LaMotte ColorQ Water Tester

[salinda]

Update...

Here is a response from LaMotte:
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Dear Linda,

Our lab has been working with your sample. Your hardness values are well beyond the recommended levels. This high hardness value in your water is buffering the sample and interfering with the test reactions.

Lowering your hardness is necessary to prevent scale and protect your hardware and equipment. Once the hardness values are in the proper range, test interferences will be eliminated.

I will send you a vial of our Insta-Test strips @ no charge to use while you lower your hardness. I will also include a set of replacement chemicals for your ColorQ. Please let me know your shipping address.

Thank you for your patience. I look forward to your reply.

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I sent the following response. Note that my CH, although high, is only 570. The colorQ is supposed to test to 400 so it doesn't have to be much over to interfere with the kit. Too bad....

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Charlie,

Thanks so much for the response.

Right now, I am handling the high hardness by maintaining a low TA number. I have had now scale on my equipment for the 3 years that my hardness has been high, so it is not problematic. My pool is about 35,000 gallons, so reducing hardness via the recommended drain and refill would be a real hardship, especially this year.

Should I return the ColorQ and try again in future years after I do a major drain/refill?

[Ront]

Please add me to the list as well anxiously waiting to hear on how well these work.

I was too late to get Ben's kit last year and was planning on getting a good drop kit, (probably the kit offered at troublefree.com), but with the number of tests included in the colorq with somewhat reasonable refill prices...
But who am I kidding, it's the GEEK factor that has me looking at this.

All I currently have is the Walmart 6-way and am quickly running out of my CYA test so I need to replace the kit soon.

Last question....Where can you buy the Colorq? I've only seen 1 place and he's posted that he's backordered for 2-3 weeks...any other ideas where it can be purchased?

Thanks,
Mike

I know I am a little late on answering this question you have, but I will tell you anyway.

After reading about the ColorQ on here and other places, I decided to order it. I ordered it from askalanaquestion.com , the first good thing about this site is that they accept paypal. Then, I believe they said that the ColorQ was backordered 1 week or more.

Well, I ordered it on Wednesday, and received it on Thursday, less than 24 hours later.........not bad for a "backorder". Of course this also depends on where you live, I believe the kit is shipped directly from Lamotte located in Maryland, I am in NJ, so standard ups ground is 1 day.

Anyway, I am very impressed with any site who ships out your order same day, especially since no "premium" shipping charge was paid. So, 2 thumbs up
to askalanaquestion.com and Lamotte!!

[Ront]

I didn't get a good feeling from the AskAlanAQuestion website, so I found out I could order one directly from LaMotte. I went to their website and called the number off of the contact us link. They are backordered a little because they have been very popular.

See my previous reply, askalanaquestion.com has excellent service.

[salinda]

Great! It is nice to know there is more than one source.

Unfortunately, I am not able to use my ColorQ (see above). If you have high CH, think twice about using this system. Mine is in the 500-600 range, which people on this forum consider to be more than manageable. This is only a bit over the range of the CH test in the ColorQ, but it is "buffering" my results per LaMotte. I am pursuing a refund right now.

[MikeInMo]

Well I ordered the ColorQ a few weeks back and it is satisfying my 'geek factor' and more. First it should be noted that while I try to be somewhat precise about the water I place in the tubes (I've found it a lot easier to go under and then add drop by drop from the sample bottle) I just consider myself lucky to get the reagents in the tubes, let alone trying to ensure uniform drop size. [I often do this in the pool and with kids splashing water and waves, and with my aging eyes I'm just happy to hit the opening.] I imagine my numbers would be better if I ensured this uniformity.

Using the cheap OTO chlorine tests I could never figure out which shade of yellow I really had (and was limited to 5ppm TC as well). The ColorQ really has alleviated my concerns in this area providing a very accurate reading on the FC, CC, and TC amounts. The PH readings are virtually spot on with my other drop tests. The ALK tests are in-line with drop tests, maybe a tad on the low side.

I too contacted customer service at LaMotte re: the CH readings. Charlie is excellent to work with and I have never been on hold for an extended period of time. They sent me out a new set of CH reagents (at no charge) but my values stayed the same. [They told me I did not have a problem lot and they must have been correct.] I am running about 70 points low compared to my drop tests. [ColorQ shows 200 and drops show 270.] I can live with this now that I have figured out the adjustment amount. Having a gunnite pool I was concerned I was too low but everything seems to work fine.

I really enjoy how precise the tester is and the ease & quickness of the tests. No more trying to remember was that drop 20 or 21 I just put in. All in all I definitely recommend it.

Mike

PS. It also satisfies my mad scientist cravings!

[salinda]

I agree that the system is easy to use but at this point I CANNOT recommend the ColorQ for people with high CH. According to Lamotte, the high Calcium levels throw off ALL the other numbers. In my case, this was definitely true. I am still pursuing a refund.

[Amir]

OK. Here is my experience with the color Q. Got it a couple of weeks ago. Like the machine. All the test look good EXCEPT CYA! I have a CYA of about 50 and the machine shows 3 or 7 or 9 etc! After MANY conversations with tech support I was told that this is an issue with the machine and it is water temperature dependent. The temperature should be near 75 degree (mine is 81) to be accurate. The last conversation with tech support we left it at shipping the machine back to see if they can do better or receive a refund.
Regards
Amir

[Ront]

OK. Here is my experience with the color Q. Got it a couple of weeks ago. Like the machine. All the test look good EXCEPT CYA! I have a CYA of about 50 and the machine shows 3 or 7 or 9 etc! After MANY conversations with tech support I was told that this is an issue with the machine and it is water temperature dependent. The temperature should be near 75 degree (mine is 81) to be accurate. The last conversation with tech support we left it at shipping the machine back to see if they can do better or receive a refund.
Regards
Amir

I am having the same problem with the CYA test. When I received the unit, my CYA level was around 40, based on the Pool Solutions test. About a week before, I installed a SWG, and following their advice, I added 4 Lbs. of CYA to raise the level towards 80.

The first couple of CYA tests with the ColorQ, was showing between 27 & 31.
The PS CYA test is showing around 60-70. Well after just adding 4 Lbs., I can know for a fact that the ColorQ test is way off.

But anyway, I am just going to test the CYA level several more times in the next week, and as long as the results remain consistent, I can then easily apply the correction factor. If the results start bouncing all over, I'll have to make the decision whether to keep it or not.

Other than that, all the other numbers look good. We will see what happens!!

[donaldm823]

Well I ordered the ColorQ a few weeks back and it is satisfying my 'geek factor' and more. First it should be noted that while I try to be somewhat precise about the water I place in the tubes (I've found it a lot easier to go under and then add drop by drop from the sample bottle) I just consider myself lucky to get the reagents in the tubes, let alone trying to ensure uniform drop size. [I often do this in the pool and with kids splashing water and waves, and with my aging eyes I'm just happy to hit the opening.] I imagine my numbers would be better if I ensured this uniformity.

Using the cheap OTO chlorine tests I could never figure out which shade of yellow I really had (and was limited to 5ppm TC as well). The ColorQ really has alleviated my concerns in this area providing a very accurate reading on the FC, CC, and TC amounts. The PH readings are virtually spot on with my other drop tests. The ALK tests are in-line with drop tests, maybe a tad on the low side.

I too contacted customer service at LaMotte re: the CH readings. Charlie is excellent to work with and I have never been on hold for an extended period of time. They sent me out a new set of CH reagents (at no charge) but my values stayed the same. [They told me I did not have a problem lot and they must have been correct.] I am running about 70 points low compared to my drop tests. [ColorQ shows 200 and drops show 270.] I can live with this now that I have figured out the adjustment amount. Having a gunnite pool I was concerned I was too low but everything seems to work fine.

I really enjoy how precise the tester is and the ease & quickness of the tests. No more trying to remember was that drop 20 or 21 I just put in. All in all I definitely recommend it.

Mike

PS. It also satisfies my mad scientist cravings!

So Mike-which test do you think is accurate (Taylor drops or colorQ). I also get 205ppm from ColorQ and 290ppm from Taylor and was considering adding more CaCl. Leslie gets 350ppm. I thought it may be some pool water interference from some unknown and just maybe colorQ was the accurate one. I have an inground concrete pool (1 yr old). Tech support was great and replaced both my meter and also the CH2 reagent. At that point, I thought the colorQ was the accurate one. Either way, I think colorQ is a great tester and am happy I bought one

[Amir]

Ront,
My cya reading with colorQ has not gone above 9 where my cya should be about 50. According to laMotte CYA is temperature dependent so you can not just add a number to what you get from the colorQ to be accurate since the water temperature varies with the season . In order to get this machine to work right they should take into account other factors in addition to color and the machine needs to be more sophisticated and probably more expensive. I for one would have paid another $50 for a more reliable machine. I guess if you think of the machine as a test fro cl, alk, ph and ch only it is not bad.
Regards

Amir