Hello from Barcelona

[Desiato]

Hi Guys

Really finding the site useful, still got a lot to learn but my pool is looking good and I'm now on a mission to get it crystal clear. I've managed to get it looking good without a proper test kit (which I'm still hunting for) and I just posted in another thread about Europe that it's difficult to find suppliers here. I can't for the life of me work out why because you can't throw a stick in the air without it landing in someone else's pool so they must be getting their stuff from somewhere.

I'll leave it at that for now and post any questions in the relevant sections.

Thanks

 

[tim5055]

Welcome to TFP!!

While we recommend testing bsed on Taylor reagents, many have reported that they are difficult to locate in Europe. Here is a post from last August that may help:

For the benefit of anyone in the UK or Europe who's after an FAS-DPD test kit, I thought I'd post an update.

I ordered the LaMotte kit (reference no 7514-01) from Sword Scientific in the UK (www.sword-scientific.com). They were fast, helpful and efficient, and dispatched the kit to my home on France.

I used it for the first time today. It comes with clear instructions and is easy to use. It's pretty easy to decide within one drop or so (0.2 ppm) when the colour disappears. I'm red-green colour-blind, but I had no problem with it. It has sufficient chemicals for up to 50 tests of both FC and TCL.

My regular test regime is with a Scuba+. For comparison I did both this morning. The measurements were taken before I added my daily dose of chlorine. I'm currently running a little low on CYA (26-28 ppm) and so my target FC is about 4ppm. The Scuba+ recorded FC of 2.75 and TCL of 2.95. The LaMotte kit measured FC 2.8 and TCL 3.0. I thought that was quite remarkably close. Either they're both wrong; or they're both pretty accurate at low concentrations.

I'll generally be continuing to rely on the Scuba+ for day-to-day testing, and reserving the LaMotte for SLAM testing at high concentrations.

In summary: Good service from Sword Scientific. Good, simple and apparently reliable results from LaMotte FAS-DPD. If you're in the UK or Europe, you need one.

Here is the entire thread where these companies are talked about and the difficulty in geting information from them.

 

[Desiato]

Thanks for that Tim5055. I've emailed Sword Scientific as I couldn't find any mention of the LaMotte Kit (reference no 7514-01) on their site. I'll update with what they come back with.

 

[Kiss4aFrog]

Welcome to the forum Desiato

 

[Azgirl71]

Welcome!

 

[Desiato]

Got a reply from Tim and a link to a new site with three kits available. http://www.lamotte.com/en/pool-spa/kits-reagents/fas-dpd

I also need to be able to test for CYA, TA, CH & PH so I'm drawn to the 7022-01 Commercial kit but for £92.25 +£15 postage +VAT that's £128.70 or $200 at today's exchange rate. I'm not sure the wife will allow me to spend that much when the pool is already looking very clean.

There's a guy on Ebay selling the Taylor K-2006 for $68.10 + $56.40 postage. This suddenly doesn't look too bad a deal.

Any thoughts on what would be the best kit/bang for your buck? (did I say that right? )

 

[tim5055]

The standard K2006 has very small bottles of reagents. You would really want the K2006-C at least. The other thing to worry about with eBay purchases is the age of the kit/reagents.

 

[cowboycasey]

for the amount of reagents you recieve I would probably save for a couple weeks and go with the 7022-01... I am not exactly sure how many tests you would get out of the taylor kit, hopefully someone else will know for sure..


FAS-DPD Commercial 7 Test Kit (Code 7022-01)

Free Chlorine
1 drop = 0.2/0.5 ppm
100 tests

Bromine
Free Chlorine results x 2.25
100 test

Total Chlorine
1 drop = 0.2/0.5 ppm
100 tests

pH
6.8-8.2
144 tests

Acid Demand
Drop count
70 tests

Base Demand
Drop count
70 tests

Total Alkalinity
1 drop = 10 ppm
70± tests

Calcium Hardness
1 drop = 20 ppm
70± tests

Cyanuric Acid
0-100 ppm
100 tests

 

[Desiato]

Tim & cowboycasey make good points about the size of the bottles and amounts of reagents but the wife's not buying it (literally!) She thinks I'm getting a bit too obsessed with it all. I won't go into detail here as this is not the place but I've I've just ordered some 1 micron filter bags from a guy on Ebay in the UK to make my own SlimeBags and now I want to splash $200 on a cleaning kit she doesn't think I need. I will have to think of ways of softening her up

 

[BoDarville]

Welcome to the forum!

 

[Casey]

Welcome to TFP!