Salt Water Pool Test Kit – What is the Best Way to Test Salt Levels in Pool

The Taylor K 1766 is by far the best salt water pool test kit you can buy. Let me tell you why. It is a little more expensive than the Aquachek test strips and takes a little more time to use, but it is well worth it I’ve already told you why the Taylor K2006 is the best all-around test kit for testing your pool chemicals. Now, I can confidently tell you that the K 1766 is the best salt water pool test kit for much the same reason I like the K2006 for testing chlorine. The results leave no doubt in my mind as to how the salt water level is of my swimming pool.

The reason I like Taylor products such as the K2006’s included free chlorine test kit is that there is a clear end-point with the color change which leaves no doubt or subjective speculation. The K1766 works much the same way as I will explain below. First, let me tell you what I didn’t like about the Aquapure salt water test strips.

AquaChek Salt Water Test Strips

These salt water test strips are convenient and they are cheap, but that’s about all I really liked about them. I was never was sure with any degree of certainty whether I measured right.  For a few reasons, I always felt like I was guessing. Here are where my difficulties are with these types of salt water pool test kits:

One: The strip needs to be in the water until a little band on top changes from yellow to dark. Mine almost never changed completely dark. The top part of the strip needs to be dry. The instructions said less than 10 minutes. That’s a little ambiguous isn’t it? Now, that I’ve exhausted the bottle of strips and am happily using the Taylor Salt Test System, I have found better instructions here: AquaChek Salt Water Testing Instructions. This might have helped to some degree, but there is another big drawback:

Two: The white peak that is supposed to form was not completely white making it very difficult to find the number reached on the chart. Needless to say I was never very confident about the salt water level in my pool when I used these. Finally, I tried the K 1766 and now I know exactly what the salt water level is in my pool.

How the K1766 Salt Water Pool Test Kit Works

The K-1766 salt water pool test kit consists of 3 parts: A clear, empty, plastic bottle, an R-0630 chromate indicator, and an R-0718 silver nitrate reagent.

Using it is simple. Fill the empty bottle with your pool water up to the 10ML mark. Next, enter one drop of the R-0630 and swirl. Solution turns yellow. Final step is to enter one drop at a time of the R-0718. When the solution turns from the color yellow to a brick red or milky-salmon color, you have reached the end-point. Simply multiply your results by 200 and that is the salt water level in your pool. I counted 16 drops so my pool salt level was 3,200RPM (16 x 200) which is just about right. Very Important: You must swirl and mix after each drop you add. I made the mistake of assuming that since my salt water was at least 2,000PPM or so that I could just add a bunch of drops in at once. Not so! The solution did not mix properly and therefore would never change to the appropriate color. It is very important to take your time and mix each drop thoroughly so you can see the clear color change. Here is a sample of what Milky Salmon or brick-red looks like:

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