I've had the same problems with the strips - colors aren't really clear to decipher; and I didn't like the fact that they generally give a range of values instead of a true reading. I test with a drop kit now and take take a sample to the pool store every so often to confirm my own testing. My pool store seems to be on the up and up as they haven't (yet) tried to suggest stuff that I didn't need.

Get your own test kit. Best money I ever spent on my own pool! For most tests (but not all), you're not trying to decide what color it is but rather when a color changes from green to red, or pink to blue, etc.

The one linked below includes a FAS-DPD test for chlorine...an absolute must if you ever have a problem and need to shock to high levels...other type chlorine tests and strips won't test high enough.

With home testing, you can test as much as you want (critical if there's ever a problem) and when you want. Testing needs to be done with a fresh sample (not leaving it overnight or in a hot car while errands are being run). With pool store testing, you're also at the mercy of the expertise (or lack thereof) of the person doing the testing and one employee may read things differently than another. Just food for thought....

Here is a link that might be useful: TF Pools test kit

It sounds like your PB gave you some bad info:

- To start with as Jmas said you should be using a drop-based kit, not test strips (although strips are OK for checking salt levels).

- 2nd, you should be testing every day if your pool is brand new. Once the chemicals are stable, you can move to testing every other day and then every 3 days. I don't think I'd be willing to risk going a whole week without testing. We use the TF-100 (link below). The Taylor K-2006 kit is supposed to be just as good. We do the full range of tests once a week and do chlorine, PH and TA every other day.

- 3rd, don't leave a sample on the pool store's doorstep. If you're going to have them test, they need to test a fresh sample that is hopefully not more than an hour old. Water de-chlorinates over time, so if it sits for even a few hours the chlorine reading will be incorrect (lower than actual). If your sample sat overnight I'm surprised they even bothered to test it.

Pool stores are notorious for doing a bad and inconsistent job on water testing and for pushing a whole range of their products on you to "fix" the problems. Get yourself a quality drop based kit and you'll always know the state of your pool.

Here is a link that might be useful: TF 100

Sandra beat me to it, when I try typing responses at work I always get interrupted a few times before I can send :-) The link I posted is the same as Sandra's. As she said, the tests are very easy to read accurately (even for a colorblind person such as me!)

I do all 3.

I have my own test kit. On my new pool, I am testing every day....and having to make adjustments about every 2nd day. Don't want irrecoverable algae stains on my new plaster. Don't want a basic water condition that causes my brand new plaster to leach.

Every month or so, possibly when I need to buy something at the pool store anyway, I take the water and let them test it. I don't necessary take any of their advice but I listen to them and confirm what they say or go back home and retest if they find something I missed. I buy some swim goggles and leave. If their results confirm yours, you might buy some chemicals that they have like the conditioner.

I have a bottle of the strips too...they are expensive and they are not very accurate. However, they are good on a cold, rainy, lazy day or in between the titration tests. I just use them for that purpose only. Kind of like a quicky between titration tests basically to confirm what I already know. Now if suddenly something looks suspicious, then I would titrate to doublecheck anything the strips would tell me.

In 25 years, I've never seen a reason to test pool water daily or more than once per week under normal circumstances. This usually leads to a lot of overdosing of products. The yuck stuff in your water will respond better to chlorine that moves on a pendulum. If you maintain a 3.0 chlorine forever, algae can become resistant. It is better to swing from 1.5 to 3.0 and back. If you get in the habit of maintaining the exact same levels of pH, chlorine, TA and hardness, you leave no room for total balance when temperature changes and as TDS moves up or down. The full equation of the Langlier saturation index can be out of scale if all parameters remain the same and temp and TDS change. In testing and correcting daily or every 2-3 days, you cannot change these two parameters and therefore, you can trend out of balance even though your other areas seem to remain "perfect". That is why there are established ranges for all levels. Keep within those ranges and you are within the -.03 to +.03 index of saturation which will not scale or corrode.

For those who don't like drops and prefer test strips but can't read them, consider the AquaChek. It's a digital strip reader. They are pretty accurate and in all reality, if you can't read color, you have no business using a drop kit. Regular strips are a good barometer but not a substitute for good test results.

First, let me correct a little typo or error in the original post, the acid is used to bring pH down and with a SWCG you want to use the Muriatic acid to lower pH (there has been some talk that the sulfides in the dry acid can damage the plates)- what lowers pH will also lower the carbonate alkalinity (T/A)- however, baking soda RAISES the alkalinity!
To my surprise, I was in full agreement with the first 4 answers - test the water yourself with a good drop based kit the Taylor 2006 and the TF- 100 are functionally equivalent (in fact, except for the pH tests they are the same chems) but the TF- 100 gives a better amount of the reagents.(more realistic in the amounts of each reagent that can reasonably be expected to be used)I have done business with them and had 100% satisfaction in both the product and the service, most especially shipping time - they really have their 'stuff' together on shipping!)
When I came upon the next post, I had to reread it a couple of times just to be sure what was said wasn't a typo. Most of it sounds almost reasonable to someone who doesn't know better, but still...? The explanation for the chemistry advice can be found in the NSPI guides or the Taylor handbook that comes with the 2000 series kits (Langlier and TDS are some pointers - the use of the Langlier Saturation Index for swimming pools has been hashed and rehashed on line 'ad nausium' - Dr. Langlier didn't intend his index to be used for 'open' systems - and specifically said it wasn't for use in swimming pools - I do not deny that keeping the numbers generally in synch with the index is a good and safe place for the numbers to be, but it's not what the index was made to do) Jock Hamilton came up with another index FOR pools, but, apparently, that was mostly to sell more of his companies chemicals and have an index that WAS for pools? I've seen other indecies out there that correlate to pool chem usage that make more sense. TDS, used to be referred to as 'water inelasticity', has pretty much been proven inaccurate (at the levels that used to be considered "WAY TOO HIGH" by the pool industry) by the popularization of SWCGs - yes, there may be some things in the water that we don't usually test for that can harm the system, but it's not all (the TOTAL) that is causing the problems. I'd love a response for why the 'yo-yo' chlorinating method of maintaining a pool is better than the 'keep your numbers ~ the same' method - what was offered as a reason, even my dog laughed at! (at least with the tone of this post - I should get a response) I'll give a little tease here - what about heat exchangers??

I also want to add that folks who are new to their pools SHOULD (!) test daily in the beginning - find out how your pool is doing and reacting to both what you do to it and what Mother Nature is doing to it - once you know how your pool reacts to your usage, dosage and weather conditions, you won't have to test it daily - if you know it well enough, 1X a week should be fine, but you've gotta know how YOUR pool handles things. I would advocate testing the cl and pH every day (or every other), TA 1X per week, cya and calcium 1 - 2X / month (if you use a chlorine source that adds either of these chems - do it weekly)

I look forward to any replies to this - D0TC

All great advice. I'll most likely get the TF-100 kit. Should any additional bottles be ordered initially to stock up and keep from ordering again to quickly, or just wait and see what I go through?

D0TC - I guess I didn't mention, but I added Muriatic Acid, not the powder to the pool and I'm not sure about your clarification as I did say I used Acid to lower PH and Alkalinity. Maybe it was about using liquid or powder, but yes I used liquid as I picked that up on the builders recommendation from Lowe's.

dotc

Can't give you a reason for the need to bounce between the ideal of 1.5 and 3.0. If you're the water scientist, let us know. It's pretty much been a fact in this industry that algae that does not grow at 1.5 will grow at 4.0. Maybe it's a regional thing here in so cal but with about a hundred thousand water tests, I call tell you the method works well. The ones that maintain 3.0+ at all times still grow even in the presence of perfect water.

As far as the index, the Langlier, SI whatever we call it now has been adapted over and over for various bodies and is pretty much the standard. Anybody using the Hamilton index certainly never met the man. He was never embraced by this industry as a whole. Just fringe guys. I'm sure the original index for beer was not intended for pools, but it has been adapted for good use today.

Well algae is a biological system...and they "adapt". I have found, practically, as well that the algae can adapt to a steady state of chlorine, but in the presence of sudden changes they can't handle it. Especially if you got other favorable factors like warm water and some shade...like under a cover...they will just adapt to the chlorine because everything else is so nice for them.

Same principal when you take fish home from the aquarium and they guy at the fish store tells you to leave the fish in the bag in the aquarium for an hour before releasing it. In that case its temperature but the principal of adaptation is the same whether chemical or temperature.

However, I agree with D0TC on a new pool on daily testing until you have a handle on it. My new plaster is using up the acid at a rapid rate going from below 6 to 7.4 in just 3 days. Also, I have no handle on how much chlorine my automatic cholorinator should be delivering. If I waited a week between testing, my pool would be a mess by now...

Lancer...just get the kit and then wait to see how much you go through...no need to order additional reagents initially. I bought the TF-100's "predecessor," the PoolSolutions 234S (no longer available). I didn't have to order any reagents until late fall.

Lancer,you wrote [quote]He recommended to get the Acid from Lowe's or HD and get the Alkalinity decreaser (baking soda) from them to keep the tests free.[/quote], that's the reason for my 'correction' - I think it was a typo, but didn't want you to think that adding baking soda would DECREASE your alk:-)I know that you will do well with Dave's TF -100 kit and as I said, the product and service are first rate!!!

Back to the off topic stuff:
ME, a water scientist????? The only reason I passed high school chemistry (the only chem class I ever took) was because the final exam was sooo weighted and curved - I just managed to 'cram' a year's worth of chem into my head (for 4 hours) better than 85% of the other students! However, I've been a pool worker for a lot of years and I'm conscious. I also am a voracious reader and manage to retain much of what I read. As such, I still question the 'yo-yo' method. While I will not disagree that all living creatures adapt to their environment and subsequent generations can thrive where their predecessors couldn't (thank you Mr. Darwin), I CAN NOT see how a strain of algae that has adapted to 3 ppm cl would do anything more than redouble it's growth rate at a cl of 1.5. It's not like it NEEDS 3 ppm to survive, only that it CAN survive at a cl level that high, halving the cl would not be toxic to the strain that can survive in 3 ppm. As such, there must be something else going on, my best guess would be cya - when you've experienced these things you are not following the 'scientific method' which says ~ hold all things constant except the 'variable' and any changes you observe are due to changes in that variable -- I'm thinking that you haven't kept a record of cl vs. cya (then again, even if you think you've followed the scientific method, a regression analysis of the data would prove helpful, just in case you missed something)
BTW - anyone who hasn't met Jock Hamilton will have to wait for the afterlife - he's caring for God's pool now :( I'm also interested in the beer index - for me, it's when my wife hits me with a frying pan and says 'THAT'S ENOUGH FOR TONIGHT!!!' :D
I gotta go change the 'wee-wee' pad (the dog was reading over my shoulder again)

Back to the original question, whether you choose my TF-100 test kit, the Taylor 2006C, or the Leslie's FAS/DPD kit (same as the Taylor K-2006), performing your own tests and not relying on the pool store's often erroneous advice is perhaps the single most important step you can take towards understanding your own pool water.

Add that to the gas you will save not having to drive back and forth, and your own test kit becomes a truly great value.

I went ahead an ordered the TF-100 today along with the salt test strips.

D0TC - now I see my typo, yest it should have been Alkalinity Increaser. Just goes to show you that one can read something several times and not see the error when it's yours.

Lancer, I do it ALL the time - I know what I meant to say, but I can't see when I DIDN'T say what I meant!! **it happens! I'm sure Dave's elves will appreciate your order - let's face it, it's a tough economy!

Lancer,

Thanks for your confidence in us. Your kit will ship today via DHL ground and you'll get an email with a tracking number and delivery date sometime this afternoon.

Thanks Dave. Actually got the email yesterday and should be showing up at the house Thurs.

Can't wait to get a little better numbers on the PH as with the strips, I had to decide last night whether PH was 7.8, 8, or 8.2 as it was in between the two ranges.

See what I said about shipping? :)!