate test so it wouldn't really surprise me that they get a different results. Some stores actually use test strips which are not very accurate at all although they have this fancy machine to read the color. TA should be one of the more repeatable test if they are using reagents and if they are then perhaps their reagent is bad, assuming of course yours is fresh.