David121

Interesting, on the Adamant website its only suitable for use with 50 micron cartridge filters...this sand filter thing might have some truth to it.

Ye i kind of came to that conclusion in November about the lack of a sanitiser in the actual water but i can't really do much about it, i also read quite a few papers on electronic oxidation, the last one i found to use straight titanium plates was from the 1980's. I mean titanium does have some effect...i accidentally left the cell on when backwashing and it quickly filled with gas... but ye definitely not as much as necessary, if it did we would of never had the algae problem. The pool builder added heeps of chlorine which within half an hour the pool was blue, and it cleared up after a couple of days with a new sand filter. The chlorine has reacted/evaporated so there is no free chlorine left in the pool. Apparently the ion/oxi systems aren't suppose to be used with cartridge filters, which i think is bogus but my parents don't really care. Apparently ours was the first pool they had used a cartridge filter on due to size constraints which is why they hadn't had the problem before and couldn't figure it out. Have convinced my parents though that if it happens again we'll be either putting on a chlorine pump or going salt water. When i build my own pool it will definitely be salt water.

Do you at least believe i don't work for Ecosmarte or Barramundi now... I never argued an ioniser only system could ever work, that i knew from the start was a joke, but electronic oxidation has allot of reseach done into it so it wasn't that hard to convince myself that part could maybe work... seems strange though that WaterCo had no issue...

Also have contacted APVMA who basically said they weren't able to give an opinion on it because of the Titanium plates they couldn't say whether it did or didn't work, where as the ioniser alone they just say not legal. WaterCo who made the filter said they knew their filter had been installed on these systems and had no issue/never had any complaints or problems regarding the pair up, then rang up SPASA (Australian non-profit pool association which basically all pool builders are a member of and gives advice etc) they also said they weren't aware of any issues with the system either...

Hi, So have had a Barramundi ioniser/oxidation system for 3 months on a new pool, was fine up until a few days ago when the pool turned green from algae. Over about 5 days the pool went from crystal clear to murky green, and the cartridge filter has been blocking up after only a few days use for quite a few months now. My theory is that despite the copper and the "correct" water quality parameters (which i've realised are now stupid, it wants a pH of 6.8 which burns your eyes) that its the algae which has been blocking up the filter, but due to my bi-daily cartridge cleaning routine i think before it was just sucking out the algae to such a low level we couldn't see it was there...but then when i left if for a week its turned green... I want to switch the pool to a salt chlorniator but because i only maintain it and its my parents pool they are very reluctant to switch over and i can't really convince them... So they've contacted the pool builder who contacted the manufactuer of the system and they are claiming the problem is with the cartridge and that it should be a sand filter instead... Could having a sand filter make a difference? I don't think it would...because my understanding is that it will just be able to hold more stuff inbetween cleaning and that it won't filter as finely? Also if i do convince them to go for a salt-chlorinator major concerns are that we're installing a bushfire sprinkler system plumbed to the pool which requires freshwater, hence one of our original reasons for going with the system. Another confusing thing is that the pool builder claims to have never had this happen, which i believe because he's been veery transparent about everything...and the guy who built our pergola also said when ever he built over pools he recommended changing to this system because of construction issues around chlorine/salt....and was yet to have a complaint... I'm so confused...Help! (btw in the mean time no one is swimming in it, also have added liquid chlorine to try to get rid of the algae)

Neither our swim seat or wedding cake steps were formed with the rebar or shaped into the dirt, we literally changed the shape and location of them while it was being sprayed.

No point. Yes the heat would conduct upwards through the concrete and into the pool but it will also go downwards into the surrounding earth, which no matter how much energy you pump in you will never heat up much and the ground depending on depth/season usually is a fairly constant 18 degrees C (hence how domestic geo-thermal heat pumps aren't exhausted, as if you could change the ground temperature easily they wouldn't work). The only way to avoid that would be to somehow insulate the concrete which seems crazy. In homes the underfloor heating systems are generally mounted ontop of polystyrene to prevent the heat going downward into the slab. I have solar heating in Aus, it just pumps out straight into the pool and don't have any problems with distribution, the concrete acts as a bit of a buffer to sudden heat changes... Also the extra cost of running pipes through the concrete, which presumably would have to be a metal to acheive decent heat conductivity as PVC pipes aren't designed for heat conduction, virtually the opposite...would u want small pipes that could potentially get blocked by debris buried in the structure? As unless you used a closed water circuit (requiring a second pump) you would have no guarantee... Might get a more stable temperature perhaps...

Hi, Concluded the problem is the millipedes, their pool is in an urban environment and they don't have many millipedes, whereas ours is in the middle of dense bushland combined with an unusually wet summer we've been having hasn't helped. Due to enclosure size and proximity to bush physical barrier control or chemical barriers are going to be too hard to implement. It seems the filter sock is able to prevent the actual insect shells, but they break up into about 2mm fragments and the guts seem to pass through the sock unimpeded. Until the manufacturer can verify their claims about the sanitation system we've asked our pool builder to set it up as a normal chlorine pool for the short term, if not the system can have a peristaltic chlorine pump added so in the long term if claims aren't verified will install that. Also contacted APVMA to see what they think. As a long term solution to the millipede problem, contemplating having a Waterco "Multicyclone" centrifugal filter fitted between the pump and cartridge, although don't have any experience on how well it would work on cells...it only works on particles denser than water so to test i washed the worst of the cartridge into a bucket and let it sit overnight, has separated into two layers with the cells on the bottom so i'm hopeful... Any one familiar with the centrifugal pre filters?

The pool is free from algae, cu is a registered algaecide and the active ingredient in many algaecides. Thankyou, we have it fitted roughly and it seems to be effective at keeping the heat in but its just so hard to get on lol, i think cutting the sides off should make it allot easier though.

I was not trying to flaunt the system, i said assuming i had a noraml pool what would i do? I didn't bring the system up in the first place in this post, i never mentioned it until somebody else did. I don't care what you think, i'm satisfied the system is working, my local council is happy aswell, if its not then i'm sure it will reveal itself soon enough at which point i'll change the system, until then i'm sticking with it. Do u think instead of focusing on the sanitation you could perhaps help me with the completely unrelated cover situation? I don't know what to do there. On TFP that was the question i asked first...i found that other thread and mentioned what i had and you guys don't like it fine, but the cover is completely unrelated. Its a standard solar cover on a roller for a weird shaped pool.

Ok someone with the same sanitiser doesn't have the problem, i suspect it is most likely the millipeeds. I didn't really want to mention the system because i can't re-distribute the article on Titanium electrolysis showing what is actually happening. The sanitiser has an ioniser but as i only recently worked out, the oxidiser produces 6 different species each capable of oxidation, it would appear that as there is always a natural level of chlorine in water, whether it be from the CaCl added it is oxidised at the titanium electrodes to CL2 and then forming ur standard Hypochlorous acid, but at a lower level, (to be honest i don't completely understand however the paper i've sited explained it better). Also the carbonate in the water from the buffer is apparently also oxidised at the anode to per-carbonate which also has residual antibiotic properties. pH=7.0 (varies between 6.9 and 7.1 due to the concrete still curing) TA=65ppm Ca=350ppm Cu=0.5ppm (Using LaMotte ColorQ photometer) Phosphate=0 (using a test strip) I'm not going to promote the system or mention it again, just please if u don't believe it works could u treat this as an academic exercise as though i had a normal pool? The stuff is brownish and washes off easily, when we did have a problem with the copper the cartridge was green.

Ok so i have a few: Our cartridge filter is getting full after 2-3 days requiring cleaning, a friend with an identical pump/filter set up on a similar size pool is only having to once every few months, ours was fine for the first few weeks then it just suddenly went like this, the water parameters are fine i've checked them every week. It seems to be fine until after i vacuum then it shoots up. I put in a sock filter over the skimmer basket which has alleviated the problem slightly... We have a huge problem with portugese millipeeds, they just crawl straight into the pool and drown...hundreds of them, they don't float for very long so the skimmer misses allot of them, so i'm vacuuming them out every other day, they seem to break up into small pieces when i vacuum. We have a solar pool cover, the manufacturer recommends having the cover come up the sides of the pool to sit flush with the bottom of the coping, this is making it very difficult to get the cover on and off...can i cut it off so it sits on the water only, not coming up the sides? It's reasonably sheltered from wind. We have a Hayward Pool Vac Ultra, i cannot get it to work properly as it will only stay in one end of the pool, tried it on each different setting and adjusted the flow valve...should we just give up on it? I always do it manually anyway. Pool info: Freeform, 12.5m long lap lane, with 5.0m wide end sections, 2.5m in the middle...concrete, fully tiled.

Hi, We have a long freeform pool with a solar cover but it's too hard to get on and off due to the shape (we have a roller). Has anyone got any experience with liquid pool covers? Do they work? I've heard that the liquid is very expensive? Not concerned about leaves getting in, as i prefer to let the skimmer box catch them than sitting on the cover. Minimising water use isn't the main objective, its more keeping the heat in as i like to keep the pool at 32 degrees C but it loses so much heat over night when the solar's not on.

I agree with the spool, we bought the cover put it on and was too hard to get off so bought the spool the next day.

The four year old pool is a friends built by the same builder which has not had problems, my pool is 2 months old and has not had problems (other than initially a malfunction with the copper ioniser causing a high level of copper in the pool which to remove i allowed the pH to increase to 7.3 added lots of sodium bicarbonate buffer. The buffer in its basic form (i.e CO32-)reacted to form insoluble CuCO3 crystals which were then very quickly filterd out by the cartridge filter. There was some minor staining of the grout between tiles but quickly disappeared after i corrected the pH. I queried my friend with honours in chemistry further because i was soo worried about the system now that i couldn't understand how the science could possibly work, (i'm in second year chemistry/biology)she helped me find that article along with a few others showing that Titanium electrolysis where the polarity is alternated can produce species which offer residual sanitation. (Again read the article). Again i have not had a single problem (other than with the ioniser which was replaced the following day) with this system, but i was getting a bit terrified that there was a problem because of everything said on here and the fact that the manufacturers website, the science they were telling me made no sense directly so i was constantly trying to aply what i knew about the pool and ozone, H2O2 to figure it out. Also i needed to know whether i was going to ahve to replace the system again because we're about to put in bush-fire sprinklers and the sprinkler type is determined by whether there is salt or high chlorine levels present. I changed accounts and which pool i was talking about because i received such hostility and because my view of what was actually happening changed as i read different retailer's (including the instruction manuals) of how it worked...none of their explanations stacked up against what you guys were saying, everything i said specifically about copper or ozone's abilities are correct however and you may read any source and find it to be correct, i could not (and did not claim) how it was able to instant kill a cell (hence my concerns, even though our pool is clean) . Again read the article and how its not relying on Cu as the main residual sanitiser or ozone (as i was led to believe by the manufacturer).

Also it is not a corona discharge generator, despite what the websites say, copper isn't the primary residual sanitiser, its all enabled by Titaniums unique position on the metal reactivity series, sorry for all the confusion i believed what the websites claimed but they just had a profound mis-understanding of what was going on, and using their explanation of it what everyone here said made me definitely believe the system couldn't possibly work.

Hi Read this paper, the product has been completely mis-represented by the company selling it, they claimed it added ozone to the system, it is not the primary sanitiser. I've been trying to figure it out for several weeks and finally found this paper, basically the people selling it have no idea what is going on. "Disinfection of water by electrochemical treatment" G. Patermarakisa and E. Fountoukidisa http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V73-48CFRHR-GV&_user=10&_coverDate=12%2F31%2F1990&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_origin=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1560894187&_rerunOrigin=scholar.google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=b18aea902906a9d5e8d5ebf2e60b11c3&searchtype=a The system actually does have chlorine as a residual sanitiser, although it is not added, chlorine is present in water anyway it just enables its use much more efficiently, for lack of a better explanation. (Read the article and you'll see what i mean)

I'm not bloody trying to sell this system! I'm very concerned and angry at the moment, it is a very expensive pool (and yes we got quotes from several builders his was about the average in the upper end, however now that i think about it i think the others mentioned an UV based system?), so if the system doesn't work i'm quite frustrated. I need to know basically now whether or not we're going to have to replace the system or not because we're about to install a bush-fire sprinkler system and whether or not it is salt, chlorine etc makes a huge difference to what sprinklers we have to use aswell as the price, and we're not going to take risks with our lives in a bushfire because the system doesn't work so thats why i'm asking!I need to sort this out before the system is installed. Secondly, websites advertising the product claim it to produce ozone, chemically i cannot see how this is possible using titanium plates within the water,i would think hydrogen peroxide would more likely be produced...however i cannot seem to get a redox reaction to work (i have a decent level of chemistry) and i asked an older friend with honours in chemistry and she couldn't figure it out either. I do not however believe it to produce di-atomic oxygen because if that were the case they could simply stick two graphite rods in their for a fraction of the cost. Anecdotally we saw several pools built by our builder who were all extremely happy with the system, had been operating it for four years or more without problem, not with staining either. I was very hesitant at first trying to work it out but with the number of happy customers i just assumed it must work and gave up trying to figure it out. Our pool is fully tiled/concrete, structurally it is extremely well built (had it insepcted by structural engineers). On that other website i detailed everything i knew about the system and how i'd been led to believe it work, and everything i knew about low level copper's effects on organisms and virion particles...i'm desperately trying to work this out because i really can't believe that he'd be selling us this system with out a problem, as for him making money off of it, he was very open about all costs, even absorbed some of the extra costs associated with the excavation to try to keep to his original quote (which he was not legally obliged as we had accepted that the excavation was not fixed cost due to our extremely difficult site.

ASVAME? Sorry what does that stand for? I didn't get any hits on google lol. From all the research i've done that seems to be the consensus, however our pool builder said that their association (in my state) had been lobbying the local equivalent about this system to get in mainstream approved with some headway...but had been getting all their resistance from the chemical manufacturers putting allot of pressure on the authority because obviously you don't have to buy chlorine for that system. In our region it is still approved, i queried our builder about it and he's been very upfront about everything, its only been running about 6 weeks and everything else has had to comply with the latest regs... I'm very confused what to believe because my experience has been great but allot of people are against it. We have a fully tiled concrete pool, only the more expensive pool builders in my area are using it and they're always concrete fully tiled anyway. (Gum leaves leach tannins which stain anything but tiles so they're a bit of a must in my area). The copper staining hasn't been a problem at that concentration, did accidentally set it to high initially which caused some minor staining but quickly disappeared when it was corrected. Had it at 3.3ppm at its worst, which caused some minor hair staining...but even at 2.6 it wasn't causing staining.

I've been operating my pool using a "Barramundi Fresh Water" sanitation system, which uses an ioniser to maintain low Cu2+ ion levels as well as producing ozone as an instant kill sanitation. I've been operating it for two months with no issues and our pool builder showed us dozens of pools he'd installed it on, all very happy with the system, having used it for several years. Yet i mentioned it on another pool forum site and was kicked off! lol...they were very againsst anything that wasn't Chlorine, i must admit i had the same hesitation beforehand but am now converted. I can't however find any system like it outside of Australia, all the ozone systems overseas i've seen have been big bulky horrible things... Has anyone else got this system? Or even heard of it lol? I'm completely perplexed as we've found it to be such a delight to swim in compared to our old salt water one. Yet on the other site i was barraged with comments telling me i was swimming in septic tank, despite explaining the science behind it at a university level they all thought i was a heretic... Has anyone got any experience with this or a similar system?