Autopilot And Bubbles- Riddle Me This

[tenax]

i have my autopilot going since the water has been about 55 and now it's warm enough that the autopilot temp compensation is allowing higher chlorine. and i started running my heater today as well (went from 62f to 76f during the day. knowing that once the water warmed up, the autopilot would produce more chlorine, i had turned it down to about the 3rd dot from bottom last night so i assumed to about 30% of the time active. today i came home, and everything's running fine except i notice my autopilot has been running 100% activity for not sure how much of the day, but let's say for 4 or 5 hours anyway. maybe longer..the pool was 65 when i got up and was 76 when i got home so don't know when it was able to kick up to 100% but it did. and then i took off my solar cover to clean the pool and tons of bubbles! i did my cleaning, turned on the skimmer valve only to speed up the clearing of the bubbles..that worked and got rid of them (and meanwhile, i had turned the autopilot off as while all chem levels are fine with a taylor test kit, the chlorine was through the roof. at about 15 and you could easily smell the chlorine..) so, i left it to clean the bubbles, hopefully and it did..hooray..no due to a leak or the furnace or filter or anything..i turned on the autopilot again but turned it down to like 1 dot level..had supper, came out half an hour later (heater was still running and was up to 77f now) and the autopilot had adjusted up to the 2nd dot by itself..ok, the temp comp is still working as the pool's getting warmer. but, i noticed more bubbles starting to develop! so, to test this, i turned the autopilot off as i could see the output into my water like a fine white cloud from the returns. as soon as i turned the autopilot off, the water out of returns was clear again within 10 seconds for the nearest return...the furthest return, about 30 secs which makes sense. so, i've determined it's the autopilot..does this sound normal? it was only in service for 2 months last season after i got it and i don't recall bubbles..then again, i ran it very very low..never as high as it was going. maybe 2 dots, 3 dots up in the high heat of summer (it was installed in july and ran to september and the water was already in low 70s when i started to run it) airtemp for reference at the hottest point today was about 75 and again, pool temp was 75, 76 this afternoon when i noticed this.

meanwhile, i think i should just turn off the autopilot and let the chlorine level slowly go down ( i have a solar cover on most of the day and cya level of 60 so....) before bothering to turn the autopilot on again.

it's definitely different circumstances now temp wise, and output wise currently, than it was when i installed last year. i'm thinking next year, start off far more conservatively on the output level than i did this year. i use chlorine beach to shock the pool at the start of the season, not the autopilot. ps- the salt level is at 3300-3500.

any thoughts appreciated

[tphaggerty]

I have an Aquarite. It does the same thing when generating. Small bubbles come to the surface and you can see what appears to be a very fine "cloud" coming from the returns. I put a filter sock in front of my return when I first noticed (same as you, only 2nd year and first time I noticed it happening) - I thought it might be DE. All I trapped was lots of bubbles - they increase dramatically when you put something in the flow.

The bubbles are hydrogen produced by the generator. I guess there are lots and lots of tiny bubbles, thus the cloudy appearance, and a few bigger ones that actually look like normal bubbles!

[tenax]

thanks haggerty. pool sean theorized that it was in part due to how cold the water was in another post i put here, but given it's warming up to "pool weather" now in the pool and otherwise, was curious as i don't recall ever reading of anyone having any bubbles or complaints of bubbles.

[CanuckPool]

I have a Pentair IC20 and it too is seeing its second year opening, it ran about 1/2 of last summer. When the temp got to 72 it was turned on and out came a large white cloud out of the returns, it lasted for about 20-30 minutes and finally disapated in a few hours... everything has been normal since. Could it be that when the SWG sits dry all winter it develops some sort of coating and when reintroduced to salt water it has some sort of reaction??? I assume this is normal since more people have had the same thing happen.

[tenax]

hmmm..interesting..i hope poolsean will stop by with some thoughts...sounds like pretty much exactly what happened to me. now, this may "burst your bubble", (bad joke, i know) but my cell was inside all winter (i have a pvc piece with unions on each end that goes where the manifold goes until i have the pool pretty close to cleaned right up. i simply attributed it if not something else with my pool, to the high output level i accidentally ran. i certainly am not thrilled at the idea of having a bunch of bubbles every time i want to use my pool..we'll see how it goes tomorrow..i'm running my heater starting at 3am until i get home so it's swim ready and i'll be leaving the autopilot off but i don't anticipate any problems..just not as much fun or nice to look at a pool with what appears to be a bunch of white scum all over the place (and i can confirm it definitely was coming from the returns and the autopilot. the water was quite clear as it the cloud started to come out and it very quick turned into clusters of very tiny bubbles all over the place and it was coming from both returns. like i said, it stopped almost immediately when i shut off the autopilot. for reference, i'm running the soft touch version. it occurred to me to take off the top part and check that filter thing in there that looks like a tea bag holder, but given my flow is fine and it's downstream from my heater, i can't believe there would be any issue there.

[Poolsean]

Bubbles are a normal part of chlorine generation. Most pools have equalized flow or tend to see these bubbles come out of the closest return jet to your equipment. When this jet is reduced in oriface size, it forces more flow to the other jets so the bubbles are less noticable. Its not all cases, in fact most cases, the bubbles are very small and not noticable.
The bubbles are not all hydrogen, some are oxygen.

Question: What size pipes and hp pump do you have? Do you have a pool spa combination?

[CanuckPool]

I think we all know bubbles are a result of Chlorine generation... not visible during the day but more so at night in front of the lights. But I think what we are experiencing is a LARGE mass of bubbles, almost cloudlike, very visible during the day on initial opening, but after that it doesn't come back until I presume... the next opening.

[tenax]

Bubbles are a normal part of chlorine generation. Most pools have equalized flow or tend to see these bubbles come out of the closest return jet to your equipment. When this jet is reduced in oriface size, it forces more flow to the other jets so the bubbles are less noticable. Its not all cases, in fact most cases, the bubbles are very small and not noticable.
The bubbles are not all hydrogen, some are oxygen.

Question: What size pipes and hp pump do you have? Do you have a pool spa combination?

i would agree, canuck on large mass of bubbles. sean, i have a pool only. the pipes are 1.5 inch except for 2 inch intake and outtake on the pump. the pump is a 3/4 hp uprated to 1 hp sta-rite max-e-glass. i had a true 3/4 hp sta-rite dynaglass before. i did have initially a few small leaks..not enough to show any air bubbles rising from my 2 pool returns but enough to hiss a bit. i patched those on the pvc and all is quiet now, only a few small bubbles in my pump view window. nothing has been changed equipment wise since i installed the autopilot and used last season. the biggest difference really is:

a) i've never ran my chlorine as high as it was running yesterday until i turned it down.

b) the temperature is not as hot outside or in the pool as it was last year given i'm about 1.5 months earlier in starting to run a salt water generator.

ps- i believe i ran my salt level at about 2500 last year rather than 3400-3500 as i currently do so there is likely more "effect" of the chlorine level with the generator than last year to factor in.

[tenax]

well, i'm up to 83 degrees on the pool (85 on my heater..i'm told there's about 2 degrees difference between heater temp and temp read at pool surface) . i didn't run the autopilot at all today until i got home. the air temperature was about 85 at peak. took the cover off..no bubbles even though pump and heater had been running since i went to work at 5am..i swam the first swim of the season..lovely.. i can taste a bit of a salt taste, smell a bit of a chlorine smell but nothing as strong as using bleach or pucks (i commented to my son that you can smell your skin right after it dries and it smells kind of fresh/clean but not that strong smell from regular chlorine. the water was clear and silky. i turned on the autopilot for one hour at i'm not sure what level..2nd output light up and 8 presses of the raise button (so maximum indicator before it would go to the 3rd light up. within 5 minutes, white bubbles start forming..not nearly as many as the day before but...so i'm wondering if i just live with that and that's the way it is? lower my output to only one light and monitor chlorine? i didn't do a kit test again today but i would imagine given i had the cover on and 60 cya level that it's still way up there if it was 15 yesterday..but don't know if dissipation of the existing chlorine would make a difference..i just didn't expect so many bubbles..today, switching the surface skimmer only, on cleared them in about 4 minutes after i turned the autopilot off.

[tenax]

hmm..so, ran the autopilot, heater and pump for the most part today at one full light concentration. it auto compensated at some point today up to the 2nd light (don't think it's a full 4 clicks of that light though) zero bubbles. weird..