Heya Rule303 and other knowledgeable people – what do you think of this – is it the real deal?
http://www.enviroswim.com/
its old news
copper silver ionisers have been around for ages
its most likely better in private pools with only a few bathers . for commercial pools forget it half of them are going down there for a wash and the sheep dip approach of using chemicals is the only way to go
if its just you and family in the pool and the water is turned over and you can keep soil/leaves/ insects etc blowing into the pool it will most likely work. when you swim in a chloring pool you are essentially swimming around in bleach
an alternative to chlorine is iodine
you could use ozone, that’s another oxidiser that could be used
UV light comes to mind
There’s always the old system of electrolysis within the pool of salt, harmless sodium chloride, to get chlorine which keeps it sterile.
Hey Spocky, yes, it will probably work, to some extent, on most things.
To begin with, you need to understand that there’s two sides to pool water chemistry – Balance and sanitising – This system appears to work on the sanitising side. I make that distinction because the water still needs to balance (look up ‘Langelier index’ for more on balance), so all the chemicals required to maintain that side still have to be added. The sanitiser and the balance effect each other, sure, but the idea that any sanitiser can dramatically reduce ‘chemical use’ is a furphy.
Putting aside for a moment that all commercial pools (and all professional pool advisory services) are restricted in what we can use / advise by health department regulations and professional indemnity insurances and such, if the sanitiser hits the established benchmarks (safe for humans, kills or neutralises all known microbes within one second of contact, etc.), by all means use it. FWIW, there’s a couple of other sanitisers in common use – Bromine (usually paired with Ozone) and Hydrogen Peroxide. Both hit the benchmarks at the right concentration, both are viable alternatives.
As Wookie said, Copper and Silver electrodes have been around for a long while. I don’t feel confident in recommending them because I haven’t seen any good science on them (which, to be fair, is often the case in this field) and I’m leery of the psuedo-scientific half-truths and sensationalist claims used to market them. I think some of the claims on the site linked are almost certainly untrue.
I think that the most dangerous chemical we need to worry about in pools is DHMO. Most other chemicals in the pool are either benign or just mildly irritating, whereas DHMO to is know for killing people dead…
mollwollfumble said:
There’s always the old system of electrolysis within the pool of salt, harmless sodium chloride, to get chlorine which keeps it sterile.
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This.
Plant some plants and add some algae eating fish.
Provide substrate for the microbial waste eaters and turn the water over through a UV light.
And hey presto a clear eco-system pool.
Mr Ironic said:
And hey presto a clear eco-system pool.
Unfortunately, that wont protect you when you plunge your face into the water 30cm from someone with open, weeping, Syhpilis blisters.
Nor any of the bazillion other things that are commonly found in water.
Unfortunately, that wont protect you when you plunge your face into the water 30cm from someone with open, weeping, Syhpilis blisters.
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Yes well… people with infectious bursting blistering blisters will be banned from my pond/pool.
Nor any of the bazillion other things that are commonly found in water.
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Really? I’ve never seen a billion warning signs at a water hole.
Must be why rural folk are so sparse….
Mr Ironic said:
Really? I’ve never seen a billion warning signs at a water hole.Must be why rural folk are so sparse….
Yeah, hmmm… Two people in a cold dam twice a week is a completely different thing to ten people in a warm spa five times a day.
I’ve got a list of the top 100 compounds found in swimming pools around here somewhere… I would post if but most people have just finished eating dinner.
Post it.
OCDC said:
Post it.
Nah… I’m pretty sure I posted it (at least once) to the old forum, if you want to go search.
unfortunately swimming around in a light solution of bleach is the only way to make sure you don’t get sick
larger pools that stink of chlorine are the real dangers – stay away from them
have a look at the clientele and decide if you want to swim around in their piss
http://www.thewatercleanser.com.au/
I used to do regular swimming but gave up because I developed swimmers shoulder and the water quality was decreasing
I jumped into a deserted pool to discover it was murky and tasted salty. they had thrown in heaps of alginox and so it had that fruity smell about it
I gave up swimming around in public pools – unless they have some serious gear to filter and sanitise the water don’t stick your head under the surface
Yeah, hmmm… Two people in a cold dam twice a week is a completely different thing to ten people in a warm spa five times a day.
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Yeah OK, but a personal pool at say 26 degrees is unlikely to harbor deadly viruses that would need massive doses of chemicals to clear.
I’ve got a list of the top 100 compounds found in swimming pools around here somewhere… I would post if but most people have just finished eating dinner.
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I’d just throw in some scaleless fish… as canaries.
and decide if you want to swim around in their piss
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Meh the ammonia will quickly break down to nitrites and then into plant food.
wookiemeister said:
unfortunately swimming around in a light solution of bleach is the only way to make sure you don’t get sicklarger pools that stink of chlorine are the real dangers – stay away from them
have a look at the clientele and decide if you want to swim around in their piss
It’s not really accurate to describe a chlorinated pool as ‘a light solution of bleach’ when it’s within range at 2 – 3 parts per million.
Larger pools that stink of chlorine almost always smell of combined chlorine, which means either the air circulation system is inadequate (because you can smell it in the air, geddit?) or the filters are not trapping the chlorine that’s done its job and killed a microbe. Neither tells you anything about the amount of free chlorine available to kill or neutralise microbes in the water.
Urine comes out sterile, unless the person has an infection of the urinary tract. Other than tying up the chlorine (with nitrogen), it’s a very small risk. There’s lots of things that people carry into water that could be dangerous, urine is not one of them.
Rule 303 said:
wookiemeister said:
unfortunately swimming around in a light solution of bleach is the only way to make sure you don’t get sicklarger pools that stink of chlorine are the real dangers – stay away from them
have a look at the clientele and decide if you want to swim around in their piss
It’s not really accurate to describe a chlorinated pool as ‘a light solution of bleach’ when it’s within range at 2 – 3 parts per million.
Larger pools that stink of chlorine almost always smell of combined chlorine, which means either the air circulation system is inadequate (because you can smell it in the air, geddit?) or the filters are not trapping the chlorine that’s done its job and killed a microbe. Neither tells you anything about the amount of free chlorine available to kill or neutralise microbes in the water.
Urine comes out sterile, unless the person has an infection of the urinary tract. Other than tying up the chlorine (with nitrogen), it’s a very small risk. There’s lots of things that people carry into water that could be dangerous, urine is not one of them.
Urine is not sterile http://jcm.asm.org/content/early/2013/12/19/JCM.02876-13.short?rss=1
I’m not buying into the swimming pool thread very much
rule and I tend to end up arguing
poikilotherm said:
Urine is not sterile
Struth. If you’re going to push anything that hard you’re guaranteed to find something eventually…
(an interesting read, Poik, thank you)
wookiemeister said:
rule and I tend to end up arguing
Yeah, that’s true.
Can we just pretend we’ve already had the argument and I won? It’ll save time.
Rule 303 said:
wookiemeister said:rule and I tend to end up arguingYeah, that’s true.
Can we just pretend we’ve already had the argument and I won? It’ll save time.
LOL
One of the dive companies here in Cairns moved premises several years ago and had the dive pool purpose built, the have a copper silver ionised pool.
To my knowledge it works very well and knowing the owner I know he would have spent a lot of money and time researching what would be the most practical and economical for his business. As they are one of the larger dive companies here you can imagine there are a lot of bodies in that pool week and week out.
Never heard anything bad or even a slightly suspect bad report on their pool.
The house we nearly bought before this one also had that type of filtration, I was looking forward to a re-education but am happy with the salt water pool we have :)
Spider Lily said:
One of the dive companies here in Cairns moved premises several years ago and had the dive pool purpose built, the have a copper silver ionised pool.To my knowledge it works very well and knowing the owner I know he would have spent a lot of money and time researching what would be the most practical and economical for his business. As they are one of the larger dive companies here you can imagine there are a lot of bodies in that pool week and week out.
Never heard anything bad or even a slightly suspect bad report on their pool.
The house we nearly bought before this one also had that type of filtration, I was looking forward to a re-education but am happy with the salt water pool we have :)