Bubbles and Flakes

[oasisdave]

Ok I have two issues with my Aquarite SWG. First I have small bubbles coming from my return lines when my Aquarite is generating. I have heard this is normal but wanted to see if any of you have had the same issue.

The second and more irritating by far is that the Aquarite also seems to be producing little milky white flakes. Has anyone had this happen to them? The flakes are small and pretty much disolve or break up if you pick them out of the water. the problem is that there are sooo many of them. I love to have crystal clear water and it stinks to have all this stuff floating in my pool. Could it be the salt I used? It was the Mortons in the big yellow bags that they sell at Home Depot.

Any help is GREATLY appreciated.

by the way my pool is a 14,000 gal. inground pool with the 3M Colorquartz plaster.

I just sent an e-mail to Aquarite tech support to see what they had to say about the flakes.

[Poolsean]

The flakes are most likely calcium scale coming off the cell when it reverses polarity.
What is your pH? Odds are lowering the pH level will take care of the calcium scale. We would have to look at your total alkalinity and calcium hardness levels too, as these influence scale formation in the cell.

Bubbles are normal and can be minimized by adjusting your inlet oriface sizes. Use a smaller oriface on the closest return jet to influence the bubbles to the other return lines. What this will do is to balance out the bubbles returning to the pool so that they are not as apparent as them all coming out of the one return line.

[oasisdave]

Thanx for the reply, I'll post a complete water test when I get home. I do know my PH has been around 7.6 - 7.8 I TRY to keep it 7.6 or lower but with the swg it sure likes to stay pretty high. I got the following reply from the Aquarite tech support:

The Aqua Rite can't make the flakes but they may be forming from something in the chemistry reacting with the chlorine. I recommend getting a complete water chemistry analysis done then call our Technical Support Team from the pool so we can go over the results and look at the system's diagnostics.

Would the ps233 be considered a complete water chemistry analysis? As the Aquarite tech asked for?

[Poolsean]

Yes. Ben's test kit is fine for this purpose.
However, I do not agree with the techs analysis. The flakes can form on the cell. it's the very nature of salt cells to generate calcium scale. The reverse polarity's function is to dissolve the calcium back into solution before it has a chance to build up or flake off. If the reverse polarity is not working properly, or your water chemistry is considered "Scale forming" according to the Saturation Index, then you'll see scale. Typically, if the reverse polarity is not working properly, the cell will develope scale in about a week. The scale would be visible when looked into the end of the cell. Water chemistry related scale usually build up in 2 weeks or longer.

Hope this helps.

[mas985]

The last few weeks, I have had a similar problem. White flakes you can see best at night with the light on. I did not think it was the SWG because of the volume of water and density of the flakes. It seems like a SWG have to make a lot of flakes to be able to see it in a 14,000 gallon pool let alone a 21,000. But then again, I do have high calcium and it would seem like a reasonable explaination.

Oasisdave,

Do you have high calcium in your pool? That is my problem and I think it may contribute to the flakes.

Also, I have read in another post that it could just be particulates in the water. Summer time puts a lot stuff in the water and the chlorine bleaches it to white. Depending on the density of the particles, they will float, sink or stay mixed with the water. The later has a hard time getting filtered out.

If I could catch a few particles, it would be interesting to put under a microscope.

[Ozzzz]

I have also noticed flakes in my pool, to me they look like bad dandruff. Some days I notice them and some I dont, all depends on how the sun is shining into the pool. Pool Store told me to shock with non-chlorine shock, didnt have much effect.

During the time that my cell was not switching polarity correctly the flakes were really bad, and also caked up my debris shield in the skimmer pretty bad. Since finding this site, getting a good test kit to check the chemistry, and getting my salt cell replaced I havent really noticed the flakes, the debris sheild is not caked with white powdery stuff either, and my cell is not scaling up either. The scale that had built up on the tile in the spa also seems to be cleaning itself up.

My CH is up over the 1000 mark right now and try to keep my PH below 7.8 to stay in a non-scaling condition.