Getting the Most Out of Your Pool Test Strips

Your pool water test strip might be telling the truth, but your eyes might not be. We dig into why test strips often feel inconsistent, how lighting and subjective color matching can turn a “real” chemical reaction into a shaky guess, and what you can do to get more reliable results without slowing down your whole pool care routine. 

We also talk about the growing world of digital test strip readers and smart pool testing devices, and why they’re trying to solve the biggest weakness of strips: interpretation. From there, we get practical about where strips fit in a serious pool water testing workflow, especially for busy pool service routes and homeowners who need fast answers for free chlorine, total chlorine, pH, and total alkalinity. 

Then we hit the important nuances that can change your decisions. Test strips typically read total hardness rather than true calcium hardness, which matters for balance targets. Cyanuric acid is the surprise category where strips can actually help, especially when CYA climbs above 100 ppm and reagent tests get harder to read. We also cover “extra” tests where strips can be genuinely useful, like copper and iron, nitrates, borates, and phosphates, plus the one strip category we don’t recommend for saltwater pools: salinity. If you want clearer pool chemistry decisions with fewer bad readings, subscribe, share the episode with a pool owner or tech, and leave a review with your biggest testing frustration.

We break down how to use pool test strips effectively without getting fooled by subjective color matching and wide reading ranges. We also share where test strips shine, where they fall short, and how to pair them with photometers or reagent kits for reliable pool water testing.  
• the biggest limitation of test strips being interpretation not necessarily the strip chemistry  
• why digital strip readers and smart testing devices can reduce guesswork  
• how color matching can skew alkalinity and other borderline readings  
• total hardness on strips versus true calcium hardness from titration tests  
• why cyanuric acid strips can outperform reagent tests at high CYA  
• using strips for copper iron nitrates borates and phosphates as quick field checks  
• why salinity test strips are unreliable and when a digital salt meter makes sense  
• when strips are ideal for fast route work and rainy-day testing  
• using test strips to verify weird reagent or photometer results when reagents or tablets go bad  
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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 1:04

And welcome to the Pool Game Podcast Show. In this episode, I'm going to talk to you about using test strips effectively on your pool game. And if you're a homeowner and you want to use test strips, you can use these effectively as well. You just have to know the limitations of test trips. Are you a pool service pro looking to take your business to the next level? Join the pool guy coaching program. Get expert advice, business tips, exclusive content, and get direct support. From me, I'm a 35-year veteran in the industry. Whether you're starting out or scaling up, I've got the tools to help you succeed. Learn more at swimmingpoollearning.com. And I'll start with the main limitation of test strips, and that is that you're kind of getting a ballpark guesstimate reading. Now there are some

Why Test Strips Feel Inexact

SPEAKER_00 1:52

test strips that have digital readers. Now AquaCheck had one a few years ago called the AquaCheck True Test, and it would give you a digital readout from the test strip. I'm not even sure if they manufacture that one still. Not sure if there's still a market for that. But it does make sense that a digital reader of test strips would be something that consumers would, or pool pros and consumers would like to use because you know the water guru is the skimmer. It's a device you put in your skimmer that does the readings digitally intensive to your phone. They use a test strip type cassette, and it does give you a digital reading. So the technology is definitely there. And I haven't really done a lot of research into these devices. I know that they have they do make one. It's Eagle Ray Aqua Doc, Aqua Doc, and I do see it for sale in Walmart.com. And if you go to Amazon, there are some newer companies that are trying to do this digital testing. So I I've actually seen a couple of these uh listed here. I haven't really tested them, and you know, maybe you want to pick one up. It's prime, so you can probably return it. But there are a couple of these listed here for about $160, and they have the 701 test strips, and they have the ability to give you a digital reading. And so the reason why I'm bringing this up is this is the main drawback with test strips is that you're getting a guesstimate, you're matching the color with your eye to the back of the test strip bottle, and you're not getting a true you know photometer test or even a true reagent test, where it's also left up to you in your judgment based on the the region

Digital Readers And Smart Testers

SPEAKER_00 3:39

and matching it on the in the tube to the colors on the side. But I find that to be a little bit more accurate in in most cases than the test strip range that you're reading off of it. So that's not saying the test strips are not accurate, they probably are extremely accurate because they're manufactured with a chemical that's going to give you the reading, but the accuracy is based on how you interpret that reading from the test strip, matching it to the test strip container. Now I always reference this game when I talk about test strips, and it's a really actually really fun game. It's called hues and cues, and it's basically a color matching game, and it's not for kids, or it's I guess for kids too, but it does take some ingenuity because you say one word, and then everyone has to try to figure out the color that you're referring to. So you may say Barney, and there's purple on the board, and everyone gets a chance to see which purple you think Barney is. And so you can see it's a little bit subjective because you say something like, you know, grass, and you know, people have different ideas of what the green grass looks like, or if you say Lakers, what purple is actually the Lakers, or or maybe it's a yellow? So it's really actually a pretty good game, but it does

Color Matching Is Subjective

SPEAKER_00 5:00

show that colors are subjective. And is the alkalinity 80? Is it 60? Is it 90? It's really up to you to kind of judge that with the test strip. So to me, that is the only real major drawback with the test strips. They're fast, they're convenient, but they don't give you pinpoint accuracy. Although these new digital readers may change the landscape over time if they can truly read the test strip correctly and give you the reading more accurately. You're also going to be a little limited in if you're doing a calcium hardness reading with a reagent test kit or photometer, it's going to give you the calcium hardness based on the calcium level in the water. So you'll notice that the test strip measures total hardness, which is the calcium and magnesium ions in the water. So it's basically because the chemistry that they use for the reaction on a test strip is a combined hardness type reading. They can't, I mean, they can probably make one that specifically does calcium hardness, but I think it's gonna be less accurate, and that's kind of why they defaulted to total hardness. So you're not really getting a calcium hardness with the test strips, you're getting a total hardness,

Total Hardness Versus Calcium Hardness

SPEAKER_00 6:22

which is a little bit different, and there's really no clean way of you know subtracting the magnesium hardness from the total hardness to get the calcium hardness. You can kind of you know, it's the magnesium hardness probably isn't a big amount in that reading, but again, the reagent is probably a better way to get the calcium hardness. So that's one drawback with a test factor there. There are actually some really good aspects of test strips that I like, and that is that it can actually give you a cyaneric acid reading that can be in some cases more accurate than a reagent or even from a kit type cyaneric acid test. Because if you know anything about cyaneric acid, once it gets to 100 parts per million, above a hundred parts per million, I should say, it becomes harder and harder to get an accurate reading with the chemical that's used as the activator of this. And so the test strip does have a slight advantage. I think it does do a better job of getting a high cyaneric acid reading than a reagent test kit, and in some cases, even a photometer. I think the Lamotte spin test only goes like 130

When Strips Beat CYA Reagents

SPEAKER_00 7:33

parts a million, 150 parts a million, and then above that it you won't be able to get an accurate reading. So, truthfully, if you talk to Taylor, they'll tell you that anything over 100 is hard to get an accurate cyaneric acid reading with reagents. You can do like a dilution test, half bottled water or distilled water, half pool water, and then divide that number or times that number by two, and you'll get the cyaneric acid reading. But honestly, you know, the cyaneric acid reading from the test strip I find to be good enough. You get a good enough range, and you can see like if the pool has like a lot of cyaneric acid with the test strip, Lamotte also makes a high cyaneric acid test trip, and I've used these out in the field, and they're actually really good. You can test cyanaric acid, of course, down to zero, up to 500 parts per million, which is really great to be able to do that because sometimes you'll have a pool with 200 parts per million of cyaneric acid, and this is a quick and easy way to get a reading of the cyaneric acid, I think, without doing multiple dilution tests with your CYA test kit. I also like test strips because they can do a number of readings that you can't generally get from a reagent test kit. Some photometers can do these readings, so there's going to be some duplication with photometers, but a lot of times the test strips come in handy if you don't have a photometer that does these. So there is a you know that this is kind of good to have these test strips outside of your normal reagent test and photometer. The color Q2X Pro 9 would be one that I would lean towards if you wanted to get copper and iron readings. That you don't if you don't want to use test strips for that, they come in handy to it comes in handy to get a really good accurate copper and iron reading. A lot of plumbers buy the color Q2X Pro 9 to test for iron and and the pipes, and so you know that it's accurate if plumbers are buying the kit, and I've tested out in the field, and it does give you a really good copper

Metals Nitrates Borates Phosphates

SPEAKER_00 10:01

and iron reading. But of course, you know, the kit's like $300, and test strips are a lot more affordable. You can definitely get copper test strips and iron test strips, and I find these to be somewhat accurate because the color will be darker if there's more metal and lighter if there's less metal in the water. So it's not terrible to kind of get an idea if the pool water pool has copper or iron in it. It's not something that you have to overanalyze. If it comes out, you know, a darker color, then yes, there's metal in the pool. How much copper and iron? You wouldn't know unless you're using a photometer like the color Q2X Pro 9. The Lamas Pin Touch also does copper and iron, so you can use that as well. I don't think any of the test kits from region test kits, from my knowledge, do nitrate. So if you suspect that the pool has nitrates, you will have to get night nitrate test strips to test that. The only one I think that does that is the pool lab 2.0, but I tried to get the nitrate powder shipped to the US, and for some reason they don't ship it. So I couldn't actually use my pool lab 2.0 to test for nitrate, so they couldn't get the nitrate powder sent over to me. The big one that I think you would use out there on your pool service route, or if you're a homeowner and you're adding borates to the pool, is a Boreate test strip. I think all the major manufacturers make the Boreate test strip, Hawk and Aqua Check, and you can get the Boreate test strip. And I like the Boreate test strips. I I think this is one where it doesn't take a lot to see the range of borates in the water. Again, the darker the more borates there are in the water, the lighter, close to clear, the less borates in the water. So to me, these are fairly good to use. The only other thing you can do is get the spin touch, which has a borate disc, or has one of the bor one of the discs has a borate reading. And I don't know if any of the photometers do measure borates, but that one does have a borate disc. But besides using that, you can get the borate test strip. And it comes in really handy to have this also. You also can do phosphates. Now the spin touch does do the phosphate test. There's also phosphate kits you can buy, but I think the phosphate test strips are really good enough to test for phosphate levels because you're truly testing you know micro amounts of phosphates. They're measuring in parts per billion. So you can use a test strip to test for phosphates, up to 3,000 parts per billion. And again, the darker it is, the more phosphates are in the water, and you just have to treat the phosphates. I don't think it really matters if there's 400 parts per billion or 700 parts per billion of phosphates. I think it does matter if there's 2,000 parts per billion of phosphates in the water versus like you know 700 parts per billion. So the range is pretty big, and I think phosphate test strips are good enough out there. Now here's one test strip that I just don't like, and I would rather you get a digital meter for this. And this this is the salinity test strips. I have a hard time with these test strips. I think I've used the AquaCheck ones the most. I don't like them because I just feel like it's hard to get an accurate salinity reading. I've used the Hawk ones as well, and I don't think they're so any any better technically. It's just because I think the salinity and the water is hard to measure with the test strip, and a digital meter from Hawk or from Lamotte would be my choice for you. That way you can get an accurate salinity reading if you have salt water systems. It also should do TDS in a lot of cases, so it comes in handy to have a TDS and a salt meter. It does conductivity sometimes, some of them will do conductivity. I think all of them will probably do salinity,

Why Salinity Strips Disappoint

SPEAKER_00 13:53

conductivity, and total dissolved solids. I don't really use conductivity, but it's there. But the salinity one is what you're really focused on with salt water pools, and I would recommend a digital tester. They have cheap ones on Amazon too. I'm not sure how those work. But I really lean towards the major manufacturers for the salt testers, just for the fact that they're more robust, they last longer, they don't need to be calibrated as much, and they seem to be very accurate in my opinion. So the salt test strips are available, sodium chloride test strips, but I don't recommend them. I think they are more troubled than they're worth. And that'd be one test strip that I don't recommend. But you're gonna find, of course, test strips that will do free chlorine and total chlorine. I find that to be pretty accurate, by the way. The free chlorine and total, if you can read that and kind of get good at it, you can actually see if there's combined chlorine in the pool with the test strips that do the tests for free chlorine and combined chlorine. So I find that to be helpful out there in the field. You can also, of course, use these for bromine and for pH, total alkalinity, the calcium, the total hardness, I should say, sorry, and the cyanaric acid. Those are kind of like the basic 7-1 test strips you buy out there, then you can get all those readings by dipping it in once and then matching it up to the side of the bottle. Why I like test strips out in the field is that they're quick and easy because if you're you know in a pinch and you're in a rush, or if it's raining or drizzling out, you can just use that and get a reading in the pool and kind of get by that week with the test strip. They're I think they're pretty good for spas as well. You have to kind of get the ones that are rated for spas because the heat of the spa does affect a regular test trip, in my opinion. So if you are using it for hot tubs, get the ones that are marked spa. And I think they have a little bit of a different formula for the heat and dip those in there, and you can get a pretty good reading from a spa as well. So they come in handy for hot tubs, they're really easy to put in there and get a reading. And if you, of course, want to get a more accurate reading, you would want to use a photometer, you know, maybe every other week, or use the Taylor reach and test kit to get accurate readings. And do you need like spot-on

Fast Field Use And Verifying Readings

SPEAKER_00 16:12

accurate readings all the time? Well, if you're doing commercial pools, yes. But if you're doing residential pools, I don't think you're gonna need to do a photometer every week in that pool, unless it's a new startup, you want to make sure everything is balanced, but you can get away with test trips using those on your route, along with a photometer and a reagent test kit. I also like the fact that test strips can be used to kind of verify the reagent or photometer reading. If you're getting like a weird weird alkalinity reading, you may have bad reagents, they may have gone bad on your photometer. I've had that happen before, by the way, because the reagents don't last that long. Now, of course, most of the new photometers use the pills or tablets, and they seem to be better, but the tablets can also, you can also get a bad batch of tablets, which I've gotten before as well. So that's something that the test strip comes in handy for to kind of verify it. There was someone in my group that was getting like a zero chlorine reading when he knew like the chlorine like was really high. He was using the Taylor K2005 kit, and that read is actually a dye-based reagent, and I believe anything above 10 parts per million will like bleach out the dye. And so he was getting like no chlorine. So I said, get a test strip, dip it in there, and sure enough, the chlorine was pretty blazing in there, so it does come in handy to kind of verify kind of weird readings in the pool. So don't dismiss them entirely. I think they do have a place out there in the field, and again, as the drawbacks I mentioned at the beginning, you have to kind of understand the limitations of test strips, but they do serve a useful purpose in testing things that you can't really test with a region test kit, and you can test some things with a high-end photometer. But if you don't have one of those, copper and iron test strips are great, and bore test strips are great, and phosphate test strips are pretty effective as well. If you're looking for other podcasts, you can go to my website, swimmingpro learning.com. On the banner, there's a podcast icon. Click on that, and there'll be close to 2,000 podcasts for you to download and listen to there. And if you're interested in a coaching program they offer, you can learn more at PoeGuyCoaching.com. Thanks for listening to this podcast. Have a great rest of your week and God bless.