The "mineral" is almost always copper and silver--like Nature2. Copper and kill algae but it's not a disinfectant. That means you cannot count on them to kill bacteria and viruses--you still need chlorine.
Will this help? Well, if you don't spend your chlorine killing algae, more can be devoted to sanitizing the pool. Maybe. Plus you are adding copper and silver to your water which fairly quickly is NOT a good thing.
Here's my analysis: You need one Nature2 cartridge per season. They run approximately $100 (some lower, some higher). How many gallons of bleach can you buy with that? Usually you can get plain bleach for $2 a gallon, so that's 50 gallons.
Now a good sized pool like mine, I may have to add a gallon every other day--so 50 gallons is good for 100 days of swimming. Where I live, the pool season is basically June, July and August, plus some give and take on either side. Approximately 100 days. So the cost of the N2 cart is just about the same as my TOTAL cost of bleach for the summer. I'd have to be using TWICE as much bleach (or 100 gallons), and have the N2 cut me back to 50 gallons just to break even. I'm not going to use 100 gallons because I'm testing my water every day or every other day and FIXING PROBLEMS IMMEDIATELY!
Notice I haven't even figured in the cost of the N2 unit, just the cart, and I'm STILL losing money on the deal.
My take? Waste of time and money.
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