What system to choose from, UV light or clearblue ionizer?

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ibra0078
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What system to choose from, UV light or clearblue ionizer?

Postby ibra0078 » Sat 22 Apr, 2023 19:08

My 21ft above ground pool got damaged over the winter, I'm about to place an order for another one. I had a salt system but for this one I'm either switching to the pure Vida 316L stainless steel UV or the clearblue ionizer.

Is there any much benefits between the two? Which one should I go with?

Link's for reference

https://www.poolsuppliescanada.ca/pura- ... 7DEALw_wcB


https://www.poolsuppliescanada.ca/clear ... ystem.html

Thank-you

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Teapot1
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My Pool: 12000 gallons vinyl liner,

Re: What system to choose from, UV light or clearblue ionizer?

Postby Teapot1 » Mon 24 Apr, 2023 03:37

What are you looking to achieve is my 1st question?
Will you be using chlorine with either option?
A bit more about your setup including the size of the pump, flow rate and type of filter, size as well.
Ionisers are good for stopping algae growth. They are very slow to kill pathogens and that is important, will it be just copper in the electrodes or copper/silver alloy? You have to be careful with copper because of the staining potential so keeping the pH at the lower end is very important. Measuring/metering the copper level is also very important. There are active copper ions that do the work but a residual of copper is also building up. I used one for about 8 years in a vinyl pool, the active copper ion level was between 0.6-0.8ppm at all times during the 8 years but what at the time I didn't know is the residual copper was constantly building and I was able to measure this as total copper with a new Palintest unit I bought and total copper had risen to over 4.5ppm! There are issues of safety and disposal of that level of water as it effects a lot ecological stuff. For the money the unit costs I could have bought a lot of chlorine over the years. The Australian government in charge of water and agriculture banned the sale of all ionisers etc that could not match chlorine on the test cycles, all units failed unless they also used 0.5ppm of chlorine. Pretty conclusive and well done to the Australian government.
UV, low pressure UV damages the DNA of bacteria etc, however it is not that powerful compared to medium pressure or high pressure commercial units so a lot of the DNA damage is repaired or the bacteria multiply before death. So again indoors UV can help breakdown chlorine byproducts THM's etc but outdoors the sun will do almost the same for free. (Slightly different frequency of light but similar reduction in chlorine byproducts). If you really want to step things up, look at Andvanced Oxidation Process (AOP) units such as low salt hydroxyl chlorinators or UV and Titanium lined units (Elecro Quantum) etc
https://www.1stdirectpools.com/elecro-quantum-uv-system

Hydroxyl radicals are immensely unstable and therefore very very reactive, far more powerful than chlorine or Ozone so not only killing anything and everything that enters the chamber but also breaking down the fats and body oils, skin and chemicals to their basic nitrogen compounds, chlorine has a really tough time breaking down oils and fats, sweat and sun creams etc. AOP can dothis.
I may not give you the answer you want to hear, but I will give an honest opinion of your situation as you decribe it.
ibra0078
Pool Enthusiast
Pool Enthusiast
Posts: 17
Joined: Sun 06 Oct, 2019 06:14

Re: What system to choose from, UV light or clearblue ionizer?

Postby ibra0078 » Tue 25 Apr, 2023 22:15

Thank-you for taking the time to respond very useful.

In either use case I'll be using a chlorine feeder. What I'm trying to achieve is not needing to use my salt chlorinator on this new pool I'll be getting, the reason being is I believe the cell is on its last legs and I rather buy something else then getting a new cell.

Local pool companies pefer the ionizer and some really like the UV instead. At the end of the day, I know balance water is the key factor but I want to something that would give me that extra kick instead of relying on chlorine, I do want to decrease the use of chlorine with whatever additional method I end going with.

Thanks



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Teapot1
Pool Industry Leader
Pool Industry Leader
Posts: 1176
Joined: Thu 29 Apr, 2021 00:43
My Pool: 12000 gallons vinyl liner,

Re: What system to choose from, UV light or clearblue ionizer?

Postby Teapot1 » Wed 26 Apr, 2023 02:02

Understood, I bought my ioniser as a test, being a pool pro I had heard so much about ionisers good and bad but seldom from anyone who owned one! As I said pleasantly surprised, at the time I was using non chlorine oxidiser with the ioniser, monopersulphate is just an oxidiser and not a santiser, at this time the Australian gov were banning the sale without chlorine so I switched to chlorine at 0.5ppm. During this test period I made a change from sand to Dr Drydens AFM activated glass media which filters to 5 microns without flocculent. Of all the things I have tried over the years as a pool pro, this was the biggest and best change. Water became incredibly clear, it was always good but AFM made it even better. I turned off the ioniser and ran my outdoor pool in the countryside on 0.2ppm of chlorine. The sun can burn off the chlorine quite quickly in a few hours but I was using Drydens ACO the CYA replacement to increase the sanitising effect unlike CYA which reduces chlorine activity a bit. Eventually I went with a low level of CYA and ACO which made my chlorine last longer in sunlight. But the take away for me is finer filtration removes more contamination from the water and then chlorine has less to react with making chlorine last longer and therefore use less. The latest Dr Drydens AFM is the ng version (new generation) which filters to 1 micron. I have yet to fit this new version but it was developed with assistance from a Canadian University.
When I re-model my pool shortly I will use the low salt hydroxyl chlorinator. This produces a background small amount of chlorine but also the hydroxyl radicals which are far more potent.
The Elecro unit I linked to previously is UV but with a titanium Crystal chamber so producing hydroxyl radicals. With all systems we have replacement cells or lamps or trips to the shops for chlorine, adding up the mileage, the fuel costs and the time to purchase in my case the costs to run each would be similar. Chlorine liquid is going up in price in Europe and transport restrictions are increasing hence my switch to on-site production after 20 years of liquid chlorine. I still have my ioniser, I wont be re-fitting it as its just not as good as better filtration and hydroxyl AOP.
https://sugar-valley.net/en/productos/oxilife/
I may not give you the answer you want to hear, but I will give an honest opinion of your situation as you decribe it.

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