Natures2

[britinusa]

Am I the only one who likes the natures2?
I have seen posts from members who have removed them, We love ours because it makes the water soft and we don't need to use much chlorine (which is good because my wife has sensitive skin and cant take chlorine)
I think im the only member not using the BBB method lol

 

[PoolGuyNJ]

1st, it doesn't reduce the need for chlorine.
2nd, It does inject silver and copper into the water which can stain.
3rd, Silver and copper are slow to kill anything. Chlorine is fast. This is important to prevent person to person transmission should someone be sick, have an infection, etc...
4th, The vast majority of the people with sensitive skin that get rashes of whatever sort are usually sensitive to poor pool chemistry, not the free chlorine. Ask her doctor.

Scott

 

[Lana537]

DH wanted a Nature2 on GP. He bought into the sales theory.

So we had one installed year before last. I was SO tempted even then to just shut off the pump one night and open the thing and remove the cartridge....he'd never know.

This year we did a full pool renovation that was stunningly expensive. I put my foot down and said that no way in heck am I going to risk our all-too-precious new surface for the casual Oh Maybe of having a Nature2. He would not let go of the Nature2.

Thank Neptune that the new pool pad was not big enough to accommodate the old Nature2 stromboli. It is gone. Good riddance.

Oh--nothing makes the water more yummy to be in than some salt and some borates! Ahhhh......

Lana

PS, I have porous, blond hair

 

[JasonLion]

We love ours because it makes the water soft

I've never hear that one before. Nothing Nature2 adds to the water is normally considered something that would make the water feel soft, nor does Nature2 claim that in any of their marketing literature (except for the Nature2 and Salt combo unit, where it is the salt that helps the water feel softer).

PoolGuyNJ is right that nearly everyone who has problems with "chlorine" actually has problems because of improper water chemistry. The majority of these problems are caused by using too little chlorine. CC, which is common when the FC level is kept too low, is both a skin irritant and lung irritant, and is the root cause of the "chlorine" smell common in public pools and nearly all of the "chlorine" sensitivity problems.

 

[chem geek]

If you are only looking at the Free Chlorine (FC) level and thinking you are using a lower chlorine level, you are not looking at the whole picture. The amount of active chlorine (hypochlorous acid) that actually does the real work of sanitizing and oxidizing is not related to the FC alone, but the FC relative to the Cyanuric Acid (CYA) level. I looked through your posts and didn't find any listing all of the water parameters. Do you have a good test kit such as the Taylor K-2006 or the TF-100? The minimum chlorine level in a manually dosed pool recommended on this forum is an FC that is around 7.5% of the CYA level. This has the same amount of active chlorine as a pool with only 0.06 ppm FC and no CYA.

Now it is true that with copper ions in the water preventing algae growth that chlorine doesn't have to do that so the FC/CYA ratio can be even lower, though that does somewhat slow down the killing of pathogens and slows down oxidation of bather waste and organics in the pool water. Copper or silver alone won't kill quickly enough, but it sounds like you do have some chlorine in your pool. The main problem with these metal ions is that they can stain pool surfaces (especially plaster and fiberglass) and can have blond hair get a greenish tint.

I noticed you added a picture of your pool to the slideshow here. Maybe it's just the angle of the camera and the lighting conditions, but it doesn't look clear to me. A pool properly managed with chlorine alone should be crystal clear like mine shown here and here.

 

[Durk]

I had severe problems with the Nature2 system that came free with my new pool in 2004. Pool was only three weeks old when I had to travel for 2 weeks. Cartridge failed while I was gone and all the little metal balls blew out the returns, rolled merrily down the pool bottom, and most got sucked into the main drain and back into the pump trap five feet from where they started. Metal levels went through the roof and I had nice black stains that required acid start-up and much sequestrant to resolve. I took the little balls down to the Pool Store Guy and he knew exactly what they were, because apparently it happens a lot. Anthony-Sylvan did step up and do the stain removal, and THEY said it happens a lot. I never used it again and have since ripped it out.

So if you see any little BB sized blue or metal balls on your pool floor, act fast!! Check your trap.

 

[donaldm823]

I too thought Nature 2 was a great thing only to learn the hard way 2x, that Nature 2 allows algae blooms to creep in when you run FC low as the NAture 2 recommends. You just do not have any chlorine buffer avaialble if-when that algae spike happens and it will as nature calls (like a pollen day!!)/

Getting rid of it was the best thing I ever did-and you save that $100 cartiridge. Going BBB at 3ppm FC said goodbye to all algae. I wonder whay my pool builder (A&S) even install it as a default. And you also eliminaste that metal interference with your CH testing

 

[britinusa]

The pool water was not clear when I took the photo as we had only just begun to open it.
My wife had issues with her skin getting a rash before we had the natures2 then after we got it we started adding less chlorine and the rash stopped.
Im not wanting to get into any arguments with anyone on here, I have found that it has worked for the last 3 years and we have sparkling clear water water all season adding less chlorine than we did before.
I was just interested to know if anyone else uses one.

 

[no-mas]

....Im not wanting to get into any arguments with anyone on here, I have found that it has worked for the last 3 years and we have sparkling clear water water all season adding less chlorine than we did before....

Glad it's working out for you; somebody will always be here to help out if you ever have problems. You've probably come to the wrong place looking for current satisfied users of Nature2, but will likely find more former users.

No one here intends to argue, but always to educate.

 

[jcmac]

I used one for 10 years. We lived and so did the pool and plaster. You have to like some mustard algae. We have a different pool now and just had it re-plastered. Pretty much going liquid chlorine .. hand dose for now supplemented with vacation pucks. We will see if I can hold up to this.

 

[geekgranny]

I used one for 10 years. We lived and so did the pool and plaster. You have to like some mustard algae. We have a different pool now and just had it re-plastered. Pretty much going liquid chlorine .. hand dose for now supplemented with vacation pucks. We will see if I can hold up to this.

I am not by any means advocating use of ionization. I'm a recent convert to BBB method, as of last year after, summer 2009, using ionization for about 20 years and will NEVER go back.

Having said that, as long as the ionizer is adequately sized and there are enough metal ions going into the pool one shouldn't have mustard algae. I used the commercial Nature 2 canisters for years but ran my pump virtually round the clock. I replaced the cartridges 3-4 times a year. FC was never at what it should have been except for a few days after throwing in weekly "shock". Yes, I now know it is a process. :lol: Never had mustard algae. I say canisters because they were especially prone to freeze cracking even with water moving through them, so I had to replace several.

Up until last summer I had been using the Floatron (solar powered) for three years. I kept the "cell" and coils really clean so it produced maximum that it could and it is pretty sunny here year round. No mustard algae.

The only time I had mustard algae was when a friend and I, both, tried the Express. Stopped using that after one summer battling mustard algae and purchased the Floatron. It just wasn't capable of keeping enough ions going into the water.

The major copper staining occurred, when the pool was stagnant over the winter (major leak that couldn't be located) and became a literal frog pond and remained so for months into the next summer, until the frogs matured and escaped. The 2008 acid washing only lightened the copper staining so that it is somewhat bearable to look at. It bothers me the most. But keeping sparkling water does allow one to see the staining better. We went heavy on the acid, during the wash; so much so that I'm surprised the aging plaster held up to the "abuse". The staining is almost entirely limited to below the water line when the pool level was down to the bottom of light niche for the winter and into summer. There are a few streaks above that water line in the deep end where the Floatron spent much of the time.(The leak was where the cord light cord went through the wall. Sure wish I had know about TFP because I wouldn't have had to use >$1000 that summer to keep the water level up.)

It is slowly, very slow lightening but may never totally release. I have to keep sequestrates in the pool all the time to avoid iron staining from our silt/sand/dust that is constantly blown in and silt/sand dragged in by the dogs, so that is helping, a little, to lighten the copper/what ever else stains.

BTW.... the iron is especially attracted to the calcium scaling but the copper adheres better [sic] to plaster so it is hard to release it with acid without damaging the plaster too much.

I really don't like looking at the copper "veil" on my still very nice blue plaster but have no recourse other than a re-plaster which I'm not going to do.

Interesting Fact: I'm natural light blond. When I was growing up all of my friends, who got blond during summer from sun bleaching, would get green tint swimming in some pools, especially the huge public pool. I never got any.

I never got any green tinting all those years using Nature 2 and Floatron but it certainly did a number on my plaster.

gg=alice

 

[geekgranny]

I used one for 10 years. We lived and so did the pool and plaster. You have to like some mustard algae. We have a different pool now and just had it re-plastered. Pretty much going liquid chlorine .. hand dose for now supplemented with vacation pucks. We will see if I can hold up to this.

Welcome to TFP.

 

[geekgranny]

1st, it doesn't reduce the need for chlorine.
2nd, It does inject silver and copper into the water which can stain.
3rd, Silver and copper are slow to kill anything. Chlorine is fast. This is important to prevent person to person transmission should someone be sick, have an infection, etc...
4th, The vast majority of the people with sensitive skin that get rashes of whatever sort are usually sensitive to poor pool chemistry, not the free chlorine. Ask her doctor.

Scott

It's hard to find anyone who has skin more sensitive than mine. I get histamine reactions just by someone holding my arm, for instance, too tightly. Virtually all surgical tapes cause open blisters anywhere on my body after a short time. There are very few products that don't cause me to rash or welt, always with itching. My clothing, towels, bedding have to be rinsed several times, even using sensitive skin detergents/soaps. I've used front load washers, because of better rinsing, all my adult life. (When I travel I carry my own bedding when I can and always pillow cases; carry my own "shamwows" for bathing. BTW... I started using these in the mid 80's, for "everything", before they were well marketed as such and order them by the 100/case; much, much cheaper that way.) If I lay my head on a pillow, used by someone else, I usually get an immediate rash from the personal products they use. If I want to sleep in the buff I have to vacuum the bottom sheet or else I'll itch all night from any particles. Who else keeps a dust buster by their bed? I'm the "Princess and the Pea". I've been that way from birth.

One of the reasons we went to Ionization was because of "we can't handle" the chlorine. DH couldn't handle the smell; I couldn't handle the "itch" and it was bleaching out my show dog coats.

After discovering TFP and reluctantly switching to the BBB method there is no more chlorine smell, I don't itch, and the black dogs (and other colors) show no sign of bleach out even swimming and playing in our blazing Texas sun.

Converted the spa too. Using BBB (bromine) and borax in our spa we no longer have to use spa moisturizer/softener in the spa every time we use it. (We don't use them at all now.) AND all the enzymes and clarifiers needed to keep the spa clear. I can go a couple of months longer between water changes and I can stretch out changing the filter a few days longer than before (We keep four cartridges and use a previously cleaned/soaked one while the "used" one is soaking, always in bleach/water solution and occasional soak in spa filter detergent. We don't bathe prior to using the spa so I change out the cartridges, usually once a week. DH and I spend hours in the spa (water temp no hotter than 100 F.) year round.

There are a multitude of Ionization converts here at TFP all with similar personal experiences. It took me weeks of resistance before I took the plunge, last summer and converted to the BBB method. Our water had never been better all these 24 years of spa and pool ownership.

A very satisfied and non-itchy convert, gg=alice

 

[jcmac]

I used one for 10 years. We lived and so did the pool and plaster. You have to like some mustard algae. We have a different pool now and just had it re-plastered. Pretty much going liquid chlorine .. hand dose for now supplemented with vacation pucks. We will see if I can hold up to this.

Welcome to TFP.

Thanks Alice!