Mineral pool additives another scam? (King Technologies pool frog)

[frayedend]

Hi There,

I've been using the bleach method for a few years, haven't visited the forum much as I haven't needed to. Glad things are updated and my account is back.

Anyhow a coworker just pointed out that she used this Pool Frog mineral system that supposedly reduces bacteria (of course the didn't mention algae). The claim is it reduces chlorine need by 50%. So scam or what? They have this "instant frog" that you just add to the skimmer and it's about $40. If it truly was beneficial I might try it but I am skeptical and I can't find anything in the way of reviews online.

Thanks!
Frayed

[PoolDoc]

In today's swimming pool market "mineral" = "copper" or sometimes "copper + silver" or rarely "copper + zinc".

Copper kills algae. Copper kills bacteria . . . v-e-r-y _ s--l--o--w--l--y. Copper does not kill viruses.

In average pools (ie, non-PoolForum or BBB method pools) 50% or more of the chemical use in a typical season goes to cleaning up algae messes. PoolForum pools don't usually have algae messes, and when they do, they usually get cleaned up quickly.

My point? A typical pool with a lot of copper is less likely to have an algae bloom than one with no copper. So, yes if you used a "mineral" system faithfully, your use of chlorine would be reduced, perhaps 50%. So, I wouldn't call it a scam, not quite.

Unfortunately, "mineral" products often turn into a scam when sales people talk about "chemical free" or non-chlorine. Copper is not a sanitizer, because it does not kill viruses and is too slow with bacteria. When people claim you can run a safe chlorine-free pool with "minerals", they ARE scamming you. The companies themselves have stopped doing this, though only after several got hauled into court! But apparently, a lot of sales reps still make those claims, because I keep hearing them from people here.

BUT, if you are a BBB method user, you've already reduced your chlorine use MORE than 50% . . . and without staining your pool blue-green or your hair green. (Copper, not chlorine, causes green hair.)

So, there's no savings for a BBB method user, just more expense and more stains.

Ben / PoolDoc

[frayedend]

Great info! Thanks. I couldn't find what "mineral" they were claiming so I couldn't really research it. I love your method and it's helped me quite a bit, even cleaning up a really bad mess last spring. Had they said it was copper it would have been a give-away!

[chem geek]

Copper not only kills bacteria more slowly than chlorine, but at the levels allowed in pools copper ions do not kill nor inhibit fecal bacteria AT ALL. This is because the level of copper ions in your gut where such bacteria live (in controlled numbers by other more beneficial bacteria and immune system components that keep them in check) has around the same level of copper ions as in a pool (if not higher). So these bacteria evolved mechanisms to handle low levels of copper ions. Technical details and kill times for chlorine, copper and silver are found in this post. If one is going to use a metal ion system, and I'm not recommending that, it should be a copper/silver combination system so that at least one gets some control of fecal bacteria. However, staining is an issue unless one carefully controls the metal ion levels and keeps pH low.

By the way, if one wants to have a lower chlorine level (FC/CYA ratio) and therefore lower chlorine usage from its breakdown from sunlight, then one can use an algaecide such as PolyQuat 60 added weekly and not get the risk of metal staining of pool surfaces nor of blonds getting green hair. Another alternative is to use 50 ppm Borates in the pool, though that's a milder algae inhibitor than copper ions or PolyQuat, but doesn't have staining side effects and doesn't need to be added weekly. For some pools, it's enough to keep algae from turning into a bloom for at least a week or so (based on both waterbear's and my own experience).

[PoolDoc]

Here's the expansion of this thread that I put on PoolSolutions:
http://www.poolsolutions.com/gd/mine...es-a-scam.html

If you find errors, or typos, post 'em here.

Ben

PS: Chem_Geek, can you footnote that bit about fecals? In reworking PoolSolutions, I'm finding that a lot of links have gone bad, and that Google can't find the original article. So I'm trying to archive ALL my references as I update things.

[chem geek]

PS: Chem_Geek, can you footnote that bit about fecals? In reworking PoolSolutions, I'm finding that a lot of links have gone bad, and that Google can't find the original article. So I'm trying to archive ALL my references as I update things.

I assume you're being facetious since that post I wrote has 25 footnotes referring to 28 scientific peer-reviewed papers in respected journals or official tables from the CDC and the like. Yes, links going bad are always a problem, but fortunately links to scientific papers usually stick around as the journals tend not to change and some use the digital object identifier (doi) system.

I want to give a warning to those who might just look at a long list of scientific paper references and think that this by itself means anything. I was recently in an E-mail conversation with a person from one of the metal ion system sites (electrolysis of copper to make copper ions) and when I asked him to correct his company's website that incorrectly stated that E.coli was killed with 0.5 ppm copper he sent lots of references about copper solid alloys, copper with silver, and copper used in food with poultry. The mechanism for killing of bacteria on solid alloys is different than that of low concentrations of metal ions. The combination of copper and silver (or silver alone) does kill fecal bacteria, but isn't relevant if one is looking and copper-only systems. The concentration of copper in the food with poultry studies was hundreds of times higher than found in pools. So one can't just see references, but has to actually look at them, read them, and understand them. The ways of deceit are many, so one must keep alert and vigilant.

Richard

[PoolDoc]

Sorry -- didn't see the link in your post. Will follow it, and archive it and all available references.

But yeah, I've been going through my archives, and found a bunch of stuff I need to transcribe and post, but also stumbled over a "research report" sent me by an ionizer maker 20 years ago. The irony was that that the analysis -- that the VP marketing sent me -- actually showed that his product didn't work!

Ben

[waterbear]

Ben, in the Poolsolutions article above you make a reference to "dihydrogen chloride" in the third paragraph. I think you mean dihydrogen monoxide. (Bet you were working on it late at night I've done the same type of thing myself!)

(You are right -- hadn't finished the footnote, either. Don't recall if it was late at night, but I've been writing, or rewriting, more than I've been proof reading! Ben / PoolDoc)

[CarlD]

I take a different approach: A few years ago I calculated what the Nature2 system cost per season and, if I remember correctly, it was at least $200. Now at even $20 for a 5 gallons carboy of 12.5% Liquid chlorine, $200 buys 10 carboys, which is 50 gallons or the equivalent of 100 gallons of 6% bleach. Now, if you have a clean pool, and you add half a gallon of 6% every day (or a gallon every 2 days), during the average 3-month swimming season, you'll use approximately 45 gallons of 6% bleach, or a little less than 5 carboys of Liquid chlorine. In other words, your chlorine cost for the season may be HALF of what the Nature2 cost you. But here's the kicker: The system cuts your chlorine usage in half by killing algae, so you only need half as much chlorine, or, in this example, about $50 worth of LC. Soooooo.... If you just use LC, it costs you $100 for the season. If you use the $200 Nature2 + chlorine it costs you $250...where's the savings in that?

Now suppose I'm wrong (happens all the time ) and it only costs you $100 for the Nature2 or the frogger, for the season. It STILL costs you $50 more than just chlorine alone! In fact, unless the system costs less than $50, you lose money.

What PoolDoc and ChemGeek are saying is that mineral systems kill what is, essentially benign growth in your pool: Algae. We swim in ponds and lakes with algae all the time with little problem BUT, when you have algae, all your chlorine gets used up killing it, leaving nothing to protect you from the really dangerous bacteria that copper and silver can't kill, especially from fecal matter, that everybody has traces of.

My wife always says the ONLY pool she never gets sick from, and isn't afraid to get into, is mine (but that's only because we've never visited our fellow Moderators, PoolDoc, ChemGeek, or the other deeply experienced B-B-B users).