Chemical Balance questions

[Azsnook]

Thanks. I am also in Mesa. My salt levels have been declining around 20-40 ppm per day. I also run a water feature and have seen that aeration can deplete salt, but do not know if this is true. I was wondering why my CH struggles to get above 200, when new water flowing in is probably close to 400 ppm. I wondered if the salt was reacting with something the pebbletec or gunite needed since CH was a little low. My salt checker does require calibration. At the height of my leak adventure, I was losing about 1" per day and was losing 100 - 120 ppm per day on salt levels. I will re-try the bucket test.

[waterbear]

Thanks. I am also in Mesa. My salt levels have been declining around 20-40 ppm per day. I also run a water feature and have seen that aeration can deplete salt, but do not know if this is true.

Nope, salt cannot evaporate, only water can. You CAN lose salt from splashout in a water feature however.

[BigTallGuy]

Thanks. I am also in Mesa. My salt levels have been declining around 20-40 ppm per day. I also run a water feature and have seen that aeration can deplete salt, but do not know if this is true.

In our neck of the woods, water features will loose alot of water through evaporation, but as Waterbear says, you will not loose salt. You haven't mention what the source of your leak was nor what you did to fix it. How do you calibrate your Salt tester and how often?

[Azsnook]

I probably had multiple sources for leaks. The most significant was a spa light fxture - the PVC conduit most likely had an unglued joint along the way. Long story on all the attempted fixes, at the end of the day a product called Fix-A-Leak corrected the problem, where you circulate the material for 48 hours or so (with the DE filter removed) and keep it in suspension. The product finds the leak and will repair holes up to 1/8" diiameter. I also circulated the Fix-A-Leak throughout my pool system. The claim is it will fix both structural and plumbing issues. Suction side leaks are more difficult to treat with Fix-A-Leak because you have to reverse the flow and keep the PSI fairly low, so I did not do that.

My spa is 6.5 feet by 7 feet and was losing 10" of water in a 24 hour period, which is about 285 gallons per day, now it holds steady after the fix. My total water volume (pool, spa and water feature) is about 20,000 gallons. My salt loss calculations would equate to losing about 1,000 gallons per day, but I think my actual water total loss was around 600 - 700 gallons per day, with half coming from the spa light. I started another bucket test in my pool this morning.

I calibrate the salt tester with a known 3,000 ppm sample through a calibration routine built into the tester. I calibrate every couple of weeks.

In the last two weeks, I have gone from 3,800 ppm to just under 3,000 ppm, which would indicate I have lost over 4,200 gallons of water, or 300 gallons per day. When my leak(s) were at their worst, my autofill ran loudly and continuously, now its always a very low trickle.