Balancing Issues

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Toxophilite said:
This is typical in failure analysis. Your past experience is causing a bias in your assessment of problem. Step back, think about it. You had a piece of rebar replaced and a patch. You have a device to read chemical levels. Which is really subject to causing water to not change calcium levels? Pools are built every day, new rebar, new plaster, none ever resist CH changes at start up. If anything did result from the new start up after repair, acid wash, etc.... it went to affecting the meters, not the pool, in my book. First stop for me is see what a good test kit says about all this.
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What testing kit would you recommend?
 
AUSpool said:
I’ve been down that path, it can cause even more confusion. I persisted with a ColourQ for a while but when it can time for new reagents and cuvettes I swapped over to a Taylor kit with a speedstir. Initially it seemed like a vast improvement, it couldn’t read FC above 10ppm but I overlooked that since I no longer had to self asses colormetric test results. I realised very early that I must handle the cuvettes very carefully to attain constant results. It seamed to work for a while but I eventually found myself trying to match inconsistent results. LaMott offered to test and recalibrate the device with a package that included new new reagents and cuvettes. They confirmed that it tested total hardness and also suggested that the light source does degrade over time.
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What testing kit do you use and recommend?
 
The XL option is great for newbs who haven't become one with their pool yet, and also those with swamps. Both will be testing more often than normal and may blow through the supplies.
 
+1 on the XL option. The others are not necessary. I bought the pH meter and don't use it. More hassle than it is worth.
 

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I think I made a decision. I'm going with the TF-Pro. I really don't need the salt version as the only difference that I can see is the salt testing reagents. I have a separate hand held salt meter and the Jandy Aqua Link shows a reading of salt as well. Your thoughts?
 
Get the salt version. Again, it is the gold standard. You cannot get more accurate than the salt drop test with smart stir. I wouldn't trust the salt meter, and you need to calibrate it.

Helped lots of folks drain their pools because they put too much salt in based on testing other than the drop kit.

The salt cells are notoriously wrong too. They are only good to tell you what they think they are at, and when they will generate. Lots of examples where cells are 500+ off.
 
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The SWG salt reading is really a conductivity reading and not the true salt reading.
The salt meter may or may not be accurate.

I'd get the TF-Pro Salt and have an accurate slat test from the beginning.

And even with a new fill, test the salt level before adding any salt. There could be some salt content in the fill water or residual left in the pool after the drain.
 
daigleaj said:
Your thoughts?
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The meter and SWG use conductivity to report salinity. Any metals in the water such as calcium and also the temperature will alter the conductivity and the reading.

The chemical based test is more accurate, and if you dose wrong from the not so accurate tests, then you have to drain.

It's $20 more and will last for 2 seasons, coming in handy several times.
 
daigleaj said:
What testing kit do you use and recommend?
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I use the Taylor K2006 with the speedstir and top it up with reagents from a local company. I believe the TF-100 is better value but we can’t get that in Australia. Similarly the K2006c is better value but when Ifactored in shipping and the need for top up reagents I decided to import the standard kit.

I think your discrepancy in testing and the repair are unrelated. You could have gone on for a lot longer without noticing slight changes in test error, it happens so slow you don’t notice and in reality your pool probably didn’t slip to far away from normal range, if at all. Balancing new water is more likely to be why you‘ve noticed decrepncy in testing.

Photometric testing is quite common in labs but they use very expensive equipment that are constantly checked for accuracy and maintained accordingly. Colormetric test devises and the drop test kits both start with a chemical assessment where for most of the drop tests the test ends there, at the end of a tritation. The colormetric testers can’t use titration tests and instead must use a chemical colormetric test and then apply the secondary optical evaluation and sometimes in the case of TH->CH they apply a best guess conversion factor. The colormetric testers add extra layers of potential error, solution density or color variation, cuvette light absorption, light source intensity changes etc.
 
daigleaj said:
I think I made a decision. I'm going with the TF-Pro. I really don't need the salt version as the only difference that I can see is the salt testing reagents. I have a separate hand held salt meter and the Jandy Aqua Link shows a reading of salt as well. Your thoughts?
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Good choice on the TF-Pro.

I imported a K1766, the Taylor salt kit and used it for a while to check the accuracy of my hand held salt meter. A half decent calibrated handheld salt meter will hold its calibration quite well. If your meter uses a little screw to calibrate, disregard what I just said and toss it in the trash. But as mentioned the handheld meters are not as accurate as the drop test even though the resolution is not that great for the drop test. Read the meter to the nearest 100ppm. I use it at every test for salt and temperature. They are not as precise as the salt drop test but are good to detect changes over time, particularly in areas that get a lot of rainfall. Because I don’t test CyA or CH every time if I notice a sudden drop the in salt level due to heavy rain I will test and correct both CyA and CH.
 
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