Pool Frog Mineral Sanitizer Ground Package - Natural Pool Cleaning System for Sparkling Clean Water | Ideal for In-Ground Pools, Spas & Hot Tubs

Installed and followed directions and can only say I am GREATLY IMPRESSED. This system is a must have. We set our pool up the same week as our neighbors they have been fighting alge and green water after 2 weeks while ours has been PERFECT from day 1. No big chlorine smell and the Grandkids are completely comfortable In the water no rashes or sore eyes.Amazing system!!!!Work great....very easy...more time for swimming.... Less time cleaningI found the same type device that now uses normal 3" tablets and I would have not needed to buy just their products, ehhLove this pool gadget - makes owning a pool so much easier and water quality more consistent.works great it puts the amount of chemicals I want.The best ever!!!!!!This unit came free with a pool I got this year, obviously because the idea is to make money off me buying replacement packs.The idea behind this product is that by using the mineral system, you can reduce your chlorine level in the pool by 50%. Maybe this works. However, it's impossible to know and here's why:***It's not possible to effectively meter chlorination of the pool***. On the side of the unit there is a yellow switch that lets you choose how much water to let into the chlorine pack as the pump is on. So in theory, it should work.This meter doesn't work well. I have a 24' pool and determined that the only way to keep my chlorine around, say, 2 ppm (I was testing at the end of each sunny day) was to have my pump running no more than around 4 hours/day, which really is too little. More hours/day, even with the metering set to minimum, flooded the pool with more chlorine.Lastly, even if you do manage to find the correct metering level for your pool (have fun with that), there is a major design flaw in how the chlorine packs are made. Each is filled with a lot of small pucks maybe an inch in diameter. As you can guess, when the pack is new and you're sending a given volume of water through, that water is hitting a huge surface area of these pucks. However, a week or so into it when the pack is starting to get used up the surface area of pucks for a given volume of water flow is now much less and thus to maintain chlorine addition amounts you would have to increase metering.Each chlorine pack is good for two weeks or so. At the end of two weeks I Hope you're paying attention, because if you're running at the [as little as 1ppm the Pool Frog says you can do, and you end up running out of chlorine over night, the sun will blast it all away during a long hot day while you're at work, which makes for a great time for algae to come along.There is also an Algae pack giving 90 day protection, but really if you're adding algae, chlorine, and mineral, what exactly is easier about this? Most people keep their pools happy with chlorine alone, whether it's floating pucks or an every-evening addition of some liquid chlorine (takes a minute each night but it works, guaranteed, and you can pick how much you add based on what your chlorine reading was).Next year I just won't bother with any more of the [very expensive] packs for this thing. The mineral reservoir alone is $90 !!! The chlorine packs for 2 weeks are $230/dozen right now on Amazon, that's another $40/month on top of the $90, so you won't be saving any money that's for sure.We just celebrated our 10th opening of our pool. When we purchased it, the store included this thing and the owner said “it cost a little more, but you will not have any water issues”! He was right! Not even sure how much more it cost but it so easy and we have NEVER had water issues. Well worth the money. I only replace the mineral thing every other year and it works fine.