Testing for Phosphates

[Reed Kadavy]

Like many TFP subscribers I have been ignoring phosphates for the most part and especially since changing pool water last December. Using liquid chlorine as a sanitizer my pool is looking great. A few days ago, I decided to test for phosphates just out of curiosity. I used a “free” test that I received when purchasing PhosFree in a prior life before joining TFP. WOW! It appeared to show phosphates way over 1,000, probably closer to 2,000.

Realizing phosphates are not a problem as long as you keep your pool properly chlorinated, I thought I would bring them down a bit since I had some commercial strength phosphate remover on hand. I ended up adding what I had left of commercial strength PhosFree, about 40 oz which is really a fairly significant amount, to my 13,500 gal pool. I retested after a day and saw very little change. Phosphates still around 2,000.

Then I realized I had an AquaCheck phosphate test kit on hand. I ran a test twice just to make sure and came up with a reading of less than 200, probably closer to 100. Isn’t it interesting that Natural Chemistry, a company that sells phosphate remover, would provide a free phosphate test kit that apparently drastically inflates the amount of phosphates in your pool. I guess it’s not just pool stores you have to watch out for.

 

[ajw22]

Did your pool go cloudy for a while after you added the PhosFree?

 

[Reed Kadavy]

Did your pool go cloudy for a while after you added the PhosFree?

Yes it did although the cloudiness wasn’t extreme.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

The Taylor K-1106 is probably the best test kit for phosphates. AquaCheck is ok. FC levels matter with the cheaper test kits as the chlorine can interfere with the test.

I would never recommend anyone use the PhosFree line of products because even the “commercial grade” stuff has less lanthanum chloride in it than other commercial grade products AND it often contains clarifier in it which can screw up a cartridge or DE filter. SeaKlear and Orenda both make pure lanthanum chloride based commercial grade products. Those are the ones to use as cartridge and DE filters don’t really need the clarifier to filter out the phosphate particulates. A sand filter can simply use DE to help with fine filtration.

If you haven’t done so already, you should clean out your cartridges and not leave the phosphate particulates in them. Best to remove it all once you’re done.

 

[Reed Kadavy]

The Taylor K-1106 is probably the best test kit for phosphates. AquaCheck is ok. FC levels matter with the cheaper test kits as the chlorine can interfere with the test.

I would never recommend anyone use the PhosFree line of products because even the “commercial grade” stuff has less lanthanum chloride in it than other commercial grade products AND it often contains clarifier in it which can screw up a cartridge or DE filter. SeaKlear and Orenda both make pure lanthanum chloride based commercial grade products. Those are the ones to use as cartridge and DE filters don’t really need the clarifier to filter out the phosphate particulates. A sand filter can simply use DE to help with fine filtration.

If you haven’t done so already, you should clean out your cartridges and not leave the phosphate particulates in them. Best to remove it all once you’re done.

I will clean my filters as we’ve had a couple of recent dust storms I have to clean up for anyway. Perhaps the free test from PhosFree was affected by chlorine levels aroun 6 or 7.