Silver Chloride & Flip Plop

[RobRM]

I was wondering if someone could give me more info on this new product. A friend emailed me a question and I was unsure about it. It's called Flip Plop for 5K and 10K gallon pools. The larger one uses trichlor. I understand that but the smaller one uses silver chloride. What's the difference between that and colloidal silver? Is silver chloride the active ingredient in silver algaecides? And what's the kill rate of silver? The product says it turns the water into "mineral" water but I can't see how such a small amount can do it. I'm not going to use it but I was curious what others might say.

Thanks

 

[morzh]

AgCl is barely soluble in water, 1.9mg/l which means as the compound it is 1.9ppm, and then the ions (when it disolves) each will be only part of that. Not sure, maybe it is that efficient you don't need much....
BTW this is a haloid silver, that is used in photography (dusintegrates into Ag and Cl under the light).


Colloidal silver is just that, silver suspended in liquid, it is not a salt.

 

[chem geek]

Their claim:

LESS CHLORINE
Fresh mineral water uses minerals to destroy bacteria so much less chlorine is needed.

is completely not true since bacteria are easy to kill and are not a noticeable contributor to chlorine consumption and are not the driver that requires a higher chlorine level. It's algae that requires a higher FC/CYA ratio to kill for worst-case algae nutrient levels. So such a system using copper instead of silver would have some reasonable claim of using less chlorine because one could have a lower FC/CYA level so less loss from sunlight which is the largest source of chlorine demand. According to this MSDS and this MSDS the chlorine cartridge is just Trichlor (with a small amount of Dichlor in it) while this MSDS shows that the mineral cartridge is silver chloride with calcium carbonate so essentially slow dissolving silver ions.

Silver is not as effective against algae as copper and while it inhibits bacterial growth including fecal bacteria, it does so much more slowly than chlorine. It would have made more sense for them to use copper or a copper/silver combo for the minerals and then their claim of lower chlorine usage would have some validity, though of course with silver or copper one can get staining of plaster surfaces.

 

[morzh]

I have experience running copper-based system on an AGP.
Let me say it upfront: copper, even in concentrations higher than they recommended (they are the EchoSmarte...yeah, yeah, I know, it is a 4-letter word on this forum :lol: ) is utterly useless for yellow mustard algae. They recommended 3 to 5 ppm, I even had it at 7 (pool store test said t was over 10 but I did not trust it) and....nothing.
After rains I had to shock with oxygen shock and I used polymeric non-copper algaecide 60 to give me 10-14 days of algae-free time.

Eventually I figured how to defeat algae once and for all, and the last two seasons I was fine, but it had nothing to do with copper or chlorine. But that only worked 'cause my swimmer load is low. Otherwise I'd probably suffer.


When I bought this new house the owner had that do-hickey, I think by Zodiac, that adds something to water claiming to lessen Chlorine use. It leaked upon opening the pool so I plugged the hole and toss the whole thing. Dunno if it really works. This one


Nature2 Mineral Sanitizers | ZODIAC USA

 

[RobRM]

Thanks for the replies. I'll let my friend know about this.

 

[chem geek]

Re: Silver Chloride & Flip Plop

I have experience running copper-based system on an AGP.
Let me say it upfront: copper, even in concentrations higher than they recommended (they are the EchoSmarte...yeah, yeah, I know, it is a 4-letter word on this forum :lol: ) is utterly useless for yellow mustard algae. They recommended 3 to 5 ppm, I even had it at 7 (pool store test said t was over 10 but I did not trust it) and....nothing.
After rains I had to shock with oxygen shock and I used polymeric non-copper algaecide 60 to give me 10-14 days of algae-free time.

Eventually I figured how to defeat algae once and for all, and the last two seasons I was fine, but it had nothing to do with copper or chlorine. But that only worked 'cause my swimmer load is low. Otherwise I'd probably suffer.

Yes, I was referring to green and black algae when I was talking about copper. It's interesting you mention Polyquat 60 since usually that doesn't work against yellow/mustard algae so I wonder if the combination of it with MPS (oxygen shock) did the trick at least in the short-run. So what did you do that handled it in the long run "once and for all"?

- - - Updated - - -

Thanks for the replies. I'll let my friend know about this.

The system is designed for smaller pools, mostly pop-ups 5000 gallons or smaller (though they have an XL model that is for up to 10,000 gallons). They don't worry about staining as much because they presume vinyl pools. Note that BOTH the smaller and larger units use Trichlor in a cartridge. As for kill times for minerals such as copper and silver compared to chlorine, see this post.

Note that they say to "shock pool as needed to maintain water quality". This is because the CYA still builds up, though more slowly because of the low FC level, but this low FC level still can run into trouble with algae or bather load. Since the pools are smaller and generally freshly filled with water each season, that avoids common problems, but does not eliminate them. If the fill water has sufficient phosphates, then algae can still grow faster than chlorine can kill it, but that may not show up until after the first couple of months and if the season is short enough people may not see a problem. Such systems are not usually solar heated nor have covers so the seasons are usually limited to the hottest part of the year.

 

[morzh]

Re: Silver Chloride & Flip Plop

Yes, I was referring to green and black algae when I was talking about copper. It's interesting you mention Polyquat 60 since usually that doesn't work against yellow/mustard algae so I wonder if the combination of it with MPS (oxygen shock) did the trick at least in the short-run. So what did you do that handled it in the long run "once and for all"?

Oxygen shock....could be. I was told to use non-copper algaecide which made sense as I had copper already and it did not work.

Chlorine shock worked but the water remained greenish and very opaque. I repeated, the color did not change.
Then I thought, well, green or not, it gotta be dead by now after all the shocks.
So I decided to flock.
First I raised the pH (copper system requires neutral to lightly acidic) and as soon as my pH went up, suddenly the opaque green became opaque blue. Which was what I thought it should be.
Then I flocced. I used "Dropout" by EZClor.
The recommended dose did little so I doubled it, and when it slowly worked (over a day) I dumped the whole bottle in there. After that it worked fast and next day the bottom was clearly visible plus lots of white sediment. I tried vacuuming through filter, it went right through (hence my experience that sand filter does not work fir this type sediment) so I vacuumed to waste and kept doing it for two more days until the sediment stopped.
The water became sparkling.
I rebalanced the water with muriatic acid.....that was it.

But: no algae ever came during the rest of the season (August).

I did not think much of it, but next year 2013, the story repeated itself, so I again:
-shocked it once with two packs (I did not care about the type, think it was trichlor)
-raised pH, saw it "blue up"
-flocced, vacuumed to waste.

This was beginning of July, no algae came 'till the very end.
(Oh...did I say that year I found out my sandfilter's lateral assy hose (inside vertical pipe) was cracked? And...did
I say I used (was sold on it when algae kept coming by ESmarte) glass media i/o sand? Did not matter.)
I took notice.

So the last year I:
-Bought the new lateral. (found it cheap)
-Because I did not want any experiments, bought new sand (7 bucks a bag)
- fixed the filter
- shocked the pool (after the winter it is always green, I keep it open, gets green end of April-mid May, when pollen starts),
- raised the pH
- Flocced
- vacuumed to waste.
- restored neutral pH


No algae came this season, period.
The floccing kills the copper (always goes from 5-7ppm to almost zero o 0.5ppm) so I raised it vety little, to maybe 2ppm. Did not have to raise it.
Nothing else was done.
Once every two-three or so weeks I would throw two packs of oxygen shock, just to not take risk with kids. (always did it anyway, never kept algae from coming).

I did not use any chlorine during the season, except as said for initial shock when opening.

My theory: well, I do not have any, but just maybe floccing removed what little suspended stuff I had that algae fed on....dunno.


This year I am selling the house and I did not tend to this pool so you should have seen (wish I took photos) what swamp it was a week ago, the algae forming a mat on the bottom, pieces of it tearing of and floating up, plus the skimmer cracked and the pump motor went. I fixed it, and end of this weekend the water was clear, just had to vacuum a lot and then scrub dry leaves and catkins at waterline. Today in the morning it looked ready to swim, but I pan to do the usual with floccing first. I want it sparking. Funny, I don't even need it, but want it to look nice, although one could expect so much nice from a 30 years old Doughboy AGP.

 

[chem geek]

Yeah, it does sound like the floccing was key -- maybe the other items killed the algae or maybe they didn't, but it does sound like the floc let you physically remove it which is critical with yellow/mustard algae because normal chlorine levels won't prevent it from growing if algae nutrient levels are high. The floccing may also have removed some algae nutrients as well -- sometimes they reduce phosphates depending on the type of floc used (alum floc, for example).

Interesting. Thanks for sharing.

 

[morzh]

Actually this evening I went there to check, and it is probably sparkling or one notch below it (was a lot of sediment again, wasted it, keeps falling out which is good). And so far no floccing has been done. I am not even sure I want to floc time, but I think I need to. I would make an experiment and see if the algae comes back but the thing is, as I no longer live there, it diverts my time and resources, and I get tired of it, and would prefer for it to sparkle in my absence :lol: so I can do other things. Any algae attack is three days operation.