Mineral Springs - Salt Pool Question

[Tracy2]

A Bioguard Mineral Springs salt system was installed with our new pool. Is anyone familiar with these products? We started with Beginnings" to get the salt level up and are suppose to add "Renewal" once a week to keep the "minerals" balanced. I can't seem to find any scientific info on the products (what's in the bag and why do I need it). The products are a bit pricey. Am I buying overpriced salt? I'm wondering whether I can use other products.

Thanks for any info!!

Tracy

[waterbear]

You are buying a mixture of salt, borax, and CYA at a very high price. You can achieve exactly the same effect by using plain solar salt, borax to 50 ppm, and CYA to 80 ppm for a lot less money. You can buy borate products for pools such as BioGuard Optimizer, Proteam Supreme (they hold the orginal patents on borates for pools and their product costs less then BioGuard's) Omni Maximizer (same as Biogard--Omni and Bioguard are just two of Chemtura's brand names among several that they have), or Poolife Endure (Arch Chemical--Poolife and HTH). You can also buy basically the same mix as mineral springs From Natural Chemisty (Salt Water Magic) and Proteam/Haviland (Ocean Breeze Salt Support). The mixes might simply it somewhat but they are MUCH more expensive. If you don't want to run the borates in your pool all you need is solar salt (the kind used in water softenter) and CYA (chlorine stabilizer). Borates are a good idea in a salt pool. They reduce santizer demand and help stabilzier pH.

You still need all the othe pool chemicals that might normally be needed such as muriatic acid (a must with SWGs since they tend to make the pH rise), possibly calcium, and possibly baking soda (to increase Total Alkalinity if needed. Baking soda is EXACTLY the same chemical as what is sold in pool stores as total alkalinity increaser. They might call it sodium bicarbonate or sodium hydrogen carbonate on the container but these are just other names for baking soda. You will probably never need pH increaser (sodium carbonate, aka sal soda, soda ash , or washing soda--yes the Arm and Hammer stuff in the laundry aisle they call Super Washing Soda) in a salt pool becauase low pH is rarely a problem.

You might also want to keep some liquid clorine or laundry bleach on hand in case you ever need to shock. It's better to shock with liquid chlorine than using the boost feature of your SWG for several reasons that I won't go into now for lack of time.

BTW, the mineral springs SWG is actually a rebranded Goldline (Hayward) AquaRite unit.

[Tracy2]

Thank You!! That was VERY informative and much appreciated.