Intex Krystal Clear Saltwater System for Above-Ground Pools up to 15,000 Gallons

This is our third year (installed summer 2018) having an intex 15’x4’ above ground pool. We used chlorine and the pump that came with the pool the first year. Changing the filters and using chlorine was not blowing my skirt up. The filters had to be replaced every two weeks minimum, and the chemicals were somewhat challenging to keep balanced. We decided last year to upgrade to a salt water system. I didn’t look at a sand filter due to cost. We bought an upgrade summer 2019 salt water pump, which used the same disposable filters. The pump was adequate, but we still had to skim the water with a net to get out the layer of bugs and bio matter from the trees for about 10-15 minutes before swimming each and every day. To be fair, there are three trees that contribute to the mess. We got the pool ready this year (2020), but the pump would not operate. We knew we had to buy a new one. I do quite a bit of research on most products I purchase, especially a bigger purchase such as this pump. Unfortunately, there are not a lot of saltwater pumps on the market whether its Amazon, Academy, or our local pool suppliers (Nashville). I saw that this pump had adequate reviews but not stellar. I also know that items like this usually receive a few poor reviews because there are too many user variables for product performance consistency. I can say for us, this pump performance exceeds our expectations. My husband installed it April 27, 2020, and said it was somewhat difficult. I can attest to the amount of time it took-approx 1 1/2-2 hours. We had multiple sized connectors due to previously purchasing a second pump, so that was not an issue for us. The power of this pump is noticeably stronger than the previous two pumps we had. See photos. Kind of like a hot tub if you’re up close. This has not been an issue even for our 10m old in her float. The best aspects of this pump are that the water stays much cleaner, no need to skim before each and every swim, no disposable filters, backwashing the sand is a breeze. You can actually see the funk flush out of the sand! Stop backwash when water runs clear. Bam, you’re done. Always less than a minute. I attribute the improved performance because of the type and strength of filtration system. The water stays clear. We do have to shock and use clarifier, but the frequency is much less and will be necessary with any system. I never have to worry about cleaning the surface before putting my baby in the water. HUGE, time saver. That’s pretty impressive considering the trees around the pool. We do run the pump 12hrs/day most days, especially when we swim. I hope this helps anyone considering either switching to a saltwater system or upgrading to sand. This is the way to go. It’s more costly initially, and the sand is an additional cost, but we feel this will save us money in the long run. I believe the sand lasts 5-7 years.

***original review from April 2018*** I had the last generation salt system on my pool and got a season out of it before it stopped working. Intex sent me a new one but I bought this one because I couldn't wait two weeks for it to arrive. When this one dies I have a backup while i'm waiting for a replacement. I bought this well aware I will be getting 1-2 seasons max out of this. I have an 18' round steel above ground pool and this works great. I keep it on three hours a day and have no issues getting sufficient chlorine in my pool. It's been running for about 45 days so far and no issues. It has a three year warranty and their customer service is good overall. Replacements take a couple weeks to arrive so keep it in mind when your unit craps out. Even thought the life span is so short I still think it's worth not having to deal with chlorine in my pool. No smelly skin, no chemical balancing issues, no green pool. Saltwater is the BEST. If you are like me and installing this on a regular non intex pool they make this adapter https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B012BUM5V8/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1 This way you dont need to make something from PVC. One end screws onto the salt system and your pool hoses slide over the other end and get clamped down. No leaks at all. I'm going to update this review at the end of this season or if the unit dies before then. **October 2018 Update** I just closed my pool down yesterday. As I was closing it down I thought I would record a video with my opinions. Feel free to watch it or just read below. The generator functioned as intended the entire season. It kept my 18" above ground non Intex pool crystal clear all year. The only thing I added to my pool was to bring the hardness level up a bit and added a bit of salt when I had to drain the pool because of the rain. Besides that I put nothing else in my pool from April to October. It ran for four hours a day and kept everything beautiful. I'm hoping I get a lot more use from it next year when it's opened again but we shall see. For $129 will keep buying these even if they only last a year, because it saves from having to buy chlorine and the frustration of having to add it and keep everything balanced. Highly recommended for an above ground pool Intex or not. **update April 2019** Opened my pool April 2019. Plugged this in and it fired right up. I installed a new liner so I filled with fresh water, put in the salt to about 2,800 and balanced the water. So far the generator fired right back up and is sanitizing my water. I will update the review again if the unit dies or makes it this year***

We have a 5,000 gallon pool, and we had the smaller ECO 5110 before (for pools up to 7,000 gallons); it had to run four to six hours per day to keep up, and we had to replace the electrodes every couple of years. Now we have the ECO 6110 (for pools up to 15,000 gallons) and this more powerful model is MUCH better. The bigger chlorinator keeps it perfect by running only one or sometimes two hours per day. Even after a heavy rain it stays in control. At this rate, it should last for many years. IMPORTANT: A salt water chlorinator is fouled by calcium! That white scale that fouls your electrodes is calcium carbonate, and the calcium comes from the solid, white, powdered SHOCK, which is CALCIUM hypochlorite. If you have a vinyl pool (not a cee-ment pond), then you don't NEED no stinkin' calcium. DON'T use that stuff! Instead, use ordinary liquid household bleach, or the slightly more concentrated version sold as pool sanitizer, which is SODIUM hypochlorite. The liquid bleach won't foul your chlorinator and it destroys algae as well or better than the solid stuff. (Take that advice from an old chemist.)

I ordered the saltwater chlorinator in early April 2022. It did not work. So I requested a replacement from Amazon. Got it late April. It works fine. I did not return the original because my experience with these units is they last about 1 year, so I thought I'd just keep the defective one and request warranty for the part that was bad. Now, hours into a maze from Hades, here's what's going on. Intext warranty support was very hard to reach. I did finally get someone on the phone, and after a very painful 30 minute conversation, I was able to have them send me a replacement titanium electrode (having two identical units allowed me to test and find out what part was defective). That replacement shipped in late June. It is now late July. UPS tracking has a final entry on June 29 that the part is about 60 miles from my house. At this point I figure it will never arrive, so: - I call Intex again and talk to a nice enough agent, and I can understand him which is a huge plus. - He tells me that once Intex hands the item to the shipper, that there is nothing Intex will do to resolve a problem with shipping. I complain, but he is following Intex's horrible internal policy, and all he can do is give me the phone number for UPS. He gives me the wrong number, not even a valid number, and he tries a few tmore times but never gives me a valid number. - So I thank him for his time, and then I get online with UPS for a chat session. Spend another 20 minutes there, and the chat agent tells me to file a claim. - So then I try to file a claim with UPS, set up an account so I'm somebody to them, and when I get to the "new claim" page finally (about an hour after my fun day started), I get an error from UPS that "Cannot submit claim. Unfortunately, this package type is not eligible for a claim submission. [UPS:E030]" What now? I ordered the replacement item directly from intex. $150. When it arrives I guess I will start a new warranty claim with Intex and just try to get my money back at that time. How should things be different? If you ship something, you should make an effort to find out when things do not arrive, or arrive damaged, and you should help the customer resolve the problem. This is customer service 101. In my experience with Intex, they have lousy customer service, and sometimes lousy parts. These titanium electrodes might last a year, if you are lucky, but I'll take a year if I can get it. If not, I have to weigh the pain of calling Intex warranty support and all the frustration associated with that, and with all the runaround I've done to "follow the rules" as it were, I'm no closer to having a working chlorinator.

This is amazing. So easy to turn my above ground pool into a salt water system. To get accuracy on the salt level readings, it is important to let your sand filter run for 15 minutes before turning on the salt water system. My sand filter is set 7 hours and my salt system is set for 6. it is important to start the salt 15 minutes after the sand filter and run the sand filter for an hour after the salt turns off. Built in timers allow them to come on at the same time each day. My pool is still crystal clear and close to being closed for the winter.

Ok so this will be a long post but I want to give you full details. We put our pool up the first week of June and started out doing the typical chlorine chemicals. They are just so bad on my and my daughters skin so I began looking into the Intex Salt Water Generators. I struggled for 2 weeks on if I should purchase it or not because the reviews are so mixed. Truly 50/50 On liking and disliking the product. So I decided to give it a try especially since Amazon would allow me to return it for 30 days. Before it arrived I read as much as I could about the system and it’s pros and cons. As well as what other people had learned in their set up process. The first thing I should say is we have an above ground Intex pool 15’ round 42” deep. We bought it at academy sports. It came with the standard 750/1200 gallon per hour filter. Then when the SWG arrived I read the instruction booklet from start to finish. The first mistake it seems people make is they add salt to their pool and turn the Intex SWG on immediately. DONT DO THAT. One thing I can say to not follow the book on is how much salt to add to your pool. The book says way too much. I started out adding a bag and a half of salt which is roughly 60lbs. We let the pump circulate the water with added salt for 24 hours before turning the SWG on. The next day we turned on the SWG and it ran perfectly fine no problem. Day 3 it ran again no problem. I took a sample of water to our local pool store and they ran the water test. Everything looked good except he said my salt level was only 2800 PPM. That I needed to add more salt. So, I went home and added the other 20 lbs of salt and let the pool circulate it overnight and turned my SWG. Within just a few minutes it started shutting down because of “High Salt” alarm. I took another sample of water by the pool store the next day and the PPM has gone up to 3200 which is really a great number to be at in regards to other salt systems. However the Intex SWG kept giving me a “high salt” alarm and shutting down. It took me a couple days of doing 15-20% water changes to get the PPM back below 3000 and then the system started working again. We’ve had no problems since. It seems to me that the Intex SWG system is not made to really function at the 3200PPM and higher levels. Yes I know that the pool stores tell you that 3000-3400 PPM is like the best range for producing chlorine but in my experience the Intex system just cannot function. I have kept my PPM around 2800 and the system has not given us a high salt alarm since. I’ve onky added salt one time and that was after several days of down pour rain and I knew the water had to have a much lower salt PPM from the rain. So I just very slowly added salt over a couple of days. No more than about 3-4 cups full a day. Again my PPM was back to 2800 and it’s been working fine. From what I’ve read online about other salt systems and just the whole science behind converting salt water to chlorine is that as long as you have a PPM of at least 2400 then your SWG will produce chlorine. Of course the higher you can get that PPM without going over 3400 the faster and easier it is for your SWG to produce the chlorine. So you may try with your system to go beyond the 2800 PPM. If you do let me know how it works out. I’m sure there will be several folks who disagree but this has worked for us and we’ve loved it ever since we got the levels figured out. We have beautiful water and it’s been so much better for our skin. Best of Luck!!!

I wanted to give this thing a season or 2 before I wrote a review. Im toward the end of season 2 with this chlorine generator. I got it on sale for $85 in 2024. Its now end of july 2025 and I couldn't be happier. I've had no errors, no cleaning issues, just 2 seasons of nearly maintenance free pool water. I travel a lot so im not always able to keep up with traditional maintenance. I took a gamble with this on my 16' Intex pool and its been worth its weight in gold. Even if you had to buy 1 per season, its still worth the peace of mind to not have to worry about chlorine or algae growth. I keep my total alkalinity and pH in check, check salt levels once per month, maintenance with algaecide, and make sure I vacuum when needed. This is the most maintenance free pool ive ever had ans I love it.

I thought I'd hop on here and write a review about this saltwater chlorinator because I also used the previous model. (note:Nothing wrong with the previous model, my lawn service ran over the cord) The last two summers I put up an Intex 12 ft x 30 in pool and this year I put up a 10 ft by 30 inch pool both by Intex. I know this system is a little overkill for this pool size but I love getting a pool big enough to cool off in without using tons of water with a superior filter system so it has the smallest amount of maintenance. The first two years I had the larger pool placed in the grass in full sun. I did mostly well with the setup but I did have some greener or cloudy water days compared to this year. (I shocked it more often) I'm not sure yet if it's because it was warmer earlier in the year (this year it's still getting down to the 60's at night and previous years it was probably 70 or 80 at night) lower temperatures can affect algae growth as the more human warm temps make it flourish. I also feel like setting the pool up off the grass has helped so much because the less grass that makes it into the pool the better. I will say that I run this system as much as possible. I have it set to run for 12 hours. I know in the past I would do like 6 or 8 thinking about saving energy but DO NOT do that. It doesn't use much energy at all and it's so much more work to have to mess around with getting rid of algae. It automatically comes on because of the pump I'm using with it and runs all day. I haven't had to do a single thing and it's been up for 2 weeks besides fish out leave with my strainer. I also think you should clean out the filter every week with a spray down and buy a new filter every month. Haven't had to clean mine out yet. I haven't received any high or low salt warnings (I did calculate the exact salt amount) and with my previous version when I did receive them I cleaned the cell before adding salt or ditching water. Overall I find this product to be great and I think it will be at least 2-4 summers based on my experience with this value of pump. Note: This is the pump I'm using, I bought it because it was the one I had before and I had all the attachments already-it's easy to use and has a timer. Intex Krystal clear cartridge pump for above ground pools https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005QIYM6E/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1