Leslie's Pool Water Test?

[tbrown]

Has anyone ever considered taking a sample of their water to Leslie's to compare the results of their home tests to a computer? I'm mainly thinking to compare hardness and phosphate. Just curious. I'm thinking it'd be a fun experiment.

 

[smokin'reefer]

Should be interesting. Keep us in the loop.

 

[jeffchapok]

Don't make any decisions based upon what they tell you. I'm also a member of a pool keeping forum, and pool store testing is only marginally better than those test strips. We adamantly advise every pool owner to purchase their own test kit and perform their own testing.

Pool stores are often staffed by untrained seasonal workers, ie. teens. And they are not diligent about cleaning and calibrating their equipment. Those digital testers may look impressive, but if contaminated and uncalibrated, they are no match for the accuracy of a decent titration test kit.

As an interesting experiment, we often encourage folks to take the same sample to multiple stores and compare the results. It's wild what they come back with. Oh, and they always need to purchase a few hundred dollars worth of chemicals to dump in.

Our method relies upon off the shelf products (such as baking soda to raise alk) and accurate testing, only adding what can be measured and only as required. I keep a 30k inground pool with a saltwater chlorine generator crystal clear year round for around $300 in supplies. For any pool owners here, check it out at www.troublefreepool.com.

Current pool

Previous pool

 

[tbrown]

Don't make any decisions based upon what they tell you. I'm also a member of a pool keeping forum, and pool store testing is only marginally better than those test strips. We adamantly advise every pool owner to purchase their own test kit and perform their own testing.

Pool stores are often staffed by untrained seasonal workers, ie. teens. And they are not diligent about cleaning and calibrating their equipment. Those digital testers may look impressive, but if contaminated and uncalibrated, they are no match for the accuracy of a decent titration test kit.

As an interesting experiment, we often encourage folks to take the same sample to multiple stores and compare the results. It's wild what they come back with. Oh, and they always need to purchase a few hundred dollars worth of chemicals to dump in.

Our method relies upon off the shelf products (such as baking soda to raise alk) and accurate testing, only adding what can be measured and only as required. I keep a 30k inground pool with a saltwater chlorine generator crystal clear year round for around $300 in supplies. For any pool owners here, check it out at www.troublefreepool.com.

It's funny you mention that. I work for a local municipal water department and one of my workers shared a TikTok video where someone took a freshly opened bottle of Sam's Club water. They basically told the guy "Don't swim in that, it'll probably kill you!"

That's why I said, this might be a fun experiment to see how they measure up to the home tests we use.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

"Hardness" is not useful for reefs. It is a strange mix of magnesium and calcium and strontium.

 

[CMMorgan]

Don't make any decisions based upon what they tell you. I'm also a member of a pool keeping forum, and pool store testing is only marginally better than those test strips. We adamantly advise every pool owner to purchase their own test kit and perform their own testing.

Pool stores are often staffed by untrained seasonal workers, ie. teens. And they are not diligent about cleaning and calibrating their equipment. Those digital testers may look impressive, but if contaminated and uncalibrated, they are no match for the accuracy of a decent titration test kit.

As an interesting experiment, we often encourage folks to take the same sample to multiple stores and compare the results. It's wild what they come back with. Oh, and they always need to purchase a few hundred dollars worth of chemicals to dump in.

Our method relies upon off the shelf products (such as baking soda to raise alk) and accurate testing, only adding what can be measured and only as required. I keep a 30k inground pool with a saltwater chlorine generator crystal clear year round for around $300 in supplies. For any pool owners here, check it out at www.troublefreepool.com.

Current pool

Previous pool

Beautiful Pool!!! Love the rockwork. That was very well done.
I have a pool. I've never been in it. I'm a redhead living in Florida. I consider it a community service to not blind people with the glare. My kids moved out and only my dog uses the pool. (or at least the top step of the pool) Generally, it's a big hole in the ground to which we throw money. Now, if I could throw some lilies in there with some koi fish.... I'd ne interested.

 

[tbrown]

"Hardness" is not useful for reefs. It is a strange mix of magnesium and calcium and strontium.

How is it a strange mix? Calcium plus magnesium plus strontium equals hardness. If I know my calcium and my hardness, I have a fairly good idea what my magnesium is unless my strontium is super high.

Sorry, I'm not trying to argue I just want to see how Leslie's tests compare to the test strips and my reagent tests, especially since Leslie's is always trying to sell me products for my pool. After watching the TikTok I mentioned about the drinking water they tested, I wasn't planning on putting too much stock in the results, just interested to see what they tell me.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

How is it a strange mix? Calcium plus magnesium plus strontium equals hardness. If I know my calcium and my hardness, I have a fairly good idea what my magnesium is unless my strontium is super high.

Sorry, I'm not trying to argue I just want to see how Leslie's tests compare to the test strips and my reagent tests, especially since Leslie's is always trying to sell me products for my pool. After watching the TikTok I mentioned about the drinking water they tested, I wasn't planning on putting too much stock in the results, just interested to see what they tell me.

lol

It is strange for most reefers to understand. It is not strange for an expert chemist to understand what it is, but it is a totally useless number by itself.

What would you do if you knew the general hardness was 6,000 ppm? Is that high or low? Which components are high or low? How do those numbers relate to the usual units of measure we use? It is not just the sum of them in ppm. It is much more complicated as it relates to molar weights as well as amounts.

Ignoring the complication of the strontium, here's how I explain the difficulty in one of my articles:

The Units of Measure of Reefkeeping by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com

GH (general hardness)

Hardness is a characteristic of water due to the presence of dissolved calcium and magnesium. Water hardness is responsible for most scale formation in pipes and water heaters (calcium and magnesium carbonates, typically), and forms insoluble solids when it reacts with soaps. Hardness is often expressed in grains per gallon, parts per million or milligrams per liter, all as calcium carbonate equivalents. It is a measure often used in freshwater aquarium systems, but not often in marine systems, where its values are very large. Seawater has a total (general) hardness of about 6.3 g/L (6,300 ppm) of calcium carbonate equivalents.