new2spa Posted March 2, 2012 Report Share Posted March 2, 2012 Does anyone use a digital salinty tester? The test strips are kinda expensive, so I figured it might be a good investment to buy a digital salinty tester. Any recommendations would be greatly appreaciated! I was going to get a pH tester also, but I couldn't find one with any decent reviews. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
waterbear Posted March 2, 2012 Report Share Posted March 2, 2012 The Oakton SaltTestR 11, Waterproof SaltTestr, and the MyronL PoolMeter are dependable "inexpensive" meters (IF they are kept calibrated against a standard solution!) Most of the other ones out there are junk, IMHO.Also realize that meters test conductivity while chemical tests like strips and drop count tests such as the Taylor K-1766 test chloride ion content of the water so the results may not always be the same. Meter electrodes do need to be replaced since they do wear out and then there are batteries so there are these 'hidden expenses' to consider also. IF you are a professional testing a LOT of pool regularly then a meter can be a more cost effective option but you do need to calibrate it regularly (I used to calibrate weekly). If you are testing your own pool a chemical test, either strip or drop test, is going to be more cost effective, IMHO, since salt does not need to be tested more than every few weeks to monthly under nomal conditions. Expect to pay about $100 for an Oakton and over $200 for the MyronL. A quart of standard solution is around $20-$25 (, MyronL sells it by the quart and gallon, Oakton sells it by the pint) or you can buy the 'one shot' packets from Oakton which get very pricey but are convenient to carry in the field. Hayward/Goldline sells a rebranded Oakton for a bit more money than the Oakton branded one and sells the calibration standard solution also and these are usually available through normal pool supply distribution channels. The Oakton Meters are manufactured by Eutech and sold under that name in Europe. I have not seen reliable results from the LaMotte Tracer/PockeTester meters. The PockeTesters appear to be rebranded Eutech/Oakton Ecotestr models (their low cost/low end meters).. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Even Further Posted March 5, 2012 Report Share Posted March 5, 2012 I'vee been using a digital photometer, Lamotte ColorQ Pro 7 Plus for about 1 year. It works great. ColorQ's get good reviews on Amazon, but I bought elsewhere for a little less shipped. Time will tell, as far as longevity. Its proved to be accurate. I've compared about a dozen times with the local pool supply store, and its always same or very close. I use it with a Bromine sanitized spa. http://www.lamotte.com/pages/pool/colorqs.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
waterbear Posted March 5, 2012 Report Share Posted March 5, 2012 I'vee been using a digital photometer, Lamotte ColorQ Pro 7 Plus for about 1 year. Thank you for your input bu tit is not really relevant to the OPs queston. First, the ColorQ is NOT a digital salinity (salt) tester. It is a colorimeter for reading the colors of tests for chemical levels. Second, it has some range and sensitivity limitation when compared with titration tests (including the ones from LaMotte) and the units using liquid reagents are better than the ones that use the tablets because of limitaition in the tablet chemistry. When you consider that most colorimeters cost 10 times the price and take into consider that I was told by a LaMotte representative that it was 'pretty good for a $100 colorimeter' when I asked how it compared to their Waterlink meters (which are excellent but expensive and, once again, suffer some limitations compared to a titration test because of the chemistry involved in a colormetric test). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
new2spa Posted March 6, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 6, 2012 Well I purchased an Oakton: http://www.amazon.com/Oakton-WD-35462-50-Waterproof-EcoTestr-Tester/dp/B004G8PWGY/ref=sr_1_sc_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1330997457&sr=8-3-spell However when it came and I read the directions I noticed it only tested in ppt, not ppm. So back it went to Amazon. I might just stick with the test strips, they seem accurite and i only really need to do an accurite test once ever month and a half. The only Salinty tester I found that tests in ppm is $199! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
waterbear Posted March 6, 2012 Report Share Posted March 6, 2012 IF you want to convert PPT to PPM just add three 0 at the end and move the decimal point 3 places to the right. (For example 3.2 ppt is the same as 3200 ppm, 6 ppt is the same as 6000 ppm.) If you don't understand this then using a meter is not for you since they really do require a slight technical background. Not meant as an insult, just a statement of fact.Most saltinity meters actally do read in PPT. Whether it reads in PPT or PPM is actually moot. It's like returning a measuring cup because it's marked in 1/4 cup, 1/2 cup, 3/4 cup, and 1 cup increments instead of 2, 4, 6 and 8 oz. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
new2spa Posted March 7, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 7, 2012 Would have been awesome if the directions told me that... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
waterbear Posted March 7, 2012 Report Share Posted March 7, 2012 I guess they figured that anyone using a piece of scientific testing equipment would be familiar with the metric system, which is fairly universal in the scientific world. We even test our pools using metric (ppm, ppt, ppb=parts per million, thousand, billion) and not English (US) measurements, which would be grains per gallon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
new2spa Posted March 7, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 7, 2012 I guess my 4 year college degree will keep me out of working in the pool store. Some how I think I will sleep ok today. Not sure why exactly you think it would be an automatic assumtion to convert ppt into ppm, I was making a guess that a salt water system would be working with greater then 1% salinity, silly me! How about I show you 1 million lines of C++ code and let you figure it out champ? Hope I don't sound insulting! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
waterbear Posted March 7, 2012 Report Share Posted March 7, 2012 I guess my 4 year college degree will keep me out of working in the pool store. Probably not,but it might keep you from working in a water analysis lab. Not sure why exactly you think it would be an automatic assumtion to convert ppt into ppm, I was making a guess that a salt water system would be working with greater then 1% salinity, silly me! For the same reason I would make the assumption that if a measurement was given in quarts but you only had a 1 cup measure you would look up the equivalent that 4 cups = 1 qt. and not throw away the 1 cup measure and look for one calibrated in quarts and fractions of quarts, silly me. How about I show you 1 million lines of C++ code and let you figure it out champ? Hope I don't sound insulting! Considering that I was a programmer back in the 70s and 80s (and ran my own data processing and consulting firm in addition) and a company I worked for was a VAR for the ATT Unix PC (which ran System V), in addition to our CP/M and 6502/68000 processer family work and did hardware maintenance and was a sysadmin at an ISP in the 90s (and my 4 year college degree was not in IT at all!) I would have to say 'bring it on" I have "fond memories" of hand disassembling hex machine code. (NOT!) It was not meant to be insulting. However, I stand by what I say. The meters are manufactured for the scientific community so some basic knowledge of WHAT they are actually measuring is going to be assumed. Even the Goldline/Hayward rebranded meter and the LaMotte meters measure in ppt. (To be fair, the LaMotte is dual range but the ppm scale does not measure high enough for a salt pool since it only goes to 999 ppm so you would have to use the ppt scale for higher salt readings.) If you want a programming analogy how about this... You would know what a specific C++ library does before using it. For example, you would not install the SMPT/POP3 email engine and api library if what you need is cross platform GUI toolkit library! You know what the tool is supposed to do and how it works before you use it. If not you find out (and in this case it was just a matter of familiarizing yourself with the measurement system being used--metric). Kinda like trying to bake a cake if you don't know the meaning of the cooking terms, "cream", "mix", and "fold". It will not end well, dontcha think? . And, FWIW, I do not currently work in a pool store (but I have done it as a summer job since working at a school is not 'year round' employment). There is a learning curve for anything and we are here to help you get over the one for pools and spas. You just need to ask! Converting from ppt to ppm is trivial when compared to converting from base 10 to hex to binary (which I remember having to code in my college Advanced Fortran IV level G class.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
new2spa Posted March 7, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 7, 2012 Fortran?! Good grief... You have my respect. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveH24 Posted March 7, 2012 Report Share Posted March 7, 2012 Fortran ? isn't that Satan's programming language ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
waterbear Posted March 8, 2012 Report Share Posted March 8, 2012 Fortran ? isn't that Satan's programming language ? No, you are confusing it with PL/1! Fortran is really like basic with extras! It's bottom up programming and instead of 'objects' it uses subroutines that you call. Really pretty simple but you just DON"T want to drop the punch cards and get them out of order! (Never did care for top down languages like Pascal and C. How are you supposed to define variables and arrays before you know how many you are going to need? ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
new2spa Posted March 10, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 10, 2012 Waterbear I knew when I wrote that post you would come back with that you where a programmer. Hey really I am a rocket scientist... I'm waiting for the: "Back in the 60's I worked for NASA on the moon project". :lol: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
waterbear Posted March 11, 2012 Report Share Posted March 11, 2012 Waterbear I knew when I wrote that post you would come back with that you where a programmer. Hey really I am a rocket scientist... I'm waiting for the: "Back in the 60's I worked for NASA on the moon project". :lol: Sorry to disappoint but in the 60's I was in elementary school and Jr. High (started HS in '69). Rocket scientist, eh? No WONDER you are having problems! Taking care of a spa ain't rocket science! :lol: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
new2spa Posted March 17, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 17, 2012 I still get a giggle out of the "figured that anyone using a piece of scientific testing equipment". It's a piece of equiptment, I wouldn't exactly call it "Scientific". Everytime I read your posts now Bear I have an image in my head of you in a lab coat in a lab with giant computers in the background.. figuring out lifes great mysterys, like the TA and pH relationship. :lol: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
waterbear Posted March 18, 2012 Report Share Posted March 18, 2012 Been there, done that BUT. there were no giant computers (but I did have to run my samples on an x ray diffraction machine a few labs up from mine and I've worn a lot of lab coats in my life) and the research was on nucleation and precipitation of calcium carbonate from sea water and sea water like solutions. My main pieces of test equipent were pH meter and a magnetic stirrer. (Yeah, the chemistry background is real also.) Also, Please don't call me Bear, That's a different phylum entirely. You CAN call me tardigrade, ( and I will answer to moss piglet).Just remember, I can survive a vacuum! As far as the salinity (conductivity) meter. The companies that manufacture them (Eutech/Oakton, MyronL, Hanna) make scientific test instruments so I stand by it being a piece of scientific equipment. Oh yeah, You might enjoy the fact that I STILL wear a pocket protector! (They have become very difficult to find! I have to order them on the 'net these days!) B) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
new2spa Posted March 21, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 21, 2012 Been there, done that BUT. there were no giant computers (but I did have to run my samples on an x ray diffraction machine a few labs up from mine and I've worn a lot of lab coats in my life) and the research was on nucleation and precipitation of calcium carbonate from sea water and sea water like solutions. My main pieces of test equipent were pH meter and a magnetic stirrer. (Yeah, the chemistry background is real also.) Also, Please don't call me Bear, That's a different phylum entirely. You CAN call me tardigrade, ( and I will answer to moss piglet).Just remember, I can survive a vacuum! As far as the salinity (conductivity) meter. The companies that manufacture them (Eutech/Oakton, MyronL, Hanna) make scientific test instruments so I stand by it being a piece of scientific equipment. Oh yeah, You might enjoy the fact that I STILL wear a pocket protector! (They have become very difficult to find! I have to order them on the 'net these days!) B) Waterbear to bring this back on topic is the Oaktron and various digital "salt" testers actual salt testers or do they just test water conductivity? I'm making an educated guess here that since they give a reading in ppt that they test salinty. Also; given your ppt to ppm formula that would mean that salinity testers go from 1000ppm-10,000ppm if they measure in ppt 1-10? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
waterbear Posted March 21, 2012 Report Share Posted March 21, 2012 They test conductivity and use an algorithm to translate that into a close approximation of salinity but it does make some assumptions about the amount and nature of ionic material in the water that would increase conductivity..IF you want to test actual chloride ion concentration then you would need a chemical test, the most common being the silver nitrate titration using a chromate indicator such as Taylor uses. The AquaChek salt test strips are actually silver nitrate titrators, and as such, are as good as a drop based titration and less prone to error if used properly, IMHO. Silver nitrate/chromate titrations for chloride are tricky at best and many people overshoot the endpoint in this test and get a higher reading than they actually have. However, your salt system itself is also just testing conductivity so that is probably a more meaningful reading for a pool with a SWCG. In actual practice the differences between chemical testing for chloride ion and testing conductivity are small and well within precision tolerances to be pretty much interchangeable. As far as the range on a meter goes, you are correct that if they measure 1-10 ppm that would be the same as 1000 to 10,000 ppm. There is another way to test salinity but it is not useful to pools because the salinity is so low compared to seawater and that is to measure the specific gravity using a hydrometer calibrated in salinity. This method is common in salt water a reef aquarium keeping but because of the very low salinity found in pools compared to seawater it is almost impossible for a hydrometer to measure it accurately since the specific gravity would be very close to that of fresh water. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
walleye Posted July 2, 2012 Report Share Posted July 2, 2012 Man I deserve some more college credits for reading through this thread! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.