calcium level

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tonyj

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Aug 8, 2015
18
Sebastian, FL
I have a new spa for about a month with the in line spa frog system. I have went crazy trying to get this correct. Finally after 4 weeks and the bromine cart is still full I realize I have no water flow through the frog. I took cap and carts out and turned pump on. Nothing. Finally took inlet hose off and turned pump on. Had flow. Hooked everything back up and now I have flow through frog, must been air locked.. So back to my question. After a complete drain and refill. I had a calcuim level at 100. I was going to set it to 200. Calculator said 4.6 ounces of calcium. For 310 gallons.
Now I cannot get a red tint when checking calcium. Taylor 2005 kit. I can check tap water and it's about 100. I'm taking a sample to store today. Any ideas? Thanks tony
 
Have to say I've never seen that before. Is the reagent bottle for the R-0011L stained a blue color? The extended test kit directions state that this could be an indication the reagent dye has gone bad. Did you purchase the test kit with the spa or elsewhere?
 
Yea it should turn red. With hardness present. It works with tap water. I bought the kit from our local pool store. I tried the 10ml and the 25 ml. Water setting reducing the drops as necessary. Thanks tony. I'll post back when I have store results.

Yes the reagent was blue. And I'm using a magnetic stirring.
 
Try adding 5 drops of the R-0012 hardness reagent first before adding the R-0010 buffer or R-0011L indicator. Just make sure to include the first drops in your total drop count.


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I tried both adding 5 drops of 12 first. Still nothing. Used new reagents. Still same result. I'm wondering if the mineral system is messing with the test. Cause tap water works fine. The spa water when I put 10 and 11 may have a very slight pink. Almost indecteable. any more ideas? Thanks tony
 

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What is your current sanitizer level? Have you used any shocks, chlorine or MPS (non-chlorine shock)?


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Right now my bromine is at 5 ppm. I started over with fresh water and bromine bank. Shocked it with 1/2 cup clorine. The spa frog is mineral is set to 6 and the bromine is set to 4 currently.

- - - Updated - - -

Just checked tap water 100 ppm. Bright red.
 
Hmmmm....the bromine should not interfere with the CH indicator dye. The mineral cartridge, as far as the MSDS reports, is nothing more than calcium carbonate and silver chloride. If the silver ions interfere, they would just cause the titrant count to be off by interacting with the EDTA but EDTA is not a very good chelant for monovalent silver (Ag+).

It seems like your indicator dye is getting bleached by something. If you add more drops of indicator, does any color form?


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It's ok to use more indicator dye, it does not affect the results.

So it seems that something is oxidizing the indicator dye. Try a few more drops to see if you can get a deeper red color.


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If there's excess chlorine present, you can try a drop of the R-0007 thiosulfate dechlorinator from the TA test to see if that affects it.


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Ok added more dye till it turned red. which is over double what the instructions call for.. it did also turn blue with a result of 200 after I added some based on the pool store calculations. ill call taylor tomorrow and update.. thanks for the help.. I appreciate it very much.. tony
 
tonyj said:
Ok added more dye till it turned red. which is over double what the instructions call for.. it did also turn blue with a result of 200 after I added some based on the pool store calculations. ill call taylor tomorrow and update.. thanks for the help.. I appreciate it very much.. tony
Click to expand...

I wish I had a better answer for you but I did find this paper online which seems to indicate that the EBT indicator dye (Eriochrome Black T) acts as a reducing agent to monovalent silver ions. So the silver ions are reduced to silver metal and the EBT is likely oxidized in the process. This could inactivate the indicator dye. The EBT dye works by reacting with the calcium ions in your water samples and turns red. Then the titrant is added which is EDTA and is a stronger chelating agent. As the EDTA pulls calcium ions away from the EBT, the solution changes color from red to blue. The R-0010 calcium buffer is just sodium hydroxide which reacts with Mg ions (and some other metals) to precipitate them out so that they can not interfere with the Ca-EBT reaction.

I'll stay subscribed to this thread so that I can hear about your response form Taylor. They may have a work-around for the problem if it is an issue with silver ions.
 
Ok talked to taylor, they said it is interference with the metals in the water from the mineral system. Which means it is working. We talked about everything I have done. He really didn't want to use more 11 L. He said if I knew about the hardness level to add more 12 like 2 or 3 drops less first. So if it's app 100 ppm to add 8 drops to start of 12. I told him I have added 5 with no affect. He really had no other solution just a by product of using the mineral system. Thanks for all the replies and helping me try to figure this out. Have a blessed day. Tony
 
Thank you for running that down with Taylor. Good to know for future reference.


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