Mchristo

Thanks again Waterbear! I have a Poolmaster drop test kit that does Free Chlorine, PH and Acid Demand. I find it way better than test strips. And of course I have the Taylor K1766 sodium Chloride salt test. The AquaChek salt test strips I tried on two separate times the other night were both bang on 6.4. Looks like that Taylor 2006 kit does more tests than my poolmaster kit so I will pick it up. I think you were right. Salt was low because the cell was been going into error less frequently since I got it up to 3200. Of course we just got about 5” of rain last night and I had to drain a lot of water out of the pool. Salt is down to 2800 again and the error has reappeared. I have 80lbs of salt that I can add and see if that fixes it again. I’ll mention the requirement of regular cleaning and calibrating of the LaMotte Waterlink Spin Touch Disc to my pool builder contact who is a great guy. He doesnt have much to do with the service (water testing/retail) side, but will follow up with them to make sure they are doing the right things for their customers. I’ll let you know if the added salt corrects the error again. Is the aquachek test strips the most reliable salt test? Thanks again!!!

Thx Waterbear, I took my sample into the pool builders store and it was giving me some crazy numbers that couldn’t possibly make sense given the test results from monday morning. I’m sorry I don’t know the system they use for testing. They take a small siringe of water from my sample and inject it into a disk in a small machine. That machine is plugged into their computer and it gives the numbers and the printout. Not sure that answers your question, but it’s the best I can do right now. I’ll ask for more specifics. I’m disregarding their test as it made no sense and the guy performing the test agreed. Unfortunately he dumped the rest of my water so couldn’t do another test on it. The second pool store I took my sample to was a Leslies pool store and their test system looks similar. I took a third sample into a different Leslie’s this afternoon and got numbers similar to the first Leslie’s. Here are the numbers from the two Leslie’s stores today with nothing added to the water between the two tests: free chlorine 1.3 & 1.2 total Chlorine 1.5 & 1.44 PH 7.7 & 7.7 Total Alk 100 &100 Calcium Hardness 201 & 193 Cyanuric Acid 54 & 54 iron 0 & 0 Copper 0.2 & 0 Phosphates 2662 & 2716 Salt 2230 & 2191 My pools sensor was bouncing between 2900 and 3200 for the past couple of days. The aquachek salt strip looks like it was at 6 which is 2780 according to the directions on the label. How do I lower Total Alkalinity without lowering the PH? Thank you again for your help!!! At about 6pm I added 80lbs of salt. Now at 11.30pm my SWG sensor is reading 3200ppm and just now a new AquaChek salt strip is now reading 6.4 on the strip which translates to 3220ppm salt. You are correct about the manual and the recommended CYA and Salt levels. I will purchase more CYA tomorrow and add.

I took another water sample to pool store. Numbers are: free Chl 1.3, total Chl 1.5 PH 7.7, Total Alk 100 Calcium Hardness 201. Cyanuric Acid 54, phosphates 2661, SALT 2230. I purchased and tested with Aqua Chek salt strip and it looks like 6 or just over to me which is 2780 (pic attached) AquaPure sensor is currently showing 3200, Taylor salt test kit was 3000 this morning. It has been in and out of error for the day. I just hut the pump off and cleaned the terminals of the DC cord and plugged back in. Seems like turning it off and on resets the cell and it works for a while before going back into error and sometimes just goes back out of error too. Also after turning the pump off and back on the salt reading is now down to 2900. Should I try adding more salt? Thanks again.

Correction; before leaving for the pool store, I checked the AquaPure once more and general fault 121 coming up again. Ugh!!! thinking I should try adding more salt to rule out low salt as culprit?

Waterbear, Thank you so much for replying! I believe I’m doing the Taylor Salt triathlon correctly. Giving it a good swirl before each drop and stopping at the first point of color changing to salmon/brick red. Pool is gunnite, 31,300 gallons, pebbletec finish. More background info: I returned home from two weeks away on sunday July 9th and the pool had some algea. Chlorine was 0. I shocked the pool that night and took a sample to pool store on Monday AM. Numbers: free avail. Chlorine 4.09, PH 7.8, TA 103, CH 229, CA 5, Phosphates 3437!!!, Salt 1951, Saturation Index .4 ?? That day I tested salt on my cell 2500, on Taylor test 2600. Step1 added 1/2gal muriatic acid, step 2 added 3 gallons of EZ Pour liquid Cyanuric acid which should take the CA to 30ppm. Step 3 added 80 lbs salt. After this, my pool was measuring 2800 salt, PH 7.2, Next day I added additional 40lbs of salt and the reading has been bouncing around 2900 to 3200 on my SWG sensor. Currently reading 2900 and at the moment I’m not getting any errors on the SWG. (Happily). My pool builder recommends salt level at 2800-2900. Earlier this month I had taken samples to two separate pool stores and both were measuring in the low 2000‘s. As mentioned - I chose to believe the combination of the Taylor and my pools readings. I don’t know how the pool stores are measuring the salt levels. The printout from one pool store says they have “ClearCare Expert Water Analysis System”. Could my pool be measuring incorrectly due to all the phosphates? I’m going to take another sample to the Pool Store and pick up some aqua check salt test strips as well. (Never heard of them before) Will report those numbers when I get back. Thank you again!!!

I’m no pool contractor, but assuming you are happy with a wood pool, why not just break up the concrete above the trouble spots, temporarily remove the backfill, replace the wood (with pressure treated??? (Can’t believe I’m typing this)) replace the backfill and compact. I would call call up Carl from Bushwood Country Club to handle your gopher problem. - sorry, I couldn’t resist.

Weird things happening with my Jandy PLC1400 salt generator, that is almost 2 yrs old. Sometimes my aqualink shows “general fault” other times it shows that it’s working well. On my pool panel I’ve seen intermittent error code 121 as well. This afternoon it showed that there was no AquaPure found at all on my web page for Aqualink. Then it just reappeared. Not sure if this is related or not, but my salt level on AquaPure readout shows 2900, when I test it with a Taylor K-1766 Sodium Chloride salt Test it matches exactly with the AquaPure. When I take samples to two separate pool stores, they say my salt levels are down around 2000/2200 range. I’ve had to choose to trust the Taylor Salt Test and my AquaPure. My chlorine output is set at 70% and I have about 1.0 Chlorine when performing a Taylor drop which matches with the pool stores. I last shocked the pool 3 days ago. Two days ago I cleaned the salt cell with mix of 25% muriatic acid/75% water- there were no bubbles - before cleaning it looked almost spotless except for some tiny calcium build up in a corner. Any ideas what might be going on here? Thank you.