Heckpools said:i understand that... I wasn't trying to sell anyone a nature 2 just giving my experience with them. You say that 1ppm wasn't enough with that cya level, then how come all the pools were fine? year after year? Im a firm believer on trial and error, not what you can "read" in a book.. Most of these nature 2 pools that i serviced is going back a few years while i was employed for another company.. every single pool followed the same protocol, and every pool looked the same. Crystal clear, soft silky water, no staining, no GREEN DOGSpoor fella lol.. no algae.. just a beautiful looking pool! Im all about saving $$. Is a nature 2 NEEDED? noway.. I just personally like them, and so do my customers that use it...
example.. Ive read many times that baquacil is great! " ive used it 30 years with no problems" well... I wouldnt use it if it was free! lol.. Ive never walked into a backyard and saw a crystal clear, beautiful baquacil pool.. doesnt mean they dont exsist.. i just havent found one.
To each his own!
Just to elaborate a little...when I used the ionizer, my water was 98% of the time clear. I never had a true greenie "outbreak". A couple times when I opened I had cloudy water, twice I had a pink/purple slime on the walls upon opening. When these instances occurred, I would shock the pool and take care of it. About year 2 or 3 I developed an organic stain at the bottom of the pool, and it began to spread all over the floor. Brushing didn't help, and I was told it was Black Algae by a pool store worker who viewed a photo that I showed him. I would treat it for BA, using their recommended product & shock product, and it would fade at shock level, only to return when the FC dropped back down to the recommended 1ppm. So even though I was routinely shocking (which MPS, Cal-Hypo AND Dichlor), my everyday FC was not high enough to prevent the organic staining.
Why your N2 pools haven't had apparent issues? I would guess it's the weekly shocking, which takes care of potential problems as they develop. The copper does work to inhibit algae. The issue remains virus and sanitary one, as the N2 doesn't kill these things quickly enough. Richard explains this very well. If you can maintain the copper levels low enough, some may be lucky to prevent the side effects of high copper.
For whatever reason, our copper level began to rise (perhaps the supplemental use of algaecide products at winterizing per the pool store) and we began to see the green hair and staining show up. The high copper level did nothing to prevent the organic stain from spreading.
On several occassions our unit malfunctioned, leading to other problems. I'm not saying the ionizer didn't do what it is made to do, but for me it simply wasn't worth the added expense. Now that I understand how they work (which NO pool store employees could explain, btw) and that just maintaining a proper FC level would prevent the issues I was experiencing, I switched to BBB. Within weeks the organic staining dissappeared.
I had to do numerous partial drains to deal with the too high CYA that came from the trichlor 'bacpacs' in the Frog. Eventually my numbers stabilized, the green hair problems were over and I now spend less than $75 a year maintaining my pool, which is less than I used to spend on JUST one annual mineral cartridge for the Frog. Throw in the shock bags, trichlor bac pacs, ph up, etc. etc etc and I was spending over $500 a summer on the pool. I don't miss it at all, and my pool is much easier to maintain than it EVER was with the frog.
