Taylor Borate Test Strip Problem

[Sarah and Nate]

I’ve seen way too many reports of problems with the Taylor borate strip to want to try them. It’s unfortunate since it’s been getting more difficult to find the Lamotte borate strips at a reasonable price.

Since this thread was posted, Taylor has redesigned their borate test strips. I'm not sure exactly what that entails but they discontinued the S-1342 borate strips and came out with a new S-1405 borate strips in a different bottle. For whatever it's worth, I haven't seen any complaints about their S-1405 strips yet.

 

[Saturn94]

Since this thread was posted, Taylor has redesigned their borate test strips. I'm not sure exactly what that entails but they discontinued the S-1342 borate strips and came out with a new S-1405 borate strips in a different bottle. For whatever it's worth, I haven't seen any complaints about their S-1405 strips yet.

Thanks for the updated info.

Let’s hope they solved their previous issues.

Btw, you might want to update your website to reflect this. As it is now, it appears to still be the old one.

 

[masscc]

I had to get a couple extra reagents but I used the manitol test described by @JoyfulNoise with great success back when I was having pH issues.

Here's a link to the test procedure details.

I hope this he

Yep! That's exactly the drop test I was talking about. I got the extra BTB and mannitol (actually a sugar substitute, so if I don't use it for the tests, I can use it in my tea!) and the test is fairly easy. A little bit of learning what the straw yellow color is and the transition to blue, but after doing it a couple times, I have 1000 times more confidence in it than strips. I calculated my borates add, and after the addition, the drop test agrees within 1 drop (=4ppm) of the calculated add target (was targeting , 50ppm and used 12 drops to color change back to ~same color blue) and that's within the guesstimate error of my pool gallons, (I guess)! But that is good enough for me at this time. As I said, my main concern initially was that there actually weren't any borates in the pool to start with, contrary to the test strip results. Even if it is +/- one drop, that is +/-4ppm, after the boric acid add, I am at least somewhere between 44 and 52ppm borates, so... sounds good enough to me!

 

[setsailsoon]

Yep! That's exactly the drop test I was talking about. I got the extra BTB and mannitol (actually a sugar substitute, so if I don't use it for the tests, I can use it in my tea!) and the test is fairly easy. A little bit of learning what the straw yellow color is and the transition to blue, but after doing it a couple times, I have 1000 times more confidence in it than strips. I calculated my borates add, and after the addition, the drop test agrees within 1 drop (=4ppm) of the calculated add target (was targeting , 50ppm and used 12 drops to color change back to ~same color blue) and that's within the guesstimate error of my pool gallons, (I guess)! But that is good enough for me at this time. As I said, my main concern initially was that there actually weren't any borates in the pool to start with, contrary to the test strip results. Even if it is +/- one drop, that is +/-4ppm, after the boric acid add, I am at least somewhere between 44 and 52ppm borates, so... sounds good enough to me!

Sounds like you're on the right track! I had the same learning about the "straw yellow". I would run 60 ppm to start and managed it a lot like my salt. After a few gully-washer rains I'd check levels and add if needed. I found it made my pH much more stable but didn't really reduce acid consumption overall. So I could go 3-5 days between adding initially instead of every day. But it took a lot more acid each time. Ended up running pH at 7.8 target. Eventually, after a year I think my plaster finally cured and I let the borates just drop down. pH at 7.8 became easy to maintain w/o borates. I never saw any of the other benefits others have described like more sparkly water and things like that so I stopped adding them.

Good luck and please keep us updated.

Chris