Bacteria Test Strips?

[DiggerDan]

I have researched just about all of the opinions/facts out there on a lot of these boards, read stuff from Nitro, chem_geek, Northman, and waterbear, as well as some not-so-nice things on the rest of the internet about long-term effects of chlorine byproducts and halogens and such, and so to minimize exposure to chlorine/bromine/Trihalomethanes (chlorine byproducts), decided to give up on the bromine that I had been using and go with Nature2 w/ MPS with a weekly (or as-needed) dichlor shock as my spa sanitation/oxidization solution.

My question is, has anyone used or proven the effectiveness of bacteria test strips, specifically the Watersafe Rapid Bacteria Pool Test strips?

These things claim to work in ~20 minutes and "detect E.coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, species of Shigell, Enterobacter, and many other coliform and non-coliform bacteria". Basically a bunch of stuff I can't even pronounce, but don't want to be dipping in.

In theory, we could have many testers of all the different water maintenance solutions if these things worked, and people could report with what state their water maintenance was in when they got a positive/negative on the test strip.

chem geek, Richard, I have read many of your posts and it seems you may be one of the people best equipped (mentally and physically!) to provide an answer to this? Any thoughts? They don't specifically state HOW the test strips work anywhere that I can find, beside saying it is an anitbody-based test, so it may just be a voodoo magic type of thing just to sell the things, I don't know. By the way they are around $20 for 10 test strips.

[chem geek]

I can't really vouch one way or the other for the bacteria test strips. In theory, they could work, but unless they are regulated or the company is honest, I really can't tell you if they are any good.

[DiggerDan]

So you're saying there's a chance....

Good, thanks for the input. I was looking to see if these were completely bogus or had some chance to work. I will buy them and try a little experiment where I let some water sit around in a bucket and hopefully build up some bacteria, then test the nasty water and some shocked spa water and make sure the readings are different. This should give a decent idea that they are at least doing their job, even if it doesn't tell me their total accuracy. Guess would need a lab test for that. I will try to post my results in a couple weeks.

If these work, this may be the answer to the question of how to prove Nature2 (or any other product) is actually working and killing all bacteria effectively without a chlorine residual, which, unless I missed something, only the company that makes Nature2 has proven, and we are to just believe them.

FYI strips are here:

http://www.discovertesting.com/products/di...+Strips+10+Pack

[chem geek]

Most tap water is sanitized, either with chlorine (hypochlorous acid) or monochloramine. So you need to dechlorinate the water if you want bacteria to grow in it. You can add sodium thiosulfate to dechlorinate or if you just measure FC and not CC in the tap water, then you can just expose it to the air and to sunlight. When the chlorine (or monochloramine) is gone, then add some fertilized soil to the water and you should get some nice bacterial growth and possibly algae as well.