Is there a best brand of test strips, or are they all iffy?

[Jostudly]

Why waste money in a Taylor test kit. I just go and get my dealer to test my water weekly

[Dr. Spa™ Ret.]

So you waste money on gas, tires, oil and wear and tear on your car?...plus your time.

[Quickbeam]

Why waste money in a Taylor test kit. I just go and get my dealer to test my water weekly

What does your dealer use to do the test? My dealer has some kind of computer program that does the test, and when I asked about the Taylor test kits, they told me I would get more accurate results with the Taylor test kit than I would with their fancy equipment.

[av8r]

Why waste money in a Taylor test kit. I just go and get my dealer to test my water weekly

What does your dealer use to do the test? My dealer has some kind of computer program that does the test, and when I asked about the Taylor test kits, they told me I would get more accurate results with the Taylor test kit than I would with their fancy equipment.

I use the 2 largest dealers in town to test my water.  Both use a fancy computer based system.  My Taylor test results are always within a very close margin of their equipment.

[chem geek]

They aren't as good for some of the tests, but are OK for others.  The LaMotte ColorQ is OK for pH and FC so long as FC isn't too high (DPD bleaches out at high FC).  It's usually OK for TA, but doesn't do well when CH is higher (above 300 ppm) and the CYA test is hit and miss.  Nevertheless, for a less expensive electronics test kit, the LaMotte ColorQ Pro 7 is a decent kit.

[Jostudly]

My dealer uses a bioguard machine. I am using bio guard chemicals so figure this would be more accurate

[chem geek]

It doesn't work that way.  You can't assume that pool stores are using the best equipment.  After all, their incentive is to sell you as many chemical products as possible.  That's why in addition to chlorine they sell clarifiers, flocculants, enzymes, and many other products.  As for the BioGuard system, you can read what a disaster it is in this thread where the BioGuard computerized system had no clue about how its individual chemical recommendations conflicted with each other and with chemicals already in the pool.

[Jostudly]

I compared the bio guard test with another dealer in my area and there machine was very close to the bioguard. They also used the drops which I believe was the Taylor and got similar results.

[Quickbeam]

I compared the bio guard test with another dealer in my area and there machine was very close to the bioguard. They also used the drops which I believe was the Taylor and got similar results.

So then why not just get your own test kit? I can't imagine having to run to a dealer every time I wanted to test my water. And what do you do when you've changed your water? How do you properly balance your water without having a way to do your own test?

[amy2421]

So then why not just get your own test kit? I can't imagine having to run to a dealer every time I wanted to test my water. And what do you do when you've changed your water? How do you properly balance your water without having a way to do your own test?

I am also on the fence about the test kit vs free water tests at the dealer. Does the test kit have instructions on what to do to adjust the water once you get the readings on PH, TA and chlorine?

[icenogle]

You all have talked me into getting the K-2006.  Was going to order it from Taylor so I get a fresh/new kit.  Price is $88.15 plus a minimum fee of $100 to protect it from freezing - if you want the protection (plus regular shipping charges).  It comes from Maryland, so I think chances are it would freeze before getting to Seattle.  Guess I'll but one from a local dealer tomorrow.

I guess a kit that freezes is no good.

[Quickbeam]

So then why not just get your own test kit? I can't imagine having to run to a dealer every time I wanted to test my water. And what do you do when you've changed your water? How do you properly balance your water without having a way to do your own test?

I am also on the fence about the test kit vs free water tests at the dealer. Does the test kit have instructions on what to do to adjust the water once you get the readings on PH, TA and chlorine?

HI Amy,

No, the test kit won’t tell you what to do to adjust the water. It will tell you what you have to do to get the proper readings when doing your test. And getting the proper readings is a very easy process. As far as what to do to adjust the water, it really isn’t all that difficult. It takes some time to do it properly, especially the first couple of times you do it, but after that it gets easier. I’ll go into it in more detail, but I remember when I bought my spa, my dealer told me the two most important things about maintaining the water were to always make sure there was a proper level of sanitizer, and to make sure the PH was in range. I think that is pretty good advice.

I also have to tell you that I can’t offer any advice on your sanitizer, as I use an alternative sanitizer, so I just don’t know anything about either chlorine or bromine. That being said, I can help you with how to adjust your water so your PH remains stable. In order to ensure your PH remains stable, you need to adjust your TA. This is probably the single most important thing to understand regarding PH. So again, it is your TA that needs adjusting to ensure stable PH.

So how do you do that? Well, the other thing to understand is that PH will spike up with aeration. So if you aerate your tub (run all your jets on high, with the air intake on as well and with your waterfall on high), if your TA isn’t set correctly, your PH will spike up. And this is exactly how you adjust your TA.

The first thing you should probably do is take your TA measurement with your test kit. Once you’ve taken the measurement just write it down somewhere. It doesn’t matter what the number is, and you really shouldn’t listen to anyone who tells you what the number should be, as all water is different. Once you’ve got your TA number, you need to fully aerate your tub (again, run all the jets with air intake on and waterfall on) for probably 20 minutes. Once you’ve done this, measure your PH. If your PH has spiked up, or is higher than it should be, you need to adjust your TA down (remember it is the TA that controls PH). So if the TA is too high, it will allow the PH to spike up with aeration. To get your TA down, you just add dry acid. It’s sometimes called PH Down, or other such names, but basically they all do the same thing. They lower the TA. This is the time consuming part as the first couple of times you don’t know how much dry acid to add. I would go slowly as it’s better not to add too much. I should also say that if you take notes the first couple of times you do this you will get an idea of how much dry acid you need to add to drop your TA down.

And that’s basically the procedure. After you add your dry acid you repeat the aeration process. So you add the dry acid, aerate the tub, and then take another TA and PH reading. If your PH has not spiked up, you’ve reached the correct TA number. If your PH has spiked up, then you need to add more dry acid, aerate the tub again, and then take your numbers again. Once you know the correct TA number where your PH does not spike up, you can then shoot for this number the next time you change your water, and you will have a better idea how much dry acid you need to reach it. That’s why it gets easier the more times you do it.

I think this should also give you a bit of an idea of why I just don’t see how you could run to the dealer to get water tested if you are properly taking care of your water. Just doesn’t make sense to me.

I should also say that I’m not a chemist and I’m sure ChemGeek can give you a much better explanation that I can. And I really hope this doesn’t sound too confusing as it is really not that difficult. There are also lots of other links and resources on the web that will probably offer better explanations than mine.

Good luck with it. I just always think that knowing and maintaining your own water gives you more confidence about what’s going on with your spa and keeps you in control.

[chem geek]

You all have talked me into getting the K-2006.  Was going to order it from Taylor so I get a fresh/new kit.  Price is $88.15 plus a minimum fee of $100 to protect it from freezing - if you want the protection (plus regular shipping charges).  It comes from Maryland, so I think chances are it would freeze before getting to Seattle.  Guess I'll but one from a local dealer tomorrow.

I guess a kit that freezes is no good.

The Taylor K-2006 from TFTestkits.com is about $50 before shipping and freezing protection charges.

As for amounts used for adjusting, you can use PoolMath though it's oriented towards pools and pool sizes.  You can either put in your spa size or you can put in something larger (say 10 or 100 times larger) and divide.  Lowering TA is the trickiest since it is a process requiring a combination of acid addition with aeration (see Lowering Total Alkalinity).