Strange pH test

I ran out of the Taylor Phenol Red reagent (R-0014) tonight so I broke out a new bottle. When I tested the pH with that I got a color that didn't match anything on the color comparator; it was a much lighter pink. It's clearly pink but light like the orangey/yellowy colors at the lower end of the pH scale. I ran the test a couple more times with identical results

My pH last night was 7.5 Free chlorine is 3.0 so that can't be having any affect. (Alkalinity is 50 ppm and calcium hardness is 260 ppm; not that those can be a factor here.)

The reagent was purchased this past spring as part of a refill kit from Ben.

Is this just a bad bottle of test reagent?

Thanks in advance for any help.

You might be using the wrong reagent.
R-0004 is used in the Taylor 2000 series pro test kits. (Bens too.)
R-0014 is used in Taylors 1000 series residential kits which have a cheaper comparator.

Hope this helps
George

Quote:

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Originally Posted by GHM

You might be using the wrong reagent.
R-0004 is used in the Taylor 2000 series pro test kits. (Bens too.)
R-0014 is used in Taylors 1000 series residential kits which have a cheaper comparator.

Hope this helps
George

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you got this one backwards
R-0004 is used in the Taylor K-1000 and Ben's kit (which included a rebranded K-1000) (smalll pH comparator cell)
R-0014 is used in the K-2000 series (K-2005, K-2006, etc.) (Large pH comparator cell and Acid/Base Demand tests)

Sounds like you used the wrong reagent for your comparator!

Guess I've been doing it wrong for years like George.
R-0004 used with the 44 ml comparison tube (Taylor K-2006 & PS-233)
R-0014 used with the small sample tube.
George is right.
Al

Poconos, you beat me to it. When I read Waterbear's reply, I thought he was backwards. Was getting ready to go check just in case my mind was playing tricks on me. You saved me the trouble of getting up and going to look. Thanks!

Not only didn't I read the numbers on the bottles carefully, I also failed to see that it clearly says which comparator the reagent is for. As you all surmised, I replaced the 0004 with the 0014. What a maroon.

Thanks for the responses.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Poconos

George is right.
Al

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Thanks Al :)

George

I can't believe someone gave me a negative reputation because someone else thought I was wrong! (guess who)
Thanks a lot:mad:
Sure doesn't incourage me to post anymore.

Please don't let anyone stop you from posting on the forum! Reputation points aren't always given accurately, unfortunately. Hope you'll stay a part of our forum family!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by waterbear

you got this one backwards
R-0004 is used in the Taylor K-1000 and Ben's kit (which included a rebranded K-1000) (smalll pH comparator cell)
R-0014 is used in the K-2000 series (K-2005, K-2006, etc.) (Large pH comparator cell and Acid/Base Demand tests)

Sounds like you used the wrong reagent for your comparator!

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Egg on face....typed it wrong. it's the other way around!:o But I realized what KurtV had done....he had used the wrong reagent for the comparator.

GHM,
Don't feel bad about the negative reputation ---- "That" person did the same thing to me ---- He can't stand to have someone tell him he's wrong. What is even more frustrating is that you can't give him a bad grade, until you attain some sort of "STATUS" you're a nothing. Don't look for me to post any more either (except for this type of thing). I'm a nothing too.

The "reputation" needs to be done away with!!!!

fcfrey-
Like I said to GHM above, don't let this person have the ability to run you off the forum. Please read and participate and continue to enjoy the forum.
I hope you'll stick around with us! :)

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Originally Posted by Watermom

...Reputation points aren't always given accurately, unfortunately...

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That's an understatement. It's surprising how often people leave negative reputation comments based on their own faulty readings of posts.

It's upsetting to come home to this nonsense. Anyone can make a mistake, and it's VERY easy to get confused about R-0004 and R-0014.

As for reputation, I ONLY leave a negative on someone probably destined for The Hall of Shame. I'll leave a Pos once in a while, but I never even check my own list very often. I do the best I can and figure there are just going to be some people who will be annoyed with me.

This forum is supposed to be about helping each other, not about ego-tripping or seeing who's the top dog. I can assure you the moderators are pretty united on this and will do what we can to KEEP the forum about helping each other.

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Originally Posted by CarlD

I can assure you the moderators are pretty united on this and will do what we can to KEEP the forum about helping each other.

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Absolutely Carl! We want everyone to feel welcome and comfortable to take part. That is what this forum has always been about - you ask for help when you need it, and you offer advice when you can. There is no better place to come for help with your pool!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by fcfrey

GHM,
Don't feel bad about the negative reputation ---- "That" person did the same thing to me ---- He can't stand to have someone tell him he's wrong. What is even more frustrating is that you can't give him a bad grade, until you attain some sort of "STATUS" you're a nothing. Don't look for me to post any more either (except for this type of thing). I'm a nothing too.

The "reputation" needs to be done away with!!!!

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Although I'm not on topic I feel I should reply to this. I agree with every point here raised by fcfrey. I rarely participate in this board because, among other things, this 'reputation' idea. It's also part of the reasons I decided not to subscribe. I mean, this is not eBay (where feedback is an important feature) it's a discussion forum.

There.

'nuff said.:mad:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by KurtV

I ran out of the Taylor Phenol Red reagent (R-0014) tonight so I broke out a new bottle. When I tested the pH with that I got a color that didn't match anything on the color comparator; it was a much lighter pink. It's clearly pink but light like the orangey/yellowy colors at the lower end of the pH scale. I ran the test a couple more times with identical results

.
.
.

The reagent was purchased this past spring as part of a refill kit from Ben.

Is this just a bad bottle of test reagent?

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Hi All;

I'd like to throw my 2 cents in here, too:

Both R-0004 and R-0014 are Taylor's blend of phenol red, a pH buffer, and some sodium thiosulfate (to allow the phenol red to continue working when the chlorine level is above 3 ppm!). The ONLY difference between the two, is that R-0004 is slightly more concentrated than the R-0014, to compensate for the larger sample size used in the comparator from the K2005/6 kits, rather than the smaller sample from the comparator in my PS200 (relabeled K1000 -- I don't like their instructions!).

In a reversal of the case with DPD colorimetric testing, phenol red colorimetric testing is based on changes in hue, rather than saturation. That is to say, pH is judged by whether the solution to which phenol red is added is orange or yellow, and NOT whether the orange is intense or saturated. This is the opposite of DPD colorimetric (also opposed to titrimetric testing such as the FAS-DPD test, which looks for disappearance or a radical shift of color). DPD colorimetric testing is based on how red the sample is, and not which red is displayed.

For this reason, both R-0014 and R-0004 will give similar results, used in either comparator. However, the colors displayed will be less intense (R0014 in a K2005 comparator) or more intense (R0004 in a K1000 comparator) than expected.

I've only experimented with this a little, but it appears to me that the apparent error, from using the 'wrong' phenol red reagent would typically be one color bar or less. This would be true whether the 'wrong' reagent is R0004 or phenol red from some Walmart or Kmart kit. (Of course, to the best of my knowledge, none of the other kit manufacturers have added the sodium thiosulfate / buffer mixture, to all phenol red to be used above 5 ppm chlorine.)

But pink . . . is NOT a color that would normally EVER be produced by a phenol red solution, regardless of pH, and regardless of whether R-0004 or R-0014 is used. The only pink I know of, with any of the chemicals in the kits added alone, would be DPD in chlorinated water.

Since the R0014 is NOT a reagent we fill, I can think of only a couple of possibilities:

• Somehow, we sent you an old bottle of R0002 DPD solution that had gotten mixed in with the R0014. I would have said this was impossible, since we haven't kept any of that around for several years, but after all the problems I'm having this season, finding out that we'd made yet another 'impossible' error wouldn't surprise me.
• Alternatively, you got a bottle of Taylor R0014 that was misfilled. Taylor has (as have we) misfilled or mislabeled bottles before. This is the scarier alternative, since if true, it's unlikely we got only ONE bottle of bad stuff.

Either way, if you'll email me with your name / address, etc. and reference this thread, I'll try to send out some known good R0014 to you this week.

Regarding reputation . . . I need to see what's going on. Unfortunately, the only way I can do this (even with administrative powers) is to "seize" your accounts (GHM and fcfrey) and then log in, and take a look. This is a serious issue, either way, so I hope you'll forgive me for taking over your accounts briefly. You'll get a new password request, requiring you to sign and create a new password after I finish. Once that's done, you can go into your profile and restore your password to it's original state. (I can't do this, since passwords are stored in an encrypted form that I can see, but can't decode -- so I have no way of knowing what your password was.)

Sincerely,

Ben
"PoolDoc"

GHM, fcfrey . . . you should have received password reset emails. If not, email me at admin AT pool9 DOT net.

Regarding reputation, I've partly finished checking. From the records I've checked, it appears that you have only ONE reputation 'voter' in common. It was a new poster, with zero rep themselves, who voted for/against you yesterday (9/3). The way the reputation system works, someone can vote against you, but their vote only counts if their reputation is above a certain level.


OK, the comments above were wrong. It appears that the reputation list appearing in the user profile box may not be fully in sync with the reputation database itself. I'm not sure what is happening.



I've still got some more checking to do.

Ben

OK, wierd.

What's displayed in the user profile section regarding reputation doesn't correlate in a way that's obvious to me at the moment with what's in the actual reputation data file. I found a way to download it as a CSV importable into Excel, and now have the whole thing on my desktop. I don't understand all that I see, but here are some things of relevance:

• Most reputation votes are ineffective attempts by those with reputation too low to really have a vote.
• By far the most frequent effective negative reputation giver is ME, mostly for folks y'all all know about, like UGaGuard. The time line indicates that most people I ding either go quiet, or else get 'piled on' in short order.
• There is some tit-for-tat voting going on -- that's a problem I'll have to look at further.
• Most of the votes I could quickly decipher seemed valid.
• Many of those who have voted inappropriately have more than suffered the consequences in terms of being 'punished' for inappropriate votes. Voting negative rep hastily is a good way of loosing a lot of rep yourself . . . and that's as it should be!
• And -- I'm sorry to do this publicly, but it's already being discussed widely privately, apparently: WaterBear, you do need to lay off the reputation voting for now.

More than that, I promise I'll re-examine the reputation thing before next spring. Actually, there is a bunch of work to be done, to work out some issues with what might be called the relational and philosophical aspects of the forum.

I don't know what I'm going to do, but I'm looking at a number of substantial changes. The whole problem with the hackers is going have an impact, as well. Part of the problem is that I've never had time to dig into the 'guts' of vBulletin since installing it this past spring. As a result, I've never found out how to tweak some things that don't have a corresponding 'knob' or 'dial' in the Admin control panel. The fast time out on logged users is just one example, of something begging for adjustment.

But there are some other, more fundamental, issues to address, as well.

Until next spring, when those changes will be evident, I'd ask y'all to just bear with me, if you can.

Thanks,

Ben

OK, for now, reputation is off.

Ben
"PoolDoc"

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Originally Posted by PoolDoc

...
But pink . . . is NOT a color that would normally EVER be produced by a phenol red solution, regardless of pH, and regardless of whether R-0004 or R-0014 is used. The only pink I know of, with any of the chemicals in the kits added alone, would be DPD in chlorinated water.
Ben, The 7.8 and 8.0 pH colors on my comparator tube (Taylor K-2006) are both very pink (the 8.0 is a darker and richer pink). I confirmed this with several people, include non-blood relatives, to rule out my color-blindness as a cause; they all agreed.

Since the R0014 is NOT a reagent we fill, I can think of only a couple of possibilities:

• Somehow, we sent you an old bottle of R0002 DPD solution that had gotten mixed in with the R0014. I would have said this was impossible, since we haven't kept any of that around for several years, but after all the problems I'm having this season, finding out that we'd made yet another 'impossible' error wouldn't surprise me.
• Alternatively, you got a bottle of Taylor R0014 that was misfilled. Taylor has (as have we) misfilled or mislabeled bottles before. This is the scarier alternative, since if true, it's unlikely we got only ONE bottle of bad stuff.

Either way, if you'll email me with your name / address, etc. and reference this thread, I'll try to send out some known good R0014 to you this week.

I definitely got the 0014 from you but it's not worth the hassle for either of us to replace it. The lot number is 1136D if you're going to bother tracking down want went wrong; please don't do so on my account.

...

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P. S. Thanks for the websites.

Thanks for killing it Ben. One less thing to quibble about.
Al

Kurt, is the stuff you have labeled R0014 or labeled R0002?

I'd like to get it back, if it is R0014, simply because it's very unlikely you were the only recipient. But, I don't want to send out a general warning, without having tested the stuff myself, and then checked with Taylor.

We get the R0014's in 144-packs, all from the same lot. So, if it is labeled R0014, we may well still have some (I'll check the lot number on what we have now -- thanks!.) If we don't, then odds are 143 OTHER people have messed up phenol red, too.

Of course, there's some chance that you're seeing a wierd reaction I'm not familiar with, and if so, I need to know about that, too.

So . . . any additional info would be great.

Ben

Ben,
0014. I'll be happy to send it back if that helps you.

Kurt

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Poconos

Thanks for killing it Ben. One less thing to quibble about.
Al

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DITTO from me!!