Fluctuating test results

[mgzych]

Thanks for the quickother response.

Is Taylor the only company that makes kits with the DPD-FAS test? Does the lack of that test render all the other similar (at least superficially--I'm referring loosely to all the "add drops, compare color" tests) kits pretty much useless?

Best,
Mark

[PoolDoc]

You'd have to be specific on which test kit you have; some ARE total junk. LaMotte makes some better products but they've switched to emphasizing strips, and few people have their drops kit. They do have a FAS-DPD kit, but it costs (last time I checked) 3x what the Taylor does. FAS-DPD is the ONLY way to reliably and accurately test chlorine levels above 5 ppm. OTO (yellow drops) are reliable, but not very precise.

If you have the HTH 6-way drops test from some Walmarts, that IS a Taylor kit, but with an OTO chlorine test: it's a great deal and we often recommend it.

If you have one of the knock-off import kits . . . there's no reason one of them couldn't be high quality, but much of the Chinese merchandise I've seen is the lowest quality they can get away with, and on a test kit, you can get away with very low quality indeed, since no one (except us, and maybe TroubleFreePools.com) cross-checks test results.

TroubleFreePools is owned by a guy who is selling a clone of my PS-235 testkit (long story, but I nearly went bankrupt while making and selling an 'improved' version of the K-2006). We don't mention that kit, as a rule, for a variety of reasons, but it has no outstanding benefits over the K-2006, and because he's replaced some of the reagents with his own. They may be fine, but we don't know that, one way or the other.

Bottom line: if you don't have a Taylor, Lamotte or TFP DPD-FAS test method, as far as we know, you do NOT have a reliable way to 'measure' chlorine levels above 5 ppm. If you don't have a melamine (cloudy water) test for CYA, you really aren't measuring stabilizer at all. The other tests (pH, TA, CH) all have alternative sources, but chlorine is key, so we don't even look at the others.

[CarlD]

There is a Leslies kit available on-line, but it is merely a re-badged Taylor K-2006 in a box that says "Leslies" and a bit more expensive than the one linked here.