Nature 2?

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Originally Posted by Crystal Clear Pools

My 2 cents. I have a 36500 gallon pool with spa and waterfall. On the large size I'd say. I have salt water system, ozone a big DE filter and Nature 2. I run my filter 11 hours a day. My salt water generator keeps my chlorine at a nice 2-3 ppm. I keep my pool at a nice 85 degrees. I shock as necessary. Last year I tried not to use the nature 2 and bang I got alge. This year again I tried not to use it and bang alge again. Maybe for smaller pools its ok not to use it. But im a business guy and travel 4 days a week and dont have the time to hover over my pool. When i get home for the weekend I just want to swim and have fun. When I do use the nature 2 cylinder it allows me to turn my chlorine down to 1 ppm. I purchase my nature 2 filter at focus pools for 85 bucks. And its the big -45 unit. I've now been using nature 2 for 6 years and like it. Just my 2 cents.

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Hmmm, the ozone is destroying the chlorine your SWG is putting in the pool and making it work harder than without the ozone to maintain the same amount of chlorine. If you turned the ozone off you would probably generate 1 ppm chlorine with your SWG output turned down and therefore prolong the life of your cell. Also, the chlorine is destroying the ozone in your generator's reaction vessel requiring you to up the ozone output. IMHO, ozone really only has benefits in a bromine system where it actually reactives the bromine bank. It just works against chlorine. The SWG by itself is more than capable of making sure your pool is ok when you are away from home (with or without the N2).

Why does ozone work against chlorine? I'm not sure I follow the logic, or the chemistry behind what you're saying.

As for Nature2, there seems to be a lot of people who are happy with the product. I think as long as that's the case I guess, it's a good product, at least to them.

sasha

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Originally Posted by sasha

Why does ozone work against chlorine? I'm not sure I follow the logic, or the chemistry behind what you're saying.

As for Nature2, there seems to be a lot of people who are happy with the product. I think as long as that's the case I guess, it's a good product, at least to them.

sasha

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The chemistry is a bit involved but they oxidize each other in a "fight to the death". If you dont believe me how about this info from the FAQ at OzoneLab instruments for starters

http://www.ozoneservices.com/faq/faq015.htm

The FAQ has quite a few intersting titbits about ozone and hydrogen peroxide in swimming pools and spas...bottom line is they no longer recommend ozone for pools and spas beecause of the problems in it's proper usuage and dosing!

As far as N2 goes, The people that are happy with their N2 most likely don't know that it is merely an erosion feeder for copper sulfate and silver nitrate and think they have a 'low chemical pool' because of the marketing hype. They are told that the pool is being sanitized naturally by "minerals". I guess you could call copper and silver minerals since they are mined from the ground (technically, their ores would be minerals!) but I don't think the copper sulfate and silver nitrate in a N2 cartridge are! Minerals is such a catchword in the industry. I had one product company Technical Rep tell me their metal remover product based on EDTA (a chlelating agent and the titrant for calcium hardness testing) would have no effect on calcium in a pool because calcium is not a metal, it's a mineral!. Last time I looked at a periodic table of the elements calcium was still a metal (in the same family as magnesium and strontium)!

Yeah, I guess I see your point about the hype of the word "minerals". And you're probably right about Nature2 being an erosion feeder, but I think it says on the label that it contains metallic silver, not silver nitrate.

sasha

If you read the replacement cartridge it says that copper is from copper sulfate pentahydrate and silver is from silver nitrate right on the box!. We sell the N2's in the store that I work at and have read this info right off the N2 express replacement cart. box!

Really? Then it's mislabeled...

http://www.cdpr.ca.gov/cgi-bin/label...r&prodno=49492

I beleive the exact wording was something like "metallic silver from silver nitrate" I will double check when I go back to work on monday! Not really mislabeling becuase silver ions in the water ARE metallic silver! Doesn't matter if they come from silver nitrate or electrolysis in an ionizer. Once they are in the water they exist as silve ions. Same for copper!

Edit: Actually I just foung a PDF document here
http://www.kellysolutions.com/erenew...F35%5FAM%2Epdf
that has an image of the box....Here is a cut and paste from it! (Emphasis mine)

ACTIVE INGREDIENTS:
Metallic Silver**............................3.51%
Copper sulfate pentahydrate***....8.23%
INERT INGREDIENTS ..................88.26%
TOTAL........................................100.0 0%
**From Silver Nitrate
***Copper (Cu) as Metallic....................2.09%
EPA Reg. No. 67712-1
EPA Est. No. 67712-FL-001
KEEP OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN
CAUTION
See back panel for additional precautionary statements.
*The Nature2 System consists of the patented
Nature2 technology used in conjunction with
a chlorine delivery device or 0.5 ppm of an
EPA registered chlorine pool product.
† Nature2 technology consists of the
minerals silver and copper.
Nature2 water is
brilliantly clear and soft.
The
Mineral
Pool Sanitizer
The Low Chlorine Alternative*
Reduces chlorine use
to just 0.5 ppm*

Our pool opened at the end of last july,so we never put our n2 cart in. Being a BBB convert I never will. From an earlier post the n2 container is empty water passes right thru I see no need to remove it.

When I bought my pool this spring I got “pool stored” in to getting a N2 system and after looking through the paper work knew I got nailed. We have used colloidal silver as a disinfectant for instrumentation in a histology lab. I soon realized that the levels of silver in the N2 system were way to low to kill E.Coli and pseudomonas. We have also used silver in special “live” tissue preps at around the same levels I feel the N2 is delivering. I am not going to trust my family’s health to 0.5 ppm Cl and the N2.
I am not sure if the N2 works by metal delivery or by filtration. The “kill zone” may be in the filter itself and not dependant of metal delivery.
This fall when I pull my N2 cartage out I do intend to do some test by preparing several suspensions of different bacteria, prepping some homemade filters using the N2 contents, pass the suspensions thought the filters, and do colony counts. I wish I could get N2 to send me some of their filter material to test that has not been used and I am not going to waste $100 on a filter to rip apart.
As for EDTA it is a chelating agent against Ca. We use it in hematology to prevent coagulation of whole blood by chelating Ca and replacing it with K+. Ca is a metal.
As for the copper I am not sure about its levels as an algaecide but for it to combine with dihydrogenmonoxide (sorry couldn’t help myself) it would have to create an ionic bond and could possibly would lead copper toxicity. The level of ionized copper should be below 1 ppm in the body with most being bound to protein.
You have to be careful when dealing with these “healthy” mineral claims. It is a case of “When a little is good a lot must be better” mentality that gets peps in trouble. I have seen one case of copper toxicity at work and caused hemolytic anemia, liver degration, and renal problems.
The real question is if these things work? I really think that the best course of action is to listen to people running the board here and follow their advice. The chemistry is sound and their advice is wise.
Thanks again
Steve

N2 is not a filter, it is an erosion feeder. Their Express unit is attached by clamping onto an existing PVC pipe in your plumbing system so the water can circulate through the cart. and return to the pool. It just doen't put enough of anything into the pool. For copper itselt be be effecive as an algecidie it needs to be at concentrations close to 1 ppm in the water. I regularly test pools with N2 units and they show 0-.2 ppm copper. Not sure how much addtional protection is added by the silver since we don't test for that nor do I know what level it becomes effective. I just know that the kill times are very slow.

As far as EDTA, I finally got an answer back from this particular company from someome who actually knew some chemisty and was told that the reaction EDTA was pH dependant and that at normal pool pH it has a greater chelation ratio for copper and would chelate 16 ppm copper and only 1 ppm calcium so the impact on calcium levels would be minimal. This makes sense since the EDTA titration test for calcium hardness is carried out at a pH of 12 and the test for total hardness at a pH of 10.