Salt water pool care

[Frankie23]

I have recently moved into a house that has a salt water pool, and as I have zero previous experience with salt water pools I'm hoping to get some tips from our fellow forumites with salt water pool experience.

So:

Initially the pool was cloudy and no matter what I did, I couldn't get it to go clear; running the pump 12 hours a day, backwashing, shocking, etc., nothing worked.

This past weekend I replaced the filter sand, cleaned the salt chlorinator electrode (used the diluted pool acid mixture method), added additional salt, shocked the pool and ran the pump. About 2 hours after I applied the shock, the chlorine level measured at +3.0 (using an HTH test kit), obviously due to the chlorine shock. I then closed everything up and left the pump to run until that evening.

For the last 4 days I ran the pump for 8 hours a day and I now have the water at a point where its bright blue and sparkly. I did an HTH chemical test again yesterday but I'm now concerned as the test shows the chlorine level to be almost 0.0.

I'm starting to think that the salt water chlorinator electrode might be faulty, or not operating optimally due to almost no chlorine in the water. Is there any way I can test the cell to make sure that it's still good, other than to let the pump run as usual and doing a chlorine test every to see if the chlorine level increases?

From a chlorine level of pretty much 0, at what point can I expect to see a rise in the chlorine level, assuming I run the pump for 8-10 hours a day? How quickly does the salt water chlorinator manufacture chlorine?

The pool is approximately 6m x 3m (~28,000l).

 

[mister]

If your stabilizer level is too low the chlorine could be dissipating very quickly. If stablizer is fine then your cell is probably faulty. Can you find the make/model of the chlorinator?

 

[touch_stone]

Indicating make and model of chlorinator will help.

Stabilizer definitely helps as the sun / wind will chow your chlorine

 

[Frankie23]

I can't recall checking the stabilizer level, that makes sense, thanks!

Not sure if my 4-in1 HTH kit can test the stabilizer level, can't recall offhand. I may have to get some of those test strips.

The chlorinator is from Sea Salt, I can't find a model number on the unit but according to their website, I would most probably have the Sea Salt Compact Mini (pools up to 40,000 litres).

I dropped them a note on the Contact page as well, waiting to hear back about the cost of replacing the cell.

Edit: Forgot to mention, I do have a safety cover over the pool which covers the pool when I'm not using it, so I'm thinking the effects of the sun on the chlorine should be less than if the pool was permanently uncovered. Which points to a faulty salt cell even more. Not good news i guess.

 

[LCBXX]

I went though several expenses and techniques to try and manage our salt-chlorinated pool. Eventually I just gave up and now I just chuck 2 cups of HTH in there every week, backwashing etc as needed. No hassles since. Used the money I saved to buy a solar-cover and since then I have also stopped adding water, with the bonus of having a 30+ degree pool during summer.

If you want to get the thing working out of principle, go ahead. I just found it too fussy.