Is Hyclor 4 in 1 test kit rebranded Taylor kit?

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I don't think they are exactly the same, but certainly similar. On the HyChlor website, they list replacement DPD tablets Made in Germany. I'm not sure whether the kit is tablet or drop based for the DPD, but Taylor stuff is made in the USA according to their SDSes. There are a variety of 4-in-1 kits on the Australian market. I have Blue Devil kit that I inherited with the house, and it seems to be very similar (or a rebrand) with Aussie Gold kits that other on here have posted about. I like the pH comparator on my Blue Devil over the CCL one, but I generally use a pH meter for my measurements with the occasional phenol red test for a sanity check if my meter needs recalibrating.

They don't have a FAS-DPD test, so I find it pretty useless for chlorine at my levels of CYA (colour is starting to max out). TA is pretty robust for me, although it uses a different indicator. I use Pool Math these days for acid demand. I wouldn't buy one if I already had the CCL kit.
 
It appears different to the Aussie gold and blue devil kits. The box and vials look like Taylor kit, plus it’s twice the price of Aussie gold.

The Taylor kit I’m referring to isn’t fas-DPD either. Seems To be the simpler pink DPD colour scale test.

What ph meter do you use?

Also, how do you get reliable phenol red measurements if you’re running a high FC?

This is the problem I’m encountering. I’m turning up the FC, which throws out plain phenol red (Eg Aussie gold), and I’m wondering what other good red indicators are on the Aussie market (aside from CCL).
 
Yeah, the comparators in the Taylor and the Hy-Chlor look the same. The Blue Devil and the Aussie Gold are different, but similar to each other. In the Blue Devil, the DPD comes as a tablet in foil. You pop it in the sample and shake to dissolve and then compare the pink colour.

I just use a cheap $20 eBay pH meter. I wouldn't recommend it for newbies. I know my pool well enough now to know when the reading is looking a bit off and it's time to recalibrate. When time comes to buy a new one, I will go with an Apera PH20 or splurge on an Apera PH60.

The phenol red test should be good up to FC of 10 ppm if read straight away. In time, the chlorine reacts with the phenol red to produce a purple coloured compound. With my Blue Devil kit, you add chlorine neutraliser first, something the Taylor/CCL kit does not require. I don't know the limitations of the neutralising agent. I have read that it can affect the pH at high FC.
 
I just did some experiments with Aussie gold phenol red. Chlorine makes it read higher. Tap water was reading around 7.6. Adding FC increased the pH reading. Eg FC 1 caused pH to read 7.8+. Adding chlorine neutraliser first made it read even higher, reading 8+ instead.

Not sure how it’s supposed to counteract the confounding effect of chlorine when it does that?
 
I have the HyClor 4in1 guess kit. Mine is re-stickered as AstralPool that came with the handover kit. It is a cheap knockoff of the Taylor. Different bottles, reagents and test vial. The comparator looks similar but it is back to front with the pH on the left. The test vial has volume marks that are cast into the plastic at the manufacture stage which is better that a sticker and it is as accurate as the Taylor at 10mls. Using a 10ml pipette both Taylor and HyClor filled the their 10ml marks.

If it hadn’t come with the pool I wouldn’t rush out to buy it just for the sample vial.
 
Aussiepool,

What are the hyclor indicators like? I read their instructions online and it uses the green/red TA indicator (unlike the Aussie gold and blue devil which use generic blue/yellow indicator). It also doesn’t add chlorine neutraliser prior to the Ph test, which made me wonder if it’s using a decent reagent with built in chlorine neutraliser..
 
At a guess I would say the hyclor indicators are not as good as the Taylor or CCL indicators. The HyClor TA indicator has a purple to yellow transition. I didn’t like it and am happy to stick with my Taylor 2006 topped up with CCL reagents as needed. At some point, next season maybe, I will bring in another K2006 kit.

Interesting about the AG using a drop of chlorine neutraliser before the pH indicator. They never used to. I suspect the HyClor pH indicator is just your standard phenol red indicator.
 
AUSpool said:
Interesting about the AG using a drop of chlorine neutraliser before the pH indicator. They never used to.
Click to expand...


How long ago did AG not call for chorine neutraliser in the ph test?

I have an Aussie gold kit a few years old which call for it. It’s is like this (you can see the instructions)


It’s very interesting that some kits call for chlorine neutraliser in the ph test and some don’t. The chlorine neutraliser seems to mess up my ph readings of chlorinated water, so not sure what’s the right answer with plain phenol red.
 
Not sure and I’m not sure it would add anything useful.

Just for the heck of it I ran the HyClor and Taylor pH and TA tests this morning. The Hyclor reads 30ppm higher than the Taylor for TA and 4 points higher for the pH. The Hyclor results are a first track to the pH, acid, TA, bycarb round-a-bout. And thats why TFP doesn’t recommend any of the sub standard test kits. The Hyclor kit will be out to the trash.
 

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My FC is at 6ppm and the HyClor kit said my pH is 8.2. My Taylor says my FC is at 6ppm and pH at 7.8. It’s a slippery slope trying to compare test kit and pool shop results. I’ve been there and it does your head in.

I have new water with one or two top ups, one overflow from rain and a few acid additions, my TA just couldn’t be up at 130ppm. With a suspect TA value I don’t have much confidence with the pH value. The HyClor kit does not test for CH or CYA.
 
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Yeah, my Aussie gold phenol red starts to go haywire at higher FC levels too.

One other thing I’m wondering - will high FC stabilised (say 6ppm) affect the pH tests the same as 6ppm non stabilised? I tried the Aussie gold phenol red with ph 7.6 tap water with 3ppm FC added and the pH test shot to pink. My pool water however is 9ppm (cYa around 40ppm) and doesn’t go crazy pink like that (unless I add the chlorine stabilizer - which is another story I guess)

So I’m wondering if it’s only the non-bound FC not the total FC that messes up the phenol red test? Looking at chemgeek chart there is over ten times the HOCl at FC 3 CYA 0 than there is at FC 9 CYA 40.
 
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Oh I see. So you’re saying the strong pink I see in the pH test after adding bleach to tap water may be genuinely high pH? I checked on poolmath the effect of adding bleach (3ppm) and it doesn’t seem to mention pH rise?

How do you quantify the pH effect?
 
According to random SDS I found online, pH of 12.5% liquid pool chlorine is 12-13. It will have some influence. I'm too tired to do the maths to see whether it is significant on the scale you are adding. Way to check would be to do the same experiments measuring with a pH meter and with indicator. A pH meter should be unaffected by FC.
 
I have just bought this kit also, normally I use the clear choice kit but it’s out of date and just grabbed the hi clor 4 in 1, I’m having trouble with the acid demand test, I don’t get what they mean by add drops until desired ph is achieved, it says to use the same sample as the ph test, my ph is 7.6, and when I add drops it just drops the ph, is there a desired ph to drop to? :confused::confused::confused::confused:
 
Hi! I have a magnor 4/1 kit which was supplied by Hayward and a CCL kit I now use exclusively. I used to like the magnor TA test because it would measure increments of 10ppm.

The CCL ph and my pH probe both agree with each other, even at a chlorine level of 16ppm. I've never tried the magnor kit at chlorine above 5, if I can remember the next time my chlorine rockets, I will give it a try though.

Edit. Checking my old notes, I actually have measured pH when chlorine has gone as high as 9 with the magnor kit and it seemed correct. The magnor pH test uses a separate chlorine neutralizer, and both the TA and PH test reagents give the same colour changes as the CCL test kit so they are probably the same reagents. I guess the magnor kit is probably a good quality kit as far as 4in1s go.
 
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