BioGuard's Mineral Springs Salt

[Darwin]

What other minerals are in the "Mineral Springs" besides non-iodized salt? We like the salt in our AG pool but are looking for a less expensive option. I was thinking of adding just generic non-iodized salt but was wondering if the "Mineral Springs" had other minerals in it.
Thanks

[PoolDoc]

Borax.

The Mineral Springs line has borax.

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You can read what follows, or not. I don't like BioLab. They have had an ENORMOUS influence on the direction the pool industry has taken over the 25+ years I've been in it. They have dominated, directly or indirectly, the pool chemical training received by people the industry. They have gained control of all the major pool brands -- except those controlled by Arch / HTH -- and have a former BioLab VP running Arch.

BioLab'ers were ALWAYS smarter and more savvy than the other chemical dudes I met over the years. I've talked to many key researchers over the years, and many of them didn't 'get it' in the sense of understanding how their work might affect pool owners. BioLab'ers always did.

I can't fault BioLab too much: they mirrored the post WWII American attitude that valued marketing over product, style over substance, and earnings over accomplishments. They have not been as cynical and parasitic as, say, the pharmaceutical companies. Some of the pharma companies are liars, and as far as I know, BioLab never has. But that's not saying much in their favor. They are absolutely masters of telling the parts of the truth that favor them.

Put more simply: if BioLab had been a good company, there would have never been any point to the PoolSolutions website, I started 16 years ago!

I should explain: many pool store operators are just as cynical as BioLab in their exploitation of consumers; some are much more directly dishonest. But quite a few BioGuard dealers genuinely believe their 'indoctrination': they think they are selling the very best chemicals, and providing the very best advice. They are ignorant, of course, but BioLab has so dominated industry training, that unless you were a crochety outsider like me, you'd never know. A number of years ago, I actually had one of these dealers call me, weeping. She was a person with real honest and integrity, and had unfortunately stumbled onto my site, and read enough to realize that I was right. I didn't know what to tell her, but I do feel very sorry for folk like her. It's not only the pool owners that BioLab has victimized.

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BioLab works very very hard to 'differentiate' their product as an "upscale offering". This hard, because there are only about 12 chemicals* needed in pools, and maybe 9 others** that are occasionally helpful. All the rest are -- almost always -- unneeded, and often are sources of problems.

It's entirely possible that there are MUCH better ways to do pool chemistry than what has been discovered. But, thanks to US EPA regulations, it's prohibitively expensive to develop a new biocide, and the pool market just isn't big enough to make any company eager to pour millions down the drain in research, when the chance of success is so low. (This applies in other areas, as well: why do you think that DEET, first used by the US Army in 1946, is *still* the only really good insect repellent?)

Anyhow, that's a side trail.

The important thing to know here is that BioLab, as a sub-unit of a publicly traded company (Lonza) can't go out and try to develop a better product: the risk/benefit ratio of the investment is tilted all the wrong way! BioLab has historically employed some very bright engineers who, somewhat uniquely, have marketing mindsets. But, when there's nothing much to engineer, and their engineers can't 'engineer" all they have left is to focus all their smarts and creativity on marketing strategy.

This creates a conundrum: Biolab is a company based on selling "added value" "upscale products". But due to market and regulatory issues, the company has no value to add! And due to those same issues, Biolab can't spend stockholder money on expensive R & D that's not likely to have a good return.

What can they do?

+ They can't differentiate by "adding value" -- the chemicals needed in pools are available as high quality relatively pure commodities from multiple sources, including China and India.
+ They can't differentiate by inventing new and better products: the risk are too great, the costs too high, and the regulations too severe to make that practical.

What's left?

+ They can do better graphics . . . better UPSCALE graphics, to make consumers 'feel' like they are getting a better product. After all, doesn't it 'feel' like you're getting more when you get a bag of 'stuff' with that really sophisticated logo: instead of a bag of industrial salt?

+ They can do the 'ambiance' thing: the front page of their site (BioGuard.com) claims using Mineral Springs is "like bathing in mineral water touched only by nature". Uh. No, it's not. I took a picture a few days ago of a really nice pool of un-circulated water that was actually "touched only by nature" -- here it is: Over the past month, we've been watching the frogs grow in that pool! There are some pools that can be honestly called "natural" -- you can see them in this thread -- but the amount of engineering required for those very nice natural pools is quite stunning.

+ They can do the 'tweak the blend' and relabel thing. And, in the case of "Mineral Springs", they've been throwing a little borax ("boron salts") every which way. That's not a bad thing . . . but you can get borax a WHOLE LOT CHEAPER in the white 20 Mule Team box at Walmart!

This is all just good ol' American marketing: "Sell the sizzle, not the steak"! This sleaze-ball strategy is especially good advice for a 'high-end' company that buys the exact same steaks from the same places the 'low-end' companies do. And it works for awhile. But eventually the suckers catch on, and the company has serious problems, because it has no real products left. BioLab is already experiencing this -- they've been bankrupt once (or twice, I can't remember) in the last decade.

But, the bottom line?

The only thing BioGuard Mineral Springs has to offer is the chance to feel better about yourself, because you spend more money buying really nice bags, with a really pretty logo, of plain old salt (with a pinch of borax thrown in), than your neighbor does when he buys his ugly yellow bags of industrial salt at Sams Club, and his plain white boxes of borax in the Walmart detergent aisle.

Now, that kinda thing doesn't make ME feel better. When I find I've been doing something like that, I always feel really sto-oo-opid!

So, it's up to you. But Mineral Springs salt is just salt plus a little borax, plus (maybe) a few other pinches of mystery ingredients.



*BASIC POOL CHEMICALS:
salt, baking soda, washing soda, borax, calcium chloride, muriatic acid, sodium bisulfate, cyanuric acid, chlorine (4 flavors: cal hypo, bleach, trichlor, dichlor)

**SUPPLEMENTAL POOL CHEMICALS:
alum, PAC (poly aluminium chloride), poly acrylate clarifiers, Vitamin C (ascorbic acid), HEDP, oxalic acid, sodium hydrosulfite, sodium bromide, polyquat algaecide

[waterbear]

You can get exactly the same effect as mineral springs bu using regular solar salt and adding 50 ppm borate (with borax and acid) to your water. Mineral Springs is Bioguards combo product that combines salt with their "Optimizer" (very expensive borax) and, if I remember correctly, some CYA. In the forumulation sold in California, where borate has been outlawed in commercial pool products, it's just basically salt and CYA. (So if you live in California you are just buying a very expensive salt and CYA mix!)
Here are some MSDS
http://piscines-apollo.com/bioguard/123233.pdf
http://piscines-apollo.com/bioguard/123231.pdf
http://www.thepoolandspahouse.com/to...GS_RENEWAL.pdf
http://www.thepoolandspahouse.com/to...PRINGS_BEG.pdf


If you look at these MSDS they tell a story. The "trade secret" is borax. The "inorganic acid" is either sodium bisulfate (dry acid) or boric acid, the "organic acid" is CYA. It's an overpriced mix of salt, stabilizer, and borax.