Mineral blends for SW pool

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stevodevo

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Dec 22, 2011
57
Gold Coast, Australia
Hi all,

When we purchased our pool it came with initial chems including a mineral blend called Aqua Therepe (previously named Mineral Max) made by Astral Pool - http://www.astralpool.com.au/products/acqua-therepe. This completely replaces plain pool salt at the normal concentration (4000ppm for my SWCG). I'm not too fussed about being "sold" by the PB because the total package cost was in line with the other quotes and it was presented more like a value-add so it wouldn't have reduced the price going to normal salt anyway.

I'm having trouble getting any info about the exact ingredients and suspect it's probably 99% plain old salt with a sniff of magnesium and the like? This is our first pool and I've never been a big swimmer so I have no personal experience to know if it actually "feels" any better than using plain salt. Sales brochures claim other benefits to skin, hair, eyes etc and also claim it helps reduce calcium build up and staining etc. We all initially thought our skin felt REALLY soft and silky when getting out of the pool in the first couple of weeks, but I now suspect that was actually due to high PH of around 8 - I say this because caustic cleaning products are usually quite slippery which I've always thought is because of the alkalinity? Does that sound right? Now that our water is balanced, the soft slippery feeling is gone, but the water itself does still feel nice.

Does anyone have any knowledge of this product with regards to water feel, health benefits and water balance? We've just had a significant amount of rain and my latest test with AquaCheck strips show my salt levels have dropped to 3320ppm and pool calc tells me I should add 25KG of salt. I haven't priced the Aqua Therepe bags yet, but I believe it will come at a fairly high premium over plain (even high quality) pool salt.

Thanks,
Steve.

PS - price is not everything if it is indeed making the water nicer, but my suspicion is we'd be just as well off saving some cash and converting to plain salt now...
 
This forum preaches never adding things to your pool you don't need. I have no idea what's in the product you mention but I am about 99.98% sure you do not need it. :lol:

It is fairly common for "additives" to claim benefits that are virtually impossible to measure. Side effects, while not often an issue, can be problematic so we suggest staying away.


BBB teaches simplicity. Virtually anything that detracts from the simplicity of pool water management gets a skeptical greeting.
 
I agree with Dave on this. All the info I've found is purposely vague about what's in it and I can't find an msds for it. The msds is probably called something else in AU. I wouldn't keep adding it till I knew what was in it.
 
Sounds like a gimmick.... I did some googling, looking for a MSDS. Couldn't find one. I did find another pool forum thread and it has a link to yet another forum in it..

Amazingly, the thread has a bunch of new members posting in it :roll: And glowing testimonials that use such words as "innovative." Anyway, I managed to pick out that they don't use chlorine but they do generate hypochlorous acid... So does bleach....

This guy, "Poolman," would fit in well here. Read his rebuttal to some claims:
Nice to see you on the forum. Unfortunately I think you are another Magnapool customer that might not realize that they are swimming in a chlorinated pool the same as every other salt water chlorinator pool.
Andy, please read page number 20 of your Magnapool operating manual, you will see the recommended levels of cyanuric acid for your magnapool...30-40 PPM. Also the levels of salt 3000-6000 PPM, outside these levels you will void your warranty. Furthermore don't let your PH get above 8.0 as per page 20 you will void your warranty.
Furthermore, please read page 44, the Magnapool controller is referred to on this page as the chlorinator.
And last but not least page 115 of your Magnapool manual refers to the sanitiser as CHLORINE. And I quote "Poolrite recommends chlorine as the disinfectant of choice for swimming pools".
Click to expand...

I wouldn't mind a SWG, but I'm happy with dumping jugs. I certainly wouldn't purchase any miracle "system" especially one that's so secretive.

PS: I couldn't resist sharing this testimonial I just caught on re-reading:
it's true, after 4 months over winter when the water is still sparklingy clear (with 1 hour filtration a day) i do have to lightly brush the walls and steps of my pool to remove the thin layer of algae. which i am happy to do :)
Click to expand...
Not quite the endorsement I am looking for.
 
Thanks for the replies. I've also tried to get an MDSD for the product and can't find one either. I forgot to mention in my original post, that's what got me most suspicious about it. I'm not so much worried about it adding unwanted chemicals (though I acknowledge that could be a concern) as much as it just being a waste of money because it's pretty much just plain ol' salt and marketing. I reckon I'm just going to go back to plain salt from now on.

Richard, I recognised that post from whirlpool.net.au without even having to click the link. We joke about whirpool at work because is actually an Australian Broadband news and info site, but their forums have a HUGE range of general interest topics as well. I quite often use it like a Google for web forums. I read that post while I was comparing my pool quotes and found it quite entertaining too. Poolman really gave it to the Magnapool guy. Magnapool is quite different to what I'm using although I do recall there was some mention of "Mineral Max" in the middle of the psot that alluded to it being sodium chloride with a sniff of magnesium.

I'm not sure if you have Magnapool in the US, but it's more like a complete system right through to the filtration system and pump and it's main claim is that its high magnesium content makes it like having a magnesium bath. In the end of the day I think it works on exactly the same principle as any other SWCG but just uses magnesium chloride instead of sodium chloride through the SWCG cell. We have another competitor here called Purapool that claim to have taken the Magnapool strategy and improved it. They both fall just slightly short of claiming they have found they can give you your very own fountain of youth in your backyard (OK that's an exaggeration, but they do go VERY hard in the sales arena). In the end of the day you just end up locked into a proprietary system and you have to use them for all maintenance and consumables. Not bad for their business, and it it costs you about $4-5K extra up front going by the quotes I received.

I don't think Astral markets their product as anything other than it working just like plain salt in SWCG's, but that it has a few added extras that make the water more like a mineral spring like experience. I certainly have never been led to believe I'm not using the same amounts of chlorine as a sanitiser than any other SWCG product.

Thanks everyone for investigating, I was hoping someone may have been able to source an MSDS, but you've really helped convince me it's all a little too secretive for my liking.


Steve.
 
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