Creative Water Solutions

Natural Water Treatment for Pools, Spas, and more

Sunrise to sunset…the hum of the city…the twinkling of the city lights…Life’s better…sitting on your very own high-rise deck atop the Park in your very own SpaBerry. Soak away the day’s stresses…enjoy some time with a loved one…enjoy the view…and truly…Live on the Park!
For more information go to http://www.liveonthepark.com or www.thespaberry.com

The Park has just taken “Urban Living” a major step forward and have done what no other high-rise in North America has ever done before. A first for Calgary…a first for Canada…and first for the world…The Park is raising the bar for the urban lifestyle by offering personal luxury spas from SpaBerry to over 100 decks.
“We wanted to give our customers who have been asking us for spas what they wanted. The SpaBerry fits perfectly into our clients’ lifestyles and is designed specifically with downtown condo living in mind” says Richard Lobsinger…VP of Sales & Marketing for the Park
“We are very excited to partner with Lake Placid Developments Inc (LPDI) on their upscale Urban Development, the Park” says Jeff Knight…President of SpaBerry Personal Luxury Spas. LPDI is setting the bar for other high-rise developments throughout the world with this project!

Watch movie online The Transporter Refueled (2015)

We have all walked into a swimming pool facility, health club, or small motel and immediately recognized that “chlorine” smell emanating from the pool. We have grown to accept the odor and the other side effects of chlorine disinfection as the price paid to have a sanitary swimming pool. The odor and many of these side effects are not actually caused by the chlorine, but are the by-products of chlorine disinfection. Chlorine and bromine are common aquatic system disinfectants and are very effective at killing bacteria. They, and their halogen brothers fluorine and iodine, are all effective sanitizers because they are strong oxidizers (oxidation is the way bacteria is killed). Halogens, like chlorine, are all one electron short of filling their outer electron shell. They are always looking for another compound from which to steal an electron (oxidize). However, their oxidative power is not limited to just attacking bacteria.
Disinfection by-products (DBP) are formed when chlorine oxidizes organic compounds. These organic compounds are found in bacteria and many are critical for the bacteria to live and thrive. However, a lot of organic compounds are naturally present in our water, and putting people into the water introduces even more of these materials (dead skin cells, sweat, urine, etc). When chlorine interacts and oxidizes these organic compounds, it results in a tremendous amount of newly created compounds…but, these now contain chlorine (DBP). We generally classify some of these as combined chlorine or chloramines. It has now been established that many of these DBP are toxic, and while most remain in the water, some are quite volatile and released from the water into the air (i.e. chloroform). These DBP are what we recognize as that “chlorine” smell.
In short, chlorine is going to cause a reaction with anything in its path, and some of these reactions are going be toxic. So, that funky “pool smell” isn’t the chlorine. It’s the dark side of chlorine’s work.
Research at Embro Corporation (Creative Water Solutions’ sister company) is actively investigating the process by which DBP are formed, and the levels of DBP in swimming pools and spas. Our early results have demonstrated that Sphagnum moss leads to a reduction in DBP levels within the first few months of use in a swimming pool. Pointing to the importance of this research are the increasing numbers of scientific articles documenting production of toxic DBP in aquatic systems. They illustrate increased health problems for those experiencing high exposure to these compounds, including competitive and avid recreational swimmers. Stay tuned to our newsletter and website for the newest results of our research in this area.

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.

Now that you’ve flushed your spa once, twice or as many times as it takes to get it all out, how can you prevent organic contamination from forming again?
Remember – organic contamination forms when bacteria in solution adhere to a surface, divide and cover themselves with a protective layer of slime (mucopolysaccaride). Learn more at Montana State University’s CBE site.
You could try to completely sterilize your spa and the spa water and keep it sterile; drain the spa and use fresh water every week; use a flush to remove all organic contamination once or twice a month and replace the water; OR you can prevent formation of organic contamination while killing all swimming bacteria. Let’s look at each one.

The Hard Way:
Sterilize your spa and water

There is no easy way to sterilize every surface in your spa short of sending it to an industrial sterilization facility that uses high power x- rays. Even if that was done, the water placed into the spa would have to be sterilized, and you couldn’t use the spa because the second you stepped into the spa the bacteria on your skin would quickly repopulate the spa water and the spa surface. In my research laboratory, we conduct many experiments under sterile conditions and keep the systems sterile. The amount of work and equipment in addition to training required to accomplish that is enormous.

Drain the spa and use fresh water every week

This is essentially how commercial spa operators try to keep their spas within health department guidelines. They often use a measurement called “total dissolved solids” to determine when to dump the water and start fresh. Depending on the bather load, this could be done twice a week or weekly. The water is then treated with a sanitizer like chlorine to keep the bacteria count in the water within safe limits. This approach uses a lot of water, takes a lot of time, and does nothing to address the formation of organic contamination in the spa. With the organic contamination present in the spa, any excess bacterial challenge or change in bather load will “tip the balance” of the water and require more frequent water changes.

Use a flush to remove all organic contamination once or twice a month and replace the water

As we discussed in my last blog (September 23, 2009), we now have an effective flush system that efficiently remove organic contamination from surfaces and keeps it in solution. When the spa is drained, the organic contamination goes out with the water. With fresh water and sanitizer in the spa, new organic contamination will form over time requiring reflushing and fresh water. Theoretically, the water should last longer between changes than the previous scenario, but with frequent spa use, flushing would have to be done once or twice a month. The same problems as above make this treatment plan a real problem.

The Easy Way:
Prevent the formation of biofilm and control the number of swimming bacteria

This solution is ideal. Up until the discovery that certain species of moss prevent the formation of organic contamination, this was a just a theoretical possibility. We know that sanitizers like chlorine and bromine are very effective killers of bacteria that swim. We now know that these same sanitizers are absorbed by organic contamination and fail to kill all the bacteria within the organic contamination.
Here’s how we now think this works: Combining the moss with sanitizer solves the problem. The moss prevents organic contamination from forming, allowing the sanitizers to efficiently do their work on planktonic (swimming) bacteria. The moss also inhibits bacteria from dividing, so there are fewer swimming bacteria to kill. Combined with the moss’s ability to remove heavy metals from water and stabilize pH, the spa water becomes stable, clean, clear and safe. See the video on our website for more information