Creative Water Solutions

Natural Water Treatment for Pools, Spas, and more

A local water park is said to be the only water park in the world using a revolutionary method to condition their water and it’s completely green.
Chaos water park in Eau Claire is using a fraction of the chemicals and chlorine they once used because PoolNaturally. A product made from Sphagnum moss that’s imported from New Zealand but the future of this water treatment system is a bit closer to home.

Click on the link for the full story: First water park in the world to use sphagnum moss to treat water

During the summer months, there’s nothing better for adults and kids alike than taking a dip in a nice, cool swimming pool, lake, or river. Summer is also when we head to the lake and rivers with our boats, jet skis, kayaks, etc.
Yet, as we know from recent events, water fun can swiftly become tragedy if some simple, basic safety rules aren’t observed. Make sure you and your family are water safe by following these safety policies:

BASIC WATER SAFETY
Learn to swim

The best thing anyone can do to stay safe in and around the water is to learn to swim. The American Red Cross has swimming courses for people of any age and swimming ability.
Learn CPR and insist that babysitters, grandparents, and others who care for your child know CPR. The American Red Cross and the Minnesota National Safety Council both offer CPR classes.
Never leave a child unobserved around water—any water, including pools, spas, bath tubs, etc. Adult eyes must be on children at all times when around water. The average child stays on the surface of the water for only 10 seconds and the drowning process can start after they are submerged within 20 seconds.
It takes as little as 2 inches of water and 2 minutes for a child to drown. Toilets and buckets of water can be deadly to toddlers, who are top-heavy and can fall over head first. If you have toddlers in your home, always keep the toilet seat down and never leave a bucket of water unattended.
Always swim with a buddy; never swim alone, even in your own pool.
Wear a lifejacket or PFD whenever possible, the Personal Floatation Device must be US Coastguard approved and fit properly.
Don’t swim if you’re under the influence of alcohol or other drugs.

POOL SAFETY

Make sure the depths of your pool are clearly marked. Teach children and other inexperienced or non-swimmers to stay in the shallow end.
Post CPR instructions in the pool area.
If you have a cordless (not cell) phone, keep it with you at the pool. If there is any pool emergency, call 911 IMMEDIATELY; then attempt rescue efforts.
Always keep basic lifesaving equipment by the pool and know how to use it. Pole, rope, and personal flotation devices are recommended.
Enclose the pool completely with a self-locking, self-closing fence with vertical bars. Openings in the fence should be no more than four inches wide. The house should not be included as a part of the barrier.
Pool covers should always be completely removed prior to pool use.
Consider installing an alarm that will sound if anyone or anything falls in the pool. Remember: A child can drown in less than two minutes.
Never leave furniture near the fence that would enable a child to climb over the fence.
Keep toys away from the pool when it is not in use. Toys can attract young children into the pool.
If a child is missing, check the pool first. Go to the edge of the pool and scan the entire pool, bottom, and surface, as well as the surrounding pool area. Keep your pool water sparkling clean so if someone is on the bottom, they can be seen.
Make sure your pool deck is made of or treated with slip-resistant materials.
In public swimming pools, always swim in areas supervised by a lifeguard and read and obey all rules and posted signs.

LAKE & RIVER SAFETY

Children or inexperienced swimmers should ALWAYS wear a US Coast Guard-approved personal floatation device/life jacket when around the water.
Watch out for the dangerous “too’s” – too tired, too cold, too far from safety, too much sun, too much strenuous activity.
Set water safety rules for the whole family based on swimming abilities (for example, inexperienced swimmers should stay in water less than chest deep).
Be knowledgeable of the water environment you are in and its potential hazards, such as deep and shallow areas, currents, depth charges, obstructions and where the entry and exit points are located. The more informed you are, the less likely you are to be injured or killed.
Use a feet-first entry when entering the water.

If you are a new or returning PoolNaturally® user, here are our suggestions for a more natural pool opening:

Spring Start Up/Opening

Install the PoolNaturally® system at the beginning of the pool season for best results, but better late than never! Returning PoolNaturally users report much easier pool start up the following summer. Excellent opening results are seen even if users installed PoolNaturally as late as August of the last pool season.

Start with a fresh filter

Remove filter media (sand, DE) and replace with fresh media if you are just starting the PoolNaturally system. If you have a cartridge filter, for best results replace it or please ensure the cartridge is well cleaned. Why? If you are new to PoolNaturally, your pool has years of accumulation of organic contamination and the filter will contain a large amount of it. The easiest way to get rid of much of it fast is to change out the media or replace the cartridge filter.
If you used PoolNaturally last season, be sure to backwash the sand filter after filling your pool with water. Place cleaned or new cartridge filters back in the system.
Less is more!
When starting/opening your pool, know what you are putting in it! If you used PoolNaturally last summer, don’t start by adding shock, algaecides and cyanuric acid. Expect that your pool will start up with a minimum amount of additives.
-Add chlorine to get desired free chlorine.
-Adjust pH, alkalinity, hardness , and CYA to recommended levels below:
• Free chlorine 1-2 ppm
• pH 7.2-7.6
• Alkalinity 40-120
• Hardness 200-300
• CYA *less than 20 ppm
-Once water has been balanced, add PoolNaturally® PoolRefills to PoolNaturally® contact chamber according to the dosage chart below. It is important that once there is enough water in your pool to start the pumps, get it balanced and add PoolRefills as soon as possible, to begin experiencing the conditioning effects of moss.

How Your Pool Will Change With PoolNaturally®
Depending on the age and how much your pool is used, there could be a lot of material (including scale) that is shed from the pipes, pumps, heater, and pool surfaces – this is evidence that the PoolNaturally system is working! Use a pool vacuum to get rid of the larger particles that settle out in the pool and clean or backwash filters to get rid of the smaller particles.
Maintain 1-2 ppm of chlorine – you won’t need anything higher. With PoolNaturally®, your pool is no longer precariously on the edge of ‘going bad.’ It will take less chlorine to maintain this 1-2 ppm free available chlorine, so turn down your automatic chlorinator or salt generator to the lowest settings.

In my continuing travels to dealers, shows and meetings I am frequently asked, “Does the moss work in a salt water pool? “ Or “why do I need moss since my pool doesn’t need chlorine since it is a salt pool?” So this blog is about the science and chemistry of salt-water pools.
First, definitions: I’m going to talk about pools where the sanitizer is made from salt by a generator – not about the very few pools that actually have salt water similar to that in the ocean. Second, when I talk about green pool products I’m using the word to describe a product that is sustainable, with no artificially made chemicals, that doesn’t introduce toxic chemicals to the air, water or ground.

How does a salt water pool work?

Salt is usually sodium chloride or potassium chloride. When these chemicals are in water they become positively charged sodium or potassium and negatively charged chloride ions. In a salt pool, solid or crystalline salt (like table salt) is passed through a generator that produces hypochlorous acid and delivers it to your pool.
This is the exact same chemical that results when you place chlorine in your pool. Salt generated chlorine doesn’t add cyanuric acid in addition to the chlorine, which is added when “stabilized chlorine” such as dichlor or trichlor are used.
So a salt pool is simply a different way of delivering chlorine to your pool to make hypochlorous acid. It is no greener or different than using liquid or solid chlorine. Again, the end product that works to kill bacteria in water is hypochlorous acid and whether you produce this from salt, or deliver it to the water as chlorine, it is all the same thing.

Is a salt pool greener?

The short answer is no. People who sell salt generators want customers to think it is green since it uses salt that doesn’t have a bad name vs. chlorine that had a bad reputation. The end result of each method is the same production of hypochlorous acid that causes the exact same problems with pool water regardless of how the chlorine is delivered to the water. Salt-water generation of chlorine is no greener than adding bleach or granular chlorine to the water.

Does moss work in a salt-water pool?

The short answer is yes. It works the same way whether the sanitizer is added chlorine, bromine, cooper or silver salts, or ozone. It has the same positive effects with all types of sanitizers (except biguanides).
In our customer’s experience using moss with a salt generator, the amount of salt consumed by the generator decreases by 80-90% to keep the free chlorine in the pool between 1-2 ppm. This puts much less strain on the salt generator and results in less chlorine being added to the environment. The other effects of moss, such as pH stabilization and organic contamination effects are the same.