Hi all
As the title says, for the pool owners here, where do you get your pool maintenance consumables e.g. pool chemicals?
Obviously, being an OzB fam, I am looking for the best value / bang for bucks products (not cheap rubbish though).
Are pool products from bunnings good, or better to go to pool shops?
Also, which test kit (strip or liquid) do you use for regular water testing at home?
Any advice is welcome and appreciated.
Cheers
Someone below said bunnings salt can cause brown staining as whirlpool users said the same. Do you have this problem ever?
no, havent seen any brown stains.
Have a read at Trouble Free Pool. Heaps of resources and also a forum. It's a USA site, but water is water, and there are forum posts from Australia.
For test kit, the most important parameter is to be able to test for free chlorine (which requires the hard to find FAS-DPD test kit) and CYA (cyanuric acid, which protects chlorine from the Aussie sun).
Trouble Free Pool sells a kit with everything including the FAS-DPD, but they can't ship it to Australia. An Aussie online shop, Clear Choice Labs, is the only place I can find that sells a very similar kit and it's great so far after 6 months of use. No need to drive out to the shops and I know exactly what my water chemistry is in minutes.
Pool shops provide free tests. But they may not be consistent and there're conflict of interests. I prefer to be more hands on.
If you know and trust the shop then give that a go.
I buy the pool salt and Cyanuric acid (PTS stabiliser, in Isocyanuric acid form) from Bunnings. Both are the cheapest brands I can find.
To increase calcium hardness, Zodiac Calcium Up (Hardness Increaser) - 10KG from Ebay was the best value I could find.
Borax and baking soda from Bunnings or Coles/Woolies for adjusting akalinity and pH.
Thanks for the tip.
This is the best YouTube instructional, Chlorine ayeee lol
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llTLUFAOegw
No idea where you live, but we find our local pool shop to be best (this is ours https://g.co/kgs/g7SAZh ) . We just continued using the shop the people we bought our house with did. We just take our sample there and they tell us what we need and our pool has been perfect. We once made the mistake of buying cheap salt from Bunnings in the early days and regretted it as it wasn’t refined enough and stained the pool, which we then had to fix. Since then we buy the salt from the pool shop which is slightly more expensive and haven’t looked back. They never try to upsell and always give cheap options, can order bits in. If you can find something like this local to you I’d highly recommend it. Not all pool shops are like this though. Perhaps speak to your neighbours with pools and see what they do, sometimes local knowledge is invaluable.
Thanks mate. How did you fix the stains caused by bunnings cheap salt?
Which salt brand do you get these days?
Swapped from salt to magnesium years ago, so don't need much, have good relationship with local pool shop owner for 15 years so get it tested there and support them.
Bunnings gets enough for gardening from us.
How do you find the magnesium pool? Are you glad you did it?
Yes excellent, water is so much nicer like a mineral bath lol. Cost about $1600 5 years ago to swap it over.
I got my local shop to do it but you could do yourself, here it is.
https://poolranger.com.au/mineralchlorinators.html
I'll 2nd what @navanod66 said.
Go buy the relevant kit from Clear Choice Labs. Sure it's a bit pricey but from reading thoroughly & doing my own research I simply don't trust what the shops say.
How's this for shop testing….I happen to have 4 shops near me which test pool water (Swim Art, Clark Rubber, Bunnings, small local pool shop). One day I took the same water to each shop. And every bloody shop was different! Maybe not for each test but a few readings were just way out from each other. And each store recommended different chemicals.
The Clear Choice Labs kit for salt water (the one i have) has been thoroughly researched and fine tuned so I more trust my own readings than anything any shop tells me.
As for chemicals, be careful about the salt from Bunnings. There's been threads on Whirlpool where bunnings salt has left a brown residue. Their other chems are OK or I just hunt around online and compare to Bunnings which have pretty good prices. Just the salt I get from Swim Art. It's a couple of dollars more per bag than Bunnings but I've never had the staining reported on Whirlpool by some pool owners.
Yeah thats what I have been wondering too whether pool shops numbers are reliable.
How long will CCL test kits last for if you test regularly, lets say every other day?
Its not cheap indeed.
What brand do you get from swimart for salt bags?
There's no need to test so regularly once the initial adjustments have been made.
The only part of the kit that would run out yearly is the "free chlorine" test, which can be ordered on its own from Clear Choice. Even so, I only test it once a week in summer and once every 3 to 4 weeks in cooler months. It depends on how heavily the pool is used and whether you use a pool cover. I expect to get at least a year of use.
Important thing is to keep a record of all tests and any dosing or changes to the chlorine generator. Gives a very good idea of changes over time and what needs adjusting and more regular testing.
Other tests will likely expire in 3-4 yrs instead of running out since these parameters hardly moves. Lazy me only tests them monthly (pH and alkalinity) or seasonally. The kit comes with known standards (e.g. 200ppm calcium solution) so I can always check if the tests have expired before buying new ones.
IMHO, it's good value
Thanks mate. I thought I was being a little Karen about local shops.
My experience with shops wasn't any better.
The shop I engaged to inspect the pool at purchase missed a dead return jet that was filled with sand and causing a leak (a very costly repair that could've been on the seller if we had caught it). But they insisted the kreepy krawly was dead (it was just a leaf blocking the clapper) and suggested I get a robot cleaner from them instead.
The seller's recommended shop was apparently trust worthy because they never tried to sell him chemicals and has helped him keep the pool crystal clear for years. Even helped him replace the salt water chlorinator for a good price. All he did was to dump 2 bags of salt in every summer and run the pump 5hrs a day.
The pool is crystal clear, yes, but after learning about pool chemistry and reading the salt water generator instructions, I was sceptical.
Turns out, there's zero CYA, so the generator has to be kept at max output 5hrs a day to keep up with losses in summer.
Salt level was never tested, and the only reason it has not turned into the dead sea is likely due to the constant leak from the return jet and the constant top up. High salt plus max output everyday equals dead chlorine generator.
It also caused very high, shock level, chlorine in autumn and winter. My kids smelt like bleach when we first moved in. No wonder the pool never had algae!
Bugger all calcium hardness and alkalinity too.
After adding CYA, plugging the leak and adjusting salt levels, the pump now runs for 4hrs a day at 1/8 to 1/4 chlorine output and keeps FC at 6-8ppm.
About the Bunnings salt, I wonder if people just dumped a whole heap into the pool and let it sit there with the pump running to dissolve slowly? That could be the reason for the discolouration?
I always melt the salt in buckets of hot water first before pouring it in over a few days. No
stains so far. Granted, I am able to do so because it's a small pool and only needed 20kg of salt.
Interesting experience mate.
What level of CYA are you maintaining?
Do you just mix it in the bucket and pour along the egde of the pool?
I did this and it was very slow to dissolve and I was worried it might stain the pool, so I brushed it around with pool pole and turned the Polaris vacuum on to spread it around more.
I hope this is ok ?
At the moment I am running SWG for 6 hours max output but my FC is still low just over 1ppm. Not sure if I should shock my pool or let the CYA do the work for now
Yeah mate, the best learning comes from stuff ups eh?
I'm currently at 35ppm, which offers about 60% protection from UV (which is not a concern at the moment, with winter and pool cover).
The point of deminishing returns is at 60ppm (~90% UV protection). I'm trying not to go so high as the pool is using a SWG and will likely end up hyper-chlorinating even at the lowest settings based on my testing. It'll be a pain to have to constantly check on FC and turn the SWG on and off if I go any higher.
You'll have to play with your pool as it depends on surface area, pool cover use and seasonal UV changes/shade.
https://www.troublefreepool.com/~richardfalk/pool/HalfLife.g…
The CYA I use (PTS from Bunnings) comes as crystals. The way to dissolve it, according to Trouble Free Pool, is to pour the CYA into a sock and suspend it in front of a return jet so it slowly diffuse into the water. I tied it to my pool brush, suspended it over the jet and it was rock solid for a day. Then like magic, the crystals dissolved to a small enough size to fall through the sock like diamond dust and it all disappeared on the 2nd day.
Do it in small increments, it's easier to dissolve. And remember to test after each increment as it'll be a pain to reduce CYA should it end up too high.
What is the pool volume if I may ask? 1ppm FC is very risky with the weather warming up soon. What test kit are you using to test this? Check Combined Chlorine (CC) as well. If CC is 1ppm or higher, then something is rotting and using up the FC. Clean out your filters.
With SWG running at max for 6hrs at the end of winter, I would expect FC to rise quickly so something is not right. How are the salt levels? If it is too low from the recent rains, it may impact SWG production.
No need to shock the pool if it's not turning green, but I would definitely help the SWG by adding liquid bleach to bring the FC up to at least 5ppm as an emergency measure. Good luck!
What is the pool volume if I may ask? 1ppm FC is very risky with the weather warming up soon. What test kit are you using to test this? Check Combined Chlorine (CC) as well. If CC is 1ppm or higher, then something is rotting and using up the FC. Clean out your filters.
It's a small one, around 36k L. Not using any testing kit at the moment, hence asking for recommendations.
Weekly I took a sample to local swimart shop to test.
Last week CC was 0 so I think not too bad, but water was a tad cloudy. Did a backwash then put 2kg of CYA (Hyclor from bunnings). Also put some 65% cal hypo granulated chlorine.
I'll do another check this Saturday.
With SWG running at max for 6hrs at the end of winter, I would expect FC to rise quickly so something is not right. How are the salt levels? If it is too low from the recent rains, it may impact SWG production
Yeah, I was expecting FC to be high enough running 6h per day SWG on max output on winter mode (85%), but the last 2 wks, shop test showed just over 1ppm.
I ran the pump/filter/SWG 3hr in the morning and 3hr in the afternoon.
In saying that, the last 2 weekly tests showed my CYA to be around 2-3ppm so I was thinking maybe the chlorine got burned too quickly before it can sanitise my pool hence added 2kg of CYA last week.
Salt level is within the recommended range of the SWG ie 4500 to 6000. Last week test showed 4900.
@OzFrugie: Are you able to see tiny bubbles appearing from the SWG's electrolysis plates during operations? Maybe it's not working…
My pool is about 22k L and 600g of CYA was enough to bring it up to 40ppm.
2kg of CYA may be too much? Be aware that CYA works by "locking up" a portion of the FC to act as a screen for the rest, so you need a higher FC in proportion to the CYA. Adding CYA when FC is low is risky, as it locks up what little FC there is.
A word of caution about using cal hypo tablets. It not only adds chlorine, but also increases calcium hardness, alkalinity and pH. It's tricky enough to balance these parameters. The tablets may make it worse, raising pH too much.
I suggest sticking to pure liquid bleach for now.
Salt level of 4900 would be considered high on my SWG, but it should still produce chlorine well.
Are you able to see tiny bubbles appearing from the SWG's electrolysis plates during operations? Maybe it's not working
Can't see the plates from outside. Have to open the pipe up to check.
My SWG is self cleaning model and apparently will tell me from the controller if it needs cleaning.
I think it's still producing chlorine because my salt level decreased over a week around 150ppm. Might even overwork because I put on 85% 6hr per day (yet still 1ppm FC with 2-3ppm CYA)
2kg of CYA may be too much? Be aware that CYA works by "locking up" a portion of the FC to act as a screen for the rest, so you need a higher FC in proportion to the CYA
If I use the calculation on the CYA package (Hyclor from Bunnings), 2kg for my pool size should bring it to around 58ppm (incl. 2-3ppm existing). Will check tomorrow at the shop.
Not sure if it is too much at this stage, but I referred to TFP / PoolMath app, it recommends SWG pool to have 70-80ppm CYA ideally. Not sure why SWG needs higher CYA?
Btw, any reasons you use PTS brand from Bunnings rather than HyClor one? Simply cheaper cost or something else?
A word of caution about using cal hypo tablets. It not only adds chlorine, but also increases calcium hardness, alkalinity and pH
Thanks for the heads up. Calcium was on 150ppm so I think I can afford some rise from cal hypo.
TA may be bit high now, I added some buffer, should be around 120ppm but I read this week that SWG should be around 70ppm to keep pH creeping up (?)
What TA level are you maintaining?
pH was on 7.5 last week might have increased by now esp added buffer last week.
What's your target pH? I am thinking keeping it around 7.5 or 7.6.
Tia
Bunnings
My pool got flooded with the Sydney Floods this March 22.
Mud has entered and settled at bottom of pool .. turning my blue clear pool to brown..
Sharing this link as it can help someone to clean it them self…
why pay for a test kit when the local pool shop will do a digital test for free? I buy some products from bunnings (salt, chlorine, ph up) and other chemicals from pool shop (salt cell cleaner, algacide, etc)