Salt System On A Hot Tub

Hurley

Need help with this one, and dammit it's a problem heater.
Got a custom inground small commercial size (6' by 12') spa run on a Jandy Auqalink RS 8 with an Aqua Pure salt system and a Raypak electric heater.
The Aqua Pure has been set to 5%, the lowest we can get it but the chlorine count has been off the charts from day one, resulting in 4 Raypak electric heater elements being eaten alive. For now the Aqua Pure has been dissabled in favour of chlorine tabs but the customer wants the salt system back up n' running asap.
Any thoughts at all would be helpful.

POOLMANinCT

how long has spa been on salt system, since construction? spa being shocked?
cyanaric acid being used? you said commercial size, is it a public/comm spa?

Hurley

The tub is big but for private use only. The spa is coming up on ten months old and on salt since construction. No other chemical treatment has been used past algacide and mineral out to combat hard water.

POOLMANinCT

im going to assume you have tested h20.

water must be very acidic, finish being damaged? once again cyanaric acid being used?

unit properly sized? what type of register is on this unit, i suspect the register/regulator to be faulty or damaged

POOLMANinCT

wait a minute

The tub is big but for private use only. The spa is coming up on ten months old and on salt since construction. No other chemical treatment has been used past algacide and mineral out to combat hard water.

zero alk will chew heat exchanger in no time flat as will low ph...
what kind of hard water? minerals iron, magness etc) or calcium, what is the finish of tub palster or acrylic?

Hurley

It's an acrylic tub. The PH has been over 8.0 since day one due to the high chlorine count which has been over 10 ppm since day one. Surprisingly the alk has been reasonable at about 140. Our thoughts were that the disgustingly high chlorine was the cause. But how to lower it. the salt system is at minimum, and Jandy doesn't allow us to set it on an on/off schedual.

POOLMANinCT

i know jandy wont let you do so, thats was my first thought till i saw jandy.

cyanaric acid used at inital water break in?
im sure you have drained several times. sized equip properly, if water is torching equipment the reqisters/regs must be hammered by now

Hurley

To the best of my knowledge acid has never been used in this tub and oh yeah, been drained couple times.
Mind if I ask a question. Has anyone ever or do you think I could move the Aqua Link from the communication raceway to a relay so the operation could be timed. Thinking if the chlorine could be reduced from the corrosive level its at to something more managable we might get rid of the problem.
And you called it Ray. Planning on replacing every pump seal and o-ring long before they should be.

POOLMANinCT

i suspect even timed out gen unit is going to read/generate improperly. i think the units regulator has got to be shot.

cyanaric acid ie chlorine stabilizer, will lock up chlorine & not allow sublimation/gas off

not related to muri/hydro acid

Poolman

hurley, is the spa indoors? Whats the gallonage, 17-1900 gals? I work with Clormatic/Jandy Aqua Pure units quite a bit...the last two days were spent in training with Jandy as a matter of fact.

We have had a lot of trouble with the Jandy units.


Sorry my error upon rereading my statement the chemical is not tsp but sodium thiosulphate.
This is what is used for neutralizing chlorine. It is actually one of the reagents in liquid test kits. aka taylor's 2005 for testing total alk.

POOLMANinCT

good one poolman, I didn't know TSP neutralizers chlorine. will it still nutralize chlorine if cyanaric acid is used as a cl stabilizer?

hurly what's u w this job?

Hurley

Not familar with trisodium phosphate but think I should find out about it.
The tub is outdoors and I make it 1400 gallons give or take. Can you elaborate on some of the troubles you mentioned.

Poolman

Chlorine gen. troubles we have encountered with clormatic/jandy units - Bad back boards, bad front boards, bad transformers, bad power cables to the cells, bad cells, bad sensors. On the bright side the case the boards are housed in, haven't fallen apart, nor have the tees the sensors come with broken . Seriously, we switched brands due to the recent accumulation of problems.

They were pretty good for a long time before they were bought out by Jandy.

POOLMANinCT

what's up hurley?? can we send a bill yet?

ray