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Thread: New to the forum. Looking for pool cleaner and water balance information.

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    waterbear is offline Lifetime Member Sniggle Mechanic waterbear 4 stars waterbear 4 stars waterbear 4 stars waterbear 4 stars
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    Default Re: New to the forum. Looking for pool cleaner and water balance information.

    Everything PoolDoc said about SWCG's is true but he neglected one very important point, IMHO. The convenience factor of not having to manually add chlorine, not having to worry abut the pool becoming overstabilzed, and the better 'feel' to the water because it is closer to the salt content of the human body (less 'pruning' of toes and fingers and less stinging of eyes) can be worth their weight in gold to a pool owner, myself included!
    You stiill need to test the water and keep it balanced and you do have to pay attention to salt levels and pH but they do make pool maintenance easier in the long haul. My 2 cents.

    The most important things to watch in a salt pool are:
    don't use the superchlorinate function if you need to shock. It raises FC too slowly. Add liqiud chlorine or bleach (this is what the unit is making anyway).

    Keep your FC at 4-5 ppm normally (assuming an 80 ppm FC level). If you do you will find that you should never need to shock nor have an algae problem during normal pool operation.

    Make sure your water is balanced to slow down scaling in the cell.

    Inspect and clean the cell on a regular basis, particularly if you have one of the non self cleaning compupool units. However, even the self cleaning ones still might need maunal cleaning with acid if your calcium levels are high.

    For best pH stability:
    keep the CYA at the maximum (80 ppm for Compupool units)
    Don't lower the pH below 7.6 and when it rises to 7.8 drop it back down to 7.6. The lower the put the pH the faster it rises. (Get a Taylor K-2006 FAS-DPD test kit. It has an acid demand test that will make this an easy task!)
    Keep the TA between 70-80 ppm. This will minimize pH rise from outgassing of CO2, which is the primary cause of PH rise in salt pools. If your TA is higher than this lower it. You will see a BIG difference in your acid demand.

    Adding borates to 50 ppm will help stabilize the pH even more by adding a secondary borate buffer system that effectively slows the pH rise and keeps it around 7.7 for a longer period of time than without borates. Borates also have algaestatic properties and improve water 'feel'.

    You still need to test water at least weekly and make any needed adjustments with a salt pool but if you try this tips you will find that your pool maintenance will be at a minimum and your water will be problem free. Once again, A Taylor K-2006 will make your water testing and balancing very easy. IF you want to test salt then Taylor does have a salt test and AquaChek makes a salt titrator strip. Both have their good and bad points but both are usable. There are also handy pocket meters to test salt level but they do need to be calibrated on a regular basis.
    Last edited by waterbear; 06-16-2011 at 11:22 AM.
    Retired pool store and commercial pool maintenance guy.

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