Australia - CCL Test Kit

[jgb75]

With your CCL test kit have you noticed whether your fill lines are accurate or not? Cl test line is meant to be 10ml. Mine is 11.5. I use the speed stir vile for some of my tests and I noticed the discrepancy. Other viles are off slightly too. I might check my new Cl test kit vile that I ordered for my SLAM.

Hello, our pool build in Melbourne just finished as well so have been using the CCL kit and speed stir for about a week. Also noticed that the test lines are way off on the test tubes, this must impact the accuracy somewhat. They have a blog post saying the exact volume is important Reagent Lines and the Curvy Meniscus Clear Choice Labs.

I'm also having a lot of trouble with the CYA test. Practising with the 50ppm sample solution gives me 100ppm, tried indoors, outdoors, sunshine, shade, artificial light it always reads too high. Same with the pool water reads much higher than it should based on putting the start up kit the builder used into pool math. Maybe I'll get the Taylor kit from the US, at least for CYA testing.

 

[Jezza]

Welcome to TFP.

I haven't used the CCL test kit before, however, working from the assumption that the product is the same as the Taylor CYA reagent, as per CCL's compatibility chart you could try the following.

Ideally if you use a syringe (something like you might find in baby panadol), measure 7mls of pool water into the mixing container and then 7mls of the reagent. Mix well for 30 seconds, then pour into the tube with the black dot.

I'm a bit of a traditionalist in terms of performing this test outdoors in full sunlight, back to the sun at waist height. Glance in the tube when you think the dot has disappeared, as opposed to staring for it. Remember you can repour the solution back into the pouring bottle and repeat the test as many times as you want to see if you can come up with a more consistent number or average out your various readings.

Sometimes, I think people overthink this test, despite its difficulty, so go with the view that if you follow the procedure as outlined above then make your CYA number as you see it, always round up to the nearest '10'. Put it this way it is more than likely going to be more accurate than the pool store.

Other than that I would try contacting CCL to let them know of your concerns. They have been great on customer service according to users of TFP.

Good luck.

 

[Texas Splash]

Welcome to the forum! Here is my little go-to training aid:

CYA Testing:
Proper lighting is critical for the CYA test, so you want to test for CYA outside on a bright sunny day. Use the mixing bottle to gently mix the required amounts of pool water and R-0013 reagent, let sit for 30 seconds, then gently mix again. Recommend standing outside with your back to the sun and the view tube in the shade of your body at waist level. Then, begin squirting the mixed solution into the skinny tube. Watch the black dot until it completely disappears. Once it disappears, record the CYA reading. To help the eyes and prevent staring at the dot, some people find it better to pour & view in stages. Pour some solution into the viewing tube, look away, then look back again for the dot. Repeat as necessary until you feel the dot is gone. After the first CYA test, you can pour the mixed solution from the skinny view tube back to the mixing bottle, gently shake, and do the same test a second, third, or fourth time to instill consistency in your technique, become more comfortable with the testing, and validate your own CYA reading.

 

[riley00dog]

Hi! Funny you should post this. I just mentioned the same thing in my thread last night. I noticed that my 10ml line is actually 11.5ml. I’m not sure yet what sort of impact this has on accuracy. I typically pour into the speed stir vile to test. With ph I just tip it back into the ccl vile for colour comparison. I find the magnet doesn’t spin well in the ccl viles as they’re a little too narrow. I am more comfortable with the CYA test now. Just keep practicing. You can tip back and forth over and over. I do think since the lines are so close together it’s hard to pour such a small amount. A dropper would be good and they do provide them with the ccl kit. I just haven’t used them yet. Overall I really like the kit now I’ve played with it for a couple of weeks. I also like the free pen lol.

 

[jgb75]

Ha ha free pen and free blue gloves. Same here, just using the speed stir tube now for all the spin tests.

At least with my CYA its a fresh fill and I know the pool builder put in 2kg of stabiliser and 0.5kg of dichlor, so should be 100ppm for now. I'll work with that until I get the test to behave. Hopefully it dilutes down to 80ppm with backwashing before summer.

 

[riley00dog]

Ha ha free pen and free blue gloves. Same here, just using the speed stir tube now for all the spin tests.

At least with my CYA its a fresh fill and I know the pool builder put in 2kg of stabiliser and 0.5kg of dichlor, so should be 100ppm for now. I'll work with that until I get the test to behave. Hopefully it dilutes down to 80ppm with backwashing before summer.

Must be an Australian pb thing. They dosed mine up to 80ppm (pool handover guy read it at 90 so I did go with that until I recently retested and got 80 again). There’s a bit of time for it to drop down a little before summer for us both. I would be happy with 70 even. How much salt did your pb put in? We were overdosed with that too but after calling Astral it seems it’s not a problem. Happy with the speed stir vile too. Might order another vile and magnet... have almost tipped it down the sink a couple of times already!

 

[riley00dog]

Just checked out your signature and your pool and equipment are very similar to mine. Our pool is about 25,000 litres. CA300 filter, EQ35 SWG, Viron vs pump (can’t recall which one). You should post a pic and a brief build history. Our pool has had water in for about 3 weeks now. Slowly getting the hang of things. Thank goodness it’s winter and plenty of time to figure things out. I’m sure this chlorinator will make life easy eventually but it has caused me nothing but problems so far. After spending many months here I think I would be more comfortable with a bottle acid and a bottle of chlorine!

 

[jgb75]

Our builder lined up 9x 20kg bags of salt but not sure if they added it all as my CCL test is showing 6600ppm, seems a bit high maybe they are expecting a lot of rain lol.

Ours is fully tiled so has been an easy process for us as no plaster to take care of. We seem to be using up hardly any chlorine at the moment so SWG and auto acid dosing is turned off, still sitting at 13ppm chlorine from their startup kit added a week ago and PH steady at 7.4.

Here is a quick pic, build took 2.5 months and now we need to do some landscaping around the sides.

 

[riley00dog]

Oh wow! Love your pool and the fact that it’s fully tiled [emoji7] If you weren’t in a different state I might think that we had the same pb... ours also lined up 9 bags of salt on the side of the pool, sliced them open and in they went [emoji15] All happened so quickly I didn’t have time to wonder how much should have gone in. I’m reading 6400ppm of salt and the pool company guy who did handover read 6,700ppm on his fancy spin machine. This is ok according to Astral when I called although they did wonder why on earth so much was added. Constantly pushing my ph down atm. Typically dosing about 300ml of acid (accounting for dilution) a day through the chlorinator. The auto ph dosing doesn’t make a dent currently. Hoping once it settles I won’t need to do this. Also my TA is pretty high so once that lowers a bit it should also stop it climbing so quickly. You would think with all this acid it would have dropped a bit by now but still sitting at 140.

Good to see another Aussie here with a pool a similar age to mine. Your pool will be really easy to care for with the tiled interior.

 

[Costas > DownUnder]

Welcome to TFP....

Another Aussie joining the ranks I see. BTW sweet looking pool...

I'm also having a lot of trouble with the CYA test. Practising with the 50ppm sample solution gives me 100ppm, tried indoors, outdoors, sunshine, shade, artificial light it always reads too high.

I was liaising via email with Brett from CCL about this the other day as I have experienced similar recently.

He is sending me another standard to check my existing sample.

I'll let you know how it goes when I receive it and test the CYA of the new standard.

 

[Costas > DownUnder]

I'll let you know how it goes when I receive it and test the CYA of the new standard.

Well the replacement standard arrived in the mail this afternoon... Thanks to Brett over at Clear Choice Labs...

I proceeded to use the replacement standard and mixed up a batch to test - Sure enough it became immediately clear that my original standard was not quite correct and had gone off.

With the replacement standard I could hit 50ppm on the measuring tube with ease under bright indoor lighting.


So jgb75 - you should contact Brett over at Clear Choice Labs and he will look after you.

It would be interesting to see if my batch number is the same as your standard....!

 

[riley00dog]

Do you have a batch number? I should check mine. Haven’t tested my standard... I probably should.

 

[riley00dog]

Just tested my standard and there is something very off about it. Black test tube picture was gone before I even hit 100. These are my batch details.

 

[Costas > DownUnder]

Funny that - Mine is the same...

Same symptoms - You pour in to the 100ppm mark but the logo is completely obscured.

 

[riley00dog]

Snap! Same batch. Will call Brett next week.

 

[jgb75]

Yes mines the same batch as well, thanks for researching that.

To be honest I'm also concerned about the validity of the CCL viewing tube with it's stuck on label. For instance the water/reagent mix is supposed to be 10ml, but if you add 10ml to the viewing tube it comes up about 7mm short of the 30ppm mark. That looks to me like the label is stuck on too high and when you get to the higher ppm levels 7mm is the difference between 80 and 100. So that's 20ppm of inaccuracy from the graduations before you even start.

I'm going to order the Taylor viewing tube with the engraved graduations as a spare part, which should be cheaper than getting the full Taylor kit. Will also get the Taylor R-0013 bulk size CYA reagent and just mix up the samples accurately with a kids Panadol measuring syringe.

Sounds like overkill, but knowing CYA at least reasonably accurately seems to me to be key to the whole TFP methodology.

Overall I'm very happy with the CCL test kit, just not so sure about those stick-on graduation labels.

 

[needsajet]

Welcome to TFP! Good to have you here Sweet looking pool!

I would treat it as a plaster pool because the grout is cementitious, and it's not much extra effort to keep the water balanced for plaster. Your call of course and it sounds like you have a good handle on it all. Thanks for adding your experience with testing.

 

[jgb75]

Thanks!! Good point on the tile grout, will definitely be aiming for a CSI between -0.6 and 0.6 in pool maths.

 

[Costas > DownUnder]

To be honest I'm also concerned about the validity of the CCL viewing tube with it's stuck on label.

Mention this to Brett over at CCL and see what he says as to whether accuracy is affected too much.


Do note that many of the tests that we carry out are not 0.0001% accurate anyway as even the drop size that gets squeezed out of the bottles can vary somewhat.

 

[BrettClearChoiceLabs]

Hi everyone sorry about not writing to this thread earlier, I've been under the weather and making less sense than usual
I agree with all the thoughts about the CYA tests in this thread. CYA tests have been a royal pain in my posterior trying to weed out the inconsistencies. I've got them all solved and here's where we are at.

Reagent - check! We've tried two recipes, and a couple suppliers but I finally have a locally sourced reagent that is consistent and affordable.
Standard - check! The standards we make were having some weird interaction over time, and dumping their levels so you'd either see 100+ppm, or 0ppm. I've finally worked out the issue and testing shows it's now stable.
No more hand labels - check! The labels are hand applied using a special tool I made for last years batch and were susceptible to minor creep, but we're getting printed label rolls and we have a factory grade bottle labeller.

The labels not being in the exact right spot is an issue for people, part of our push to move to better labelling. We unofficially aim for our tests to be within +/-10ppm. So for me personally, if the standard reads between 40 and 60, but more on the 50 side of those marks, I'm happy. If it reads 60, or over 60 etc I remake it. The problem is the subjectivity of the test, which Taylor also acknowledges. I test our standards using our own gear, and other companies tubes/reagents and the 50ppm standard always lands between 45-55 for me across tests and companies. That's generally acceptable for CYA. Obviously for drop tests standards I'm more exact :lol:

In the meantime with the labels being aligned by hand, what we recommend is using the included pipettes to mix another 1ml of pool sample and 1ml of CYA reagent into the mixing tube, and then that'll bring it up to the right level. It's a 1:1 ratio so however you like to mix it, do it that way. If you buy the Taylor CYA reagent and tube, our reagents should work with those as well. That way if you buy a Total kit from us you're not forced to waste the CYA you can just use it in your Taylor tube. I have to say "should" because I don't know Taylors chemical make up but they're a 1:1 and it works for me when I use it.