# Salt water swimming pool advice!



## Kate1 (Jun 8, 2009)

Hi all

I have a salt water swimming pool, and I have had real trouble with black algae, I discovered that the chlorine levels were too low so I have been leaving the pump on in the swimming pool for 23 hours, this however does not seem very sustainable from an electricity bill point of view. Has anybody else here got a salt water swimming pool, and had this problem? If so any solutions would be much appreciated.


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## jojo (Sep 20, 2007)

I dont know much about saltwater pools, but I would have expected the chlorine levels to be low cos I thought it was the salt that you used to keep it clean, not chlorine. I thought that was the whole point??

We have a chlorine pool and whenever our pool is a bit "dodgy" we pour a load of hydrochloric acid in and then leave the filters on for a few hours to disperse it, then check the levels which are usually spot on after that!!! If ours gets cloudy, we use floculant??? 

But, I dont know about black algae

Jo xxx


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## Guest (Aug 8, 2009)

Kate1 said:


> Hi all
> 
> I have a salt water swimming pool, and I have had real trouble with black algae, I discovered that the chlorine levels were too low so I have been leaving the pump on in the swimming pool for 23 hours, this however does not seem very sustainable from an electricity bill point of view. Has anybody else here got a salt water swimming pool, and had this problem? If so any solutions would be much appreciated.


We have a chlorine pool, but I think it would be the same for a salt water pool. You can buy a black algae treatment. The first thing you need to do is to scrub off the algae. You then treat the pool with the bottle of black algae liquid following the instructions on the bottle. This works for a chlorine pool and it should also work for a salt water pool. We looked into a salt water pool and were told that althoiugh they are cheaper to build they would not work where we live as the temperature is too hot here and that we would always have problems.


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## JeanP (Sep 11, 2010)

Yup black algae is the worst and most irritating to clean up. I had this problem with my pool and the pool tech told me over the phone to scrub it immediately because the algae will damage the pool wall.
He came by and used an algaeside and and acid, but told me to keep an eye on the water balance, not sure how much though where you are. Keep the pump running until the algae is cleared up then you can maintain the pool as normal again.

Best I would do though is call up a pool tech, this worked for me but then again I am in SA where the weather factors are of course different


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## MaidenScotland (Jun 6, 2009)

Just had a look at the date of the original post... my daughter has a salt water pool and in August her pool went black over night almost as did her neighbours not very convenient as she had guests in the casita but on a good note they had seen the pool was sparkling clean the day before and Mark the guest helped clean the pool up. .. an algae bloom?


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## gus-lopez (Jan 4, 2010)

Leaving the pump on will do nothing if the chlorine level is low in a salt-water pool. It normally means that there is a lack of salt in the pool which means the chlorine generator cannot make chlorine in sufficient quantities to keep the pool clean. Most salt water generators have a control panel that will tell you by flashing light or similar that the salt level is low.
Salt water chlorination - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 

It's best to get advice re: how much needs adding from a pool shop, as you can put in too much & the generator will stop generating. Although salt-water pools don't lose huge amounts of salt they do gradually lose it over a long period of time resulting in a sudden problem.


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## country boy (Mar 10, 2010)

We have a saltwater pool. You should be able to turn up your chlorine production on the Chlorinator control panel. If it was up as far as it could go, two immediate things to look at:1 Has the Chlorinator Element "furred-up "? If so take it out and de-cal it in Agua Fuerte. 2. Have you checked the pool salinity? Your Chlorinator instruction book will tell you the ideal salinity for your model. Some of the previous answers are, to say the least, misleading and indeed incorrect, please PM me if you need more help. Is the Black Algae on the grout?, all over the pool, just the walls or the bottom?


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