Last week I had a bit of a disaster with my Enviroswim pool. I dropped a scaffolding plank on one of the swim-jet valves and managed to break the pvc pipe off inside the concrete. I had to drain the pool down below the valve inlet to order to repair the pipe and in doing so had to drain off around 7,000 litres of water. Result was I killed, or nearly killed most of the plants that the water ran onto. My warning is DON"T DRAIN YOUR POOL WATER ONTO THE GARDEN!!!!
The picture below shows a bed of Canna lillies that were in perfect health before Enviroswim water was run onto them. Signs of severe leaf burn and yellowing on these and the adjacent nastursiums and weeds took 4 days to appear. The crocus and daffodil bulbs however seem unaffected.
Why does Enviroswim water Kill Plants?
As it is leading into the cool weather I have only been running my pool on a maintenance cycle of one burst of around 5 hours of pump filtration/sanitisation a week. I hadn't run the pump cycle for the weekend yet which meant that with only 5 hours of pump time for a period of 2 weeks the pool water was still toxic to plants. I was very surprised, for imagined that the levels of any nasty compounds in the water that may affect plants would be minimal. The water runs at just over ph neutral and the selling hype for Enviroswim's ioniser was (when I bought it) that it effectively produced as close to a "freshwater" pool that you can safely run & that no chlorine was produced (no nasty carcinogenic chloro-amines). The copper and silver ions in the water kill both the algae and bacteria (respectively) in the pool water but the pump needs to be run in order to keep these levels up as the electrolysis occurs in a cylinder connected into (& in series with) the filtration line.
How does Enviroswim water kill plants?
The copper level testing as done both by my pool shop & by my myself with my Enviroswim supplied testing kit is pretty rubbish. It is difficult to determine exact levels. I have been gauging levels purely on Enviroswim's recommendation of pool pump running time and then increasing it in summer to combat the ever present problem of algal bloom. I have found I need around 8 to 10 hours a day in summer & as mentioned above as the temperature decreases though Autumn into Winter I reduce this to a single cycle of 5 hours a week which maintains pool water clarity ensuring that I don't have a huge maintenance job in Spring. The fact that I need to run the pool that much in Summer to kill plant matter (algae) had made me assume that most of the nasties in the pool water were actually killed in the ionising tube and not residual in the pool itself. The manual states that copper levels in the pool can get too high if you run the pool too long and then the pool tile grout will take on a greenish colour. This has happened in my pool but didn't concern me much until now. It was a purely aesthetic problem...or so I had thought.The Enviroswim manual also states that you just need to leave the ioniser off for a few days until levels fall back down. This green plaque on my grout lead me to believe that some kind of chemical reaction must over time take these ions out of the system and therefore render the water safe to plant matter.
Is Enviroswim water "Freshwater"?
I rang the Enviroswim people several times last year trying to find out how the system actually works and asked what is the gas that is produced in the oxidation/ionisation chamber? Enviroswim claimed no chlorine is produced by their product... which is what makes it better than a Saltwater pool where small amounts of chlorine are produced. No Chloroamines (organic matter bonding with chlorine is supposedly Carcinogenic) means a safer pool for the kids. Gas is produced by a series of oxidising plates in the ionising tube just before the Copper & silver electrodes... WHAT IS THIS GAS? We can only get out of the system what is put in as it is essentially a closed system. It shouldn't be too hard to work out. We start with water (Hydrogen & Oxygen) & add a small amount of pool salt (Sodioum Chloride) that is used to raise the conductivity level of the water for start up when the pool is first commissioned so that enough electrolytes are present to pass a current between the two copper Silver electrodes and create their "magic". We have buffer (Sodium Bicarbonate) and hydrochloric acid to stabilise the ph. We also have Calcium Chloride which is added when hardness levels fall. We have the electrodes themselves which slowly dissolve into copper and silver ions when current is passed between them. So what is the mysterious gas produced by the "oxidising plates"? we have a lot of chlorine related compounds in the pool and although there is supposedly no chlorine in the system my pool shop keeps registering small amounts of chlorine when it tests my water. I do have to add Chlorine about once a year to avoid algal bloom. Will this register 2 months later? A heat-wave of 5 consecutive days over 40 degrees means that not even 10 to 14 hours of pump run time a day is enough to stop the pool water clouding. A single dose of chlorine stabilises the system by improving water clarity & cleaning off the brown scum that starts to build up on the bottom of the pool.
Would I buy Enviroswim again?
Ok... it sounds like I am "bagging" this product. I am an Adelaide Architect and as a professional I did a lot of research before buying the product. I actually would buy the product again as it does reduce the amount of chlorine I need to use and that is a good thing for Chloroamine production reduction and for corrosion protection of my house. I intend to fully enclose the pool one day & so corrosion reduction (chlorine corrodes galvanised steel in no time) is high on my list of priorities. Once enclosed I will have less organic matter such as leaves blowing into the pool & I will also have a reduction in nitrate related products entering the pool (which stimulate algal growth) from rainwater and lightning. What I am unhappy with is just the marketing of the product & lack of specific information such as how long the pool pump actually needs to be run in Summer & how Chlorine use is still unavoidable in cities with extreme climates such as Adelaide. The "no Chlorine is produced by our product" statement by Enviroswim's staff is also something I am still left wondering about as my Chemistry isn't that good to prove or disprove. I will also however not regard the water in my pool as "Freshwater" (as Enviroswim state it is) as my plants certainly seem to disagree with this!!!
