LaMotte 2056 ColorQ Pro 7 Digital Pool Water Test Kit

I wish I would have bought this product along time ago. After buying multiple different test kits I could have just bought this one and saved years of questioning my test kits. This all came about after realizing that my other test kits were so far off from each other, so i decided to go to two other pool stores and have them test my water. Well, between the two stores, those tests also had different outcomes. At this point i started doing my homework and came across this test kit, the LaMotte 2056 ColorQ Pro 7 Digital Pool Water Test Kit. I decided to give it a try. I got tired of color matching and never being sure of where i am at with my parameters and since i do my own maintenance I figured no more wasting money on cheap test kits and depending on pool stores. So I did it. Man, am i happy I did it. The Instructions are straight forward and easy to understand. I read a lot of negatives on the directions, I disagree 100%. They could not have made it any more clear or precise on how and what to do.I'm happy the test kit came with CYA test in it, one store told me it was way too high and the other told me it was way too low. I did the test, it was right in the middle of the spectrum, pretty much right where it needs to be.The box it comes in is not a box you want to discard. Thought was put into how these products sit in the case. Job well done with that.I also read that people complained that the instructions do not have the test result ranges on where the parameters should be. You could go to the LaMotte web site to see what the parameters should be. I figure, at this point you should already know what chlorine, PH, etc. should be at. My opinion.I do strongly recommend this to anyone and everyone who does their own pool maintenance. It is expensive, but makes up for it in the amount of product you do not have to buy or waste by always dumping it into the pool when it does not need it.Hope this helps in making up your mind on purchasing this kit.

This was my first summer having an in-ground pool and after trying test strips and a few visits to the local pool store decided to give this digital test kit a try. I ordered it in early June, but it didn't arrive until mid July. Not sure what the hold up was, but most of ran out of stock for summer quickly.The kit gives you a digital reading for the following tests: Free Chlorine, Total Chlorine, Bromine, PH, Alkalinity, Calcium Hardness, and Cyanuric Acid.After using it all summer long the kits seems to be very accurate in its readings. I base this on several things. First, I kept all of the above chemicals it tested for in the proper range and my pool looked clear all summer. Second, of the 4 trips I made to the local pool store I had them test my water and then when I got home immediately tested my pool water again with this kit, and came up with the same results. (Same results for me means close enough. For example if the pool store said my Calcium hardness was 150 and the kit stated it was 156, I considered that the same). One time I used a water sample from a large cup of pool water and ran two complete run trough trials of all chemicals tested with the meter twice in a row and the test meter gave consistent results, which is should have since I was using water from the same sample cup for both complete water testings.Testing the water is also very easy. My tip for quick testing is fill up a separate tube with water for each test before starting. The Cyanuric Acid test requires that you first put a tablet in the water, crush it with the provided crusher, and then let it sit for 2 minutes. I did this first and by the time I was done running the other tests, 2 minutes had passed and I was ready for the Cyanuric Acid which is the last test you run through the digital meter.

After years of testing with strips I finally get accurate and reliable readings from my pool. When I combine my results with the excellent ( and free) online PoolCalculator I can add chemicals with confidence, knowing that I will not overcompensate or waste chemistry. The ColorQ has already saved me money and time and allowed me to achieve crystal clear pool water.I chose this device for my daily testing over the highly recommended Taylor drop and swirl kit for its ease of use and complete freedom from subjective judgement of color patches/color changes. There are no powders to measure and all the tests except cyanuric acid (CYA) require you to simply add 5 drops each of one or two reagents to the sample. After reading the directions once, I never had to refer to them again. The CYA reagent is a tablet that is easily crushed using the supplied tool and the test is the only one which requires a wait time (of two minutes) before taking a reading.My readings have been highly repeatable and adding the the appropriate amount of chemicals according to the PoolCalculator has given almost exactly the expected results.I took one star off because of the limited range (0-10 ppm) of the chlorine tests. This is fine for typical swimming levels of chlorine, but does not allow testing for the much higher concentrations required when shocking the pool. It is possible to stretch this range to 0-20 ppm by diluting the sample with an equal amount of distilled water, but in some cases even that may not be enough and the margin of error at the high end will be greater than +/-3.4. In contrast, the Taylor kit tests up to 50 ppm with purportedly higher accuracy. For this purpose, I will purchase a Taylor FAS/DPD chlorine test kit to supplement the Color Q.I got the following table of margins of error directly from LaMotte. It helps to know these when evaluating your readings and the information is not supplied with the kit or published on the net.Test______________________________low-range_________mid-range___________high-range1 Alkalinity - Liquid, CQ2______`+/- 5, 0 - 50_____ +/- 15, 50 - 150____ +/- 30, 150 - 2502 Bromine - liquid, CQ2_________ +/- 0.2, 0 - 4 ____+/- 0.4, 4-8 ________+/- 0.8, 8-12; +/- 2, 12 - 223 Ca Hardness - liq (7042), CQ2 +/- 15, 0 - 100 ___+/- 30, 100 - 400__ `+/- 80, 400 - 7004 Chlorine - liquid, CQ2_______ +/- 0.1, 6.5 - 8.5 _+/- 0.1, 6.5 - 8.5___+/- 0.1, 6.5 - 8.56 Cyanuric Acid tablet, CQ2 _____+/- 3, 0 - 20 ____`+/- 5, 20 - 80 _____`+/- 10, 80 - 125After using the kit for two weeks, I highly recommend it. We'll see if it stays accurate over the next two months. I'll update if I have any problems.