Disappointed

[wmarq]

Purchased new reagents from @TFTestkits , started using them today. Came up with 4ppm difference on free chlorine so wow. Couldn't believe that I gained that much in one day so I retested again same result. Decided after looking at the drops that they seemed smaller than the other bottle so I poured new reagent in old bottle and got 4ppm less than originally tested. Ive been following this sight this summer and I know to wipe the tip between drops and squeeze a little air out to try to make the drops uniform and I did all that. These two droppers just put out different drops and that s really all there is to it. I realize nothing is exactly perfect but I shouldn't be getting this large a difference from another dropper and the worst part is that I do not know which dropper is giving me the correct reading if at all. If I can get this large a margin of error with a new bottle then I almost have to assume that the rest of the kit is suspect as well. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to be down on the kit, I have taken care of my pool for the first time this summer according to methods and advice that I received here and my water looks great, . but is my CSI correct? maybe my swg keeps spitting out flakes because my test results are actually off by 30% due to drop size from bad dropper tips ? How can I trust a chlorine test that off by %50 just because I purchased new reagents. Very disappointed this morning . Picture has old one on the left (came with kit) new one on the right

 

[ajw22]

@Sarah and Nate should respond to you soon.

You are not the first to report this problem.

I suggest you contact them directly at…

EMAIL: [email protected]

PHONE: ‪(919) 283-6035
Feel free to call or text this number.

 

[Sarah and Nate]

As I’ve (or others) said in the other threads, there’s nothing wrong with the tips or the reagent. Unseating and reseating the tip usually fixes the issue but I’m happy to send a new bottle.

As always the best way to receive support for TFtestkits products is to email me at [email protected].

 

[Mdragger88]

I understand your frustration with getting wonky results from your new reagent but Your fc result doesn’t affect your csi calculation-
However, your cya does & you haven’t tested/logged that in over a month.
a loss of cya from 70 to 60ppm would put you in the positive csi position of .02
If this is an ongoing issue with the flakes you can also try adding borates.

Borates in pool - Further Reading

www.troublefreepool.com

 

[wmarq]

I understand your frustration with getting wonky results from your new reagent but Your fc result doesn’t affect your csi calculation-
However, your cya does & you haven’t tested/logged that in over a month.
a loss of cya from 70 to 60ppm would put you in the positive csi position of .02
If this is an ongoing issue with the flakes you can also try adding borates.

Borates in pool - Further Reading

www.troublefreepool.com

thanks for responding and I agree you, but I also know that Alkalinity and calcium do affect it and I really need to have confidence in my testing which I did until this morning (hence the title of the thread) I mean are the other test drops off by the same 50%?
I made a project this summer out of this pool/testing/advice on here and you can see that I keep a pretty close eye on it from my testing. I wasn't comfortable with my ability to to get the ph call right so I purchased that digital tester so that I could have something else to compare my ph (guesses) with and it helped me greatly. I do the ph drop test, call the ph in my head , then take the digital and see what it says and it's darn close to my call every time now. I just mentioned that so that you can see that im pretty serious about trying to get this right because of the problems that I have had in prior years from just not "knowing". I want it to be right and I expect a margin of error but I don't need a 50% error on an alkalinity test and do I have that ? idk. In the beginning I was taking tests to Leslies to compare and I quit going as I was getting consistent results with my testing and confident with what I was doing, they were always different than my tests but now , how many of my tips are not "right"?

Like the title said disappointing, confidence killer

 

[Sarah and Nate]

I absolutely understand your point but again, the problem is not with the tips. The problem is with the new bottle shape. In your photo, your old bottle is a Boston round bottle with rounded shoulders. The newer, sometimes problematic bottles are cylinder bottles with square shoulders. I don't fully understand why the drop size issue is occurring with the cylinder bottles - and as the face of the company that's painful for me to say - but it is fixable and there's no reason to doubt your other bottles. It's some kind of vacuum being created, even though the opening the tip sits in is an industry-standard 20mm neck just like the Boston round bottle.

Remove the tip, wipe it off thoroughly with a paper towel, gently reseat it, and that should break the vacuum and restore the drop sizes to normal. Instead of falling 4-5 per second, the drops should fall around 1 per second, and they should be visibly bigger.

 

[TinFoilHat]

I would say just put the reagent into your old bottle. That you probably threw away last week.....

 

[wmarq]

I would say just put the reagent into your old bottle. That you probably threw away last week.....

still got it , think I am gonna try resetting it like he suggested first and then I will just put it in the old bottle as last resort

 

[wmarq]

Remove the tip, wipe it off thoroughly with a paper towel, gently reseat it, and that should break the vacuum and restore the drop sizes to normal. Instead of falling 4-5 per second, the drops should fall around 1 per second, and they should be visibly bigger.

this worked ! thanks again