Best salt to add and place to buy?

[mjlepak]

Hi all,

Long story below, skip to questions if you want

I have a 1 yr old IG Gunite 28k pool. This past January I had a hose freeze and the bladder on the polaris pump froze breaking and caused me to lose a lot of water over the course of about 4 weeks. During this period I kept filling the pool with fresh water almost daily. The leak is now repaired and my Aqua Rite is saying check salt. It started warming up enough about a month ago and at that time it was reading about 2600 ppm a few weeks ago and now I can't even tell by the diagnostics how much salt I have. If I am reading the correct number it is about 90ppm but that seems way to low because it was reading 2600 after the leak was fixed. Currently, I am just using Clorox to maintain my chlorine till I can get salt back in.

My questions are:

Is there a point that the Aqua Rite is unable to determine the ppm of salt?

What kind of salt is recommended to add to the pool?

Where is the least expensive place to purchase said salt?

What qualities should I look for for and/or stay away from?

I am glad this forum is back and look forward to the responses.

Thanks,
Jeff

[mwsmith2]

I'd start by taking a water sample to the pool store and having them test the salt level. From there, you can add salt, my calculator in my sig below will help you figure how much you need.

I use water softener salt (like everyone else) just make sure it's not "red out" and that it doesn't have yellow prussiate of soda in it. You can get it at Home Depot/Lowes/Etc

Michael

[mjlepak]

Okay I checked the lowes website and there seems to be serveral different types of salt for around $5-$6 for 40pnd bags. Does this seem about right?

Also, there is iron fighter salt, pellets, crystals, solar salt, potassium chloride salt which one should I buy other than staying away from "red out" and yellow prussiate?

[KPROMERO]

you want solar salt from their.

[waterbear]

Goldline Controls says that solar salt or salt pellets that are 99.5% pure salt and that do not contain additives such as iron removers (red out) or water softener cleaners are fine. You don't want potasium chloride. You want sodium chloride.
Pellets will take the longest to dissolve but also seem to have a higher purity. Solar salt is usually largish crystals and will dissolve a lot faster. Morten pool salt is much smaller crystals but similar to their solar. It dissolves a bit faster than their solar salt.
Diamond crystal pool salt is the smallest crystals that I have seen (almost like table salt) but also the most expensive. It dissolves very fast.
With any of them brushing will help them dissolve.
I have found pool salt at sevaral hardware stores in my area and at 2 different grocery store chains (Winn Dixie and Publix). The grocery stores have been the cheapest price and the salt is usually with the water softener salt.

I have used all of the above in my pool and I look for the cheapest price since they are all sodium chloride! Interesting thing....many of the pool stores in my area that I hve been to don't carry pool salt but they do carry either Mineral Springs (Bioguard) or Salt Water Magic (NaturalChemisty)---both of which are very pricey and IMHO, totally unnecessary!

[mjlepak]

Thanks very much for the quick reply. I will go with the solar salt crystals. BTW my friend just purchased salt for his pool from the local pool supply and it was double $12 bag vs $6 at Lowes. That is a huge markup.

I will also check the grocery store and thanks again this was very helpful.

[waste]

It's been a few years, but the company I worked for in Va., used to just pick up coarse granular (no additives) salt from the local 'seed and feed' - they sell it for giving to farm animals. I don't know how competitive their prices were, as they were the only place we bought it.