Acid and Base Demand tests: Useful or Not?

[waterbear]

I want to clear up a few misconceptions since I have seen some confusion in this thread about the K-1005, K-2005, and K-1000 test kits, Taylor has a range of 1000 series test kits with different functionality geared at the home/residential market and a range of 2000 series test kits aimed at the 'advanced home/residential' (read Poolfourm community) and professional markets. I will say that the K-1000 is a useful additional test kit for quick daily testing if you know how to properly use OTO (which means learning the colors at low, normal, high, and very high TC levels) if you supplement it wth DPD or FAS/DPD testing at least weekly or when you suspect problems.

The K-1000 OTO test kit from Taylor upgrades the OTO and pH test to the same as the K-2006, and includes R-0014, rather than R-0004 for the pH test. R-0014 includes a chlorine neutralizer so it can read accurately in higher chlorine situations
BOTH R-0004 and R-0014 have a chlorine neutralizer. The difference between them is the concentration since they are used in different comparators. The 1000 series comparator that is used with R-0014 use a much smaller sample size than the 2000 series comparator, which has higher precision on the pH test, acid demand test and base demand test. The pH indicators are otherwise functionally equivalent and both can read accurately in higher chlorine conditions.
If you have the K-1515 and K-1000, the only other tests you need are the T/A, CYA, and CH tests (acid and base demand are worthless).
The test kit in question is the K-1005 whch has DPD chlorine, pH with acid and base demand (1000 series comparator that uses R-0014), TA, CH, and CYA tests. Adding a K-1515 will ALMOST give you a K-2006 but the pH and acid and base demand tests will not have the precision of the tests in the K-2006. The K-1000 is an OTO/pH only test kit that uses the smaller 1000 series pH comparator, R-0014 and does not include acid and base demand tests so it does not have the precision of the pH test in the K-2006.
Carl

Acid and base demand tests are NOT worthless. In fact they are quite useful when lowing TA or have a situation where pH and TA have crashed. However, the acid and base demands in the K-2006 are much more precise than the ones in the K-1005 (because the 1000 series comparator uses an approx. 9 ml sample size and the 2000 series comparator uses a 44 ml sample size for the pH and demand tests) so it might be ok to say that the ones in the k-1005 are not as useful as the ones in the K-2006 but they are by no means worthless.

Just had to set the record straight.