SWCG pool with very low salt

[hikernut]

Hi,

I just purchased a home with an approx 25,000 in-ground pool. It has an Aqua Logic SWCG and controller. The controller gives a message that the salt level is very low and the chlorine generator is off. I took a water sample into the pool store and indeed, they confirmed that the salt level is very low and there is no chlorine in the pool. They told me to add 300 pounds of salt!!

The pool is not disgusting. There's a slight brown film on some of the surfaces that I brushed off. At first I thought the film was sand from a storm we had recently (Phoenix area), but now that I realize the SWCG is not operating, it seems plausible that this is algae.

At any rate, I put four chlorine tablets in for now to get the chlorine level up, added two one-pound bags of "shock", and have slowly started adding the salt. I realize that it's problematic to get too much salt in there.

We're not using the pool right now, so I don't care if the chlorine level is a bit high. I'd rather keep the pool clear of algae until we get moved in.

Does this seem like a reasonable course of action? I'm totally new to this.

Thanks,

hikernut

[aylad]

Depending on what your CYA is, the bags of "shock" (what was in that?) is likely gone. This is why we really think everyone needs to have their own test kit and know how to use it--taking 2-3 minutes a day to test your chlorine level would have alerted you immediately that something was wrong. I encourage you to get your own kit--we like the K-2006 linked in my sig below, and there's also a link there for salt strips so that you can keep an eye on that yourself, too.

If what you have is algae, you'll need to bring the pool to "shock" level, which is based on your CYA. See the "best guess chlorine chart" linked in my sig for the chart, which tells you how high the chlorine needs to be depending on what your CYA level is. Raise your chlorine to that level (we recommend you use plain, unscented bleach for this--in 25K gallons, each 1 gallon of 6% bleach you add will raise your FC by 2.4 ppm) and hold it there, (this means testing and adding more chlorine as many times a day as possible to get back up to your level), pump (but not SWCG) running 24/7, until the pool clears and until you can go from dusk one night til just before sunup the next morning and not lose more than 1 ppm of chlorine in that time. At that point, you should have the salt level back up, but even if you don't you can let the chlorine drift back down-but only to the range indicated in the chart.

[hikernut]

Thanks for the advice. K-2600 is on order, and I got the HTH 6-way kit for now. Using HTH kit, CYA is 60. TA is 130. pH is 7.5. So all of that is good or pretty close.

Using bleach, I've been keeping chlorine at the highest reading the HTH kit gives (5-10). Recommended shock level from the best guess table says 10, so I'm in the ballpark, but won't know for sure until the better kit arrives. At any rate, there's no new algae growth.

Once I'm certain the algae is under control, the next step is to determine if the generator is any good. The cell is probably as old as the house, so seven years.

Regards,
hikernut

[hikernut]

Recommended shock level from the best guess table says 10,

oops, got that wrong. Shock level is supposed to be 20.

I'll try the dilution method with the OTO test drops to see if I can get an idea where I'm at.