Natural Pools: Myth vs Reality, PART l

This conversation between Andrea The Pool Girl, Rudy, and Allen Schnaak revolves around the topic of natural pools, comparing them to traditional chemically treated pools. Here's a breakdown of the main points discussed:

1. Introduction and Snake Encounter:
   • Andrea starts the podcast with an anecdote about encountering a rattlesnake.
   • They introduce Allen Schnaak, VP of Business Development at BioNova, specializing in natural pools.
2. Allen's Background:
   • Allen discusses his background in the pool industry, from starting at a young age to his current role in promoting natural pools.
   • He mentions the transition from traditional chemical pools to natural pools and the reasons behind it.
3. Natural Pool Filtration:
   • Allen explains the filtration process of natural pools, including slow-flow and fast-flow filters.
   • He discusses the role of plants in some systems but emphasizes that microbial life plays a significant role in nutrient reduction.
   • The discussion touches on nutrient load and the balance required for a healthy natural pool.
4. Comparison to Chemical Pools:
   • Rudy raises concerns about safety and health risks in natural pools, citing zoonoses and potential pathogens.
   • Allen argues that chemically treated pools also have their share of pathogens and diseases.
   • They discuss the larger number of chemically treated pools compared to natural pools and the lack of scientific focus on the niche market of swimming pools.
5. Optimizing Natural Pool Environment:
   • Allen emphasizes the need to optimize conditions for beneficial microbial life in natural pools.
   • He highlights the importance of creating a balanced ecosystem to prevent the growth of harmful pathogens.
6. Clarification on Natural Pool Maintenance:
   • Andrea seeks clarification on the maintenance of n

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Transcript

Andrea The Pool Girl (00:00.373)
Yeah, no, so you ask anybody that is between the age of 40 and 50 and you say, let me clear my throat and they will go, I guarantee it. Anyway, welcome to the Talking Pools podcast. I'm your host Andrea. And I'm here with my best friend in the entire world. Rudy Stakelitz. Yeah, that's, that's you.

Rudy (00:23.186)
Oh, it's me. Hey, everybody. It's Rudy. It's Rudy Stankiewicz. How are you all doing today? Thank you for tuning in with us. We have a special treat for you. But first, Andrea, it's not a cupcake. We have Alan. We'll get to this in just a moment. But we have Alan Schnack with us today. He's VP of help me out Alan.

Andrea The Pool Girl (00:35.361)
Is it a cupcake? Um.

Mm-hmm.

Allen Schnaak (00:45.972)
Business develop.

Rudy (00:48.13)
VP of Business Development at BioNova, they give everybody what they need to create natural pools. So that's what we're gonna be talking about today is natural pools. I have some opinions on that. I know you already know that both of you and we'll get into those in just a moment. But first, Andrea, you said you had a story to tell us. So what's going on?

Andrea The Pool Girl (00:51.616)
Hello.

Allen Schnaak (00:52.416)
Hello.

Andrea The Pool Girl (01:13.121)
I am so excited because I almost stepped on a rattlesnake snake today.

Rudy (01:20.982)
And that excited you. You almost stepped on a rattlesnake. No.

Andrea The Pool Girl (01:22.793)
Yeah, yeah, did you not see my post? I went live and everything. I knew you didn't see it, that's why I wanted to tell you about it. Yeah, so I came very close to death today.

Rudy (01:33.602)
Very close to death excites you. That's, you're a twisted individual, that's for sure.

Andrea The Pool Girl (01:36.257)
I'm laughing, I know, it's very funny. I was not in any danger, the snake was not mad, but I was very close to it and I did not see it. And I saw it after I had already been very close to it. I was like within a foot away from this thing and it was a decent size too.

Rudy (01:39.702)
What kind of rattlesnake? All right, now the questions.

Rudy (01:56.471)
Now you're saying you almost stepped on it, so is that an exaggeration or did you literally come close to stepping on this thing?

Andrea The Pool Girl (02:01.989)
No, that is a slight exaggeration. But like I said, I was within a foot away from this thing. So here's what happened. And Rudy and well, anybody you can go on my Facebook and watch the live video of me poking it into the grass. So yeah, I, I parked my truck. So I was done with work. And I parked my pool truck next to my own truck. And to the left of me was

I don't know whose car it was, but somebody had parked their own personal car. It was like a Mazda something with the hatchback. Um, and so I got out of the work truck and I, I had a pouch of pickles that I had bought for lunch and I was clearing out all my, yeah, I was clearing out all the garbage out of my truck for the day, you know, cause you don't want to leave a pouch of pickles in the truck overnight. That's just disgusting.

Rudy (02:46.882)
Of course you did.

Rudy (02:55.266)
God forbid.

Andrea The Pool Girl (02:56.693)
So I leaned over to, I dropped something and I leaned over and I didn't realize the pickle pouch was open. So I spilled pickle juice all over the place. This is relevant, I swear. So I went, I got out of the truck and I left.

Rudy (03:08.226)
Obviously a natural means of attracting rattlesnakes is pickle pouch juice. Yum.

Andrea The Pool Girl (03:13.297)
Pickle juice, yeah. Well, I got it all over my foot, you know, it was in my crocs, so I had pickle crocs. Anyway, so I go to get some paper towels to clean up the pickle juice because I'd spilled it on the floorboard inside my truck. And there's no, you can't, that's, you have to clean that up, you can't leave it. So I go, I cleaned up the pickle juice and I walk to the back end of my truck to throw the paper towels. I have a bucket that I use for garbage in the back of the truck, so I was just gonna toss it in there until tomorrow.

And I walked all the way to the back of the truck. I threw the paper towels away. I turn around and I look and I happened to just like look down out of the corner of my left eye. And there was the snake just chilling underneath the vehicle next to me. Uh, like right up against the back tire, kind of like a couple of inches away from the back tire. And he was all flattened to the ground. Like.

Rudy (04:01.582)
Wow.

Andrea The Pool Girl (04:06.677)
I thought it was dead for a second and it was flattened. It was all coiled up and I could see the top of its head. And I knew immediately that it was a freaking, it was an Eastern diamond back. I knew immediately. So, cause I watched, I make it a point to know, like, and I always wonder, and I've had dreams about it too. I was like, I always wondered like, would I know that that's a rattlesnake immediately or would I have to like question it? No, I knew immediately that it was a rattlesnake. There was no, there was no question about it.

Rudy (04:33.762)
So it wasn't a hognose snake. So it just didn't look like one. It definitely was a rattlesnake. I actually had, believe it or not, something similar happen. Not recently, not while doing pools. This goes way back to 1987.

Andrea The Pool Girl (04:36.775)
No, it was a rattlesnake.

Andrea The Pool Girl (04:51.861)
I was four.

Rudy (04:51.958)
back when you were in your teens, I'm sure. So back in 1987, I was stationed at Fort Hood in Texas, and we were actually out in the fields wandering about. I was in the infantry, second to the fifth cap, and we were wandering around out there, and it was the winter months, and I did step on a rattlesnake. And immediately, I did have boots and stuff on and all of that, and I was there with a couple of folks from Mississippi who I was on patrol with,

Andrea The Pool Girl (05:06.115)
Nice.

Andrea The Pool Girl (05:12.185)
Oh snap, but you add like boots and stuff on?

Andrea The Pool Girl (05:17.593)
Yeah.

Andrea The Pool Girl (05:20.813)
Good.

Rudy (05:21.742)
part of the story, which is one of the strangest things, this fellow I was hanging out with, he was from Biloxi, and we're walking around and I step on this thing and all of a sudden you get, right? The tail starts going nuts. So I jumped back, you know, I'm a New Yorker, I'm getting out the way, right? The guy with me from Mississippi, first thing he does is start taking off his boots. I was like, what are you doing? He goes, I've only caught snakes barefoot before. So they did catch that thing and then later,

Andrea The Pool Girl (05:45.417)
Oh my god.

Andrea The Pool Girl (05:50.178)
They caught it.

Rudy (05:51.17)
They caught it and later that's what they ate. Yeah.

Andrea The Pool Girl (05:54.237)
Oh, cool. So like, did it bit your boots? Obviously you survived you didn't get

Rudy (05:58.302)
No, I did not get bit. I just disturbed it. I mean, I guess I stepped just on the edge of it, but I did step on it. I disturbed it, it pissed it off, but I think it's because the only saving grace was, I think it was February, January, February-ish, and it was so cold that it just didn't have the energy to take a chunk out of me.

Andrea The Pool Girl (06:00.846)
Good.

Andrea The Pool Girl (06:05.792)
See.

Andrea The Pool Girl (06:13.033)
So it was called. Mm-hmm.

Andrea The Pool Girl (06:19.565)
See, this one was cold too, and like I didn't step on it, I was exaggerating, but like I said, it was under the back of the car that I parked next to and walked by, you know, back and forth. And even when I was poking it with my pole to get it to go into the bushes, it did not rattle at me once. I was a little disappointed because I wanted to hear it, I've never heard it before, but yeah. So I think it was cold, because it was really cold today. It didn't get over like,

Rudy (06:42.046)
Also cold, cold outside now here even in Florida.

Andrea The Pool Girl (06:49.717)
It didn't go over like 65 the whole day, which I know some people are going to lose their minds.

Rudy (06:53.582)
Cooler temps slow those reptiles down. So I'm gonna try to make this into a segue the best way I can. So what you're saying is that...

Andrea The Pool Girl (07:01.109)
I've never had one in a pool before, it was just in the parking lot, go ahead.

Rudy (07:07.206)
All kinds of pools attract wildlife. That's what I'm hearing from you.

Andrea The Pool Girl (07:12.289)
Yes, and parking lots.

Rudy (07:13.31)
Okay, so you have found snakes in pools before though, right? So I'm gonna throw out Alan a bone here when we get started here. So I don't know if that's one of the arguments. It's gonna attract wildlife, but you know what? We live in Florida and I've pulled every living creature that there could and dead out of the pool that there possibly could be. So that's not limited to natural pools, but that's the only bone I'm gonna throw you Alan. After that, we need to talk buddy. So inch everybody, Alan Schnack say hello.

Andrea The Pool Girl (07:18.397)
Yes.

Allen Schnaak (07:40.488)
Yeah, it's Alan Schnock. That's quite all right. I've been called a lot worse.

Rudy (07:42.818)
Schnock, I'm so sorry. 20 years, I should know to pronounce things better. I've known Alan. Long history at BioLab, many different roles, makes the leap to natural pools. Help us with that.

Allen Schnaak (07:59.508)
Yeah, let me fill in the gap. You know, I started throwing Calhypo in a public pool when I was 12. My dad was the part of the HOA at the time, as back before there were HOAs. But I'm from a family of FEP4 brothers and we had a ready workforce. And I started going down vacuuming pools, throwing HTH, spinning vertical grid DE filters, learning about

pumped hydraulics and swimming pool operation, and it just kind of stuck. Taught swimming lessons through college. I was lifeguard, water safety instructor, in scouts for a long time, rowing, canoeing, life-saving, swimming, scuba certified. I loved the water. I took, got scuba certified when I was in college, and that really blew the lid off on what I thought opportunity could be. I'd love that.

Rudy (08:33.164)
Interesting.

Allen Schnaak (08:57.06)
Jacques Cousteau was my hero at the time, as he was exploring the Earth and the Calypso. And I thought, yeah, well, that's cool. I'd like to do that. I enjoyed marine biology, oceanography, limnology. Unfortunately in school, organic chemistry just kicked my butt and it kind of derailed me from a long, prosperous career in marine biology, but I ended up in the pool industry. So what's wrong with that, right? I know.

Rudy (09:23.586)
seems like the natural progression.

Allen Schnaak (09:26.272)
30 years with BioLab and spent, as you mentioned, I spent most of, well, most of those 30 years teaching people how to chemically treat their pools. And it is a process and people need to know, and it does take a lot of time, but it's a great option, great opportunity. And now, as I came full circle, James Robin, a good friend, current pool builder,

Rudy (09:29.23)
Wow.

Allen Schnaak (09:55.212)
business up in northern New Jersey. James brought BioNova to North America about 16 years ago when he was encouraged by a client that was looking for a natural option. They had already built her pool. It was a salt pool. She realized, well, salt's not natural. Well, no, it's not, but we do know about biological filtration.

James and his wife, Hay Sun, both went to school in Germany and were very familiar with the environment. So they went over to Germany and scoped out, found BioNova and a whole network of natural pool builders. And that kind of initiated the start. Now this is a long time ago, 16 years ago. He displayed at the pool and spa show in Vegas, I think for the first time. And asked me then if I was interested in coming on board and shoot, I had a 401k and health plan, company car, who wanted to do that? So.

When the opportunity came, yeah, I let him know I'm ready for my retirement gig. And that's what I do now. I, I've got projects going on all across the country and I just do design consultation, uh, help people recognize, uh, the options they have for integrating a biological filter into their typical swimming pool design. And that's really the best way to characterize these folks in your audience that may have a.

an image in their mind of a swampy pond like the Okefenokee Everglades. No, I mean, those are ecosystems and frankly, mostly healthy, but those in Florida would probably debate me about the health of the Everglades, especially with Burmese pythons plowing around. But still, natural water and the process through which water purifies itself,

Andrea The Pool Girl (11:36.909)
Hehehe

Rudy (11:38.812)
Thank you.

Allen Schnaak (11:46.048)
is no mystery. It's, I mean, it's science. It is, it's what limnology is based on. The intersection of chemistry, geology, physics, and biology, all living in this aquatic environment. Unfortunately, the pool industry in the U.S. has, well, really only taught pool owners how to treat their pools chemically.

That's the way a pool builder that comes online in the industry is taught. You know, what do I need to do to take care of the pool? Well, Langler saturation index, you know, one to three parts of chlorine, pH, alkalinity, hardness, watch out for phosphates, you know, and TDS. And so it's the process for maintaining a natural pool is, is so much easier because we don't have the, the chemical gymnastics necessary to ensure that chemistry is actually doing what it's designed to do.

Many clients that have come to us recently thinking that they've bought a salt pool as a natural pool continually complain about the need to adjust the pH to keep it in range. Well, it's just a natural result of that chemical equation. There's simply more sodium hydroxide created than there is any acidic contributor, so the pH always goes up as you create chlorine and electrolytic.

chlorine generation. So that's not a problem. I mean, so long as you just add pH decreaser or granular or muratic acid. Adjust the pH. Without a pH at 7.5, you're getting less efficiency out of your chlorine. If it's at a point either side or a tenth of a point either side, chlorine's ability to kill is compromised. So why not nature? Well.

Rudy (13:17.774)
course.

Allen Schnaak (13:44.712)
Nature's been doing it a long time. This is not a pool that's for everybody. And I think maybe that's, that may be a misinterpretation of my initiative, Rudy. My role, I don't believe is to convert every chemical pool to a natural pool. My role is to help people recognize there's an option. Yeah, if you want a natural pool, there is a chemical free way to do it. And to do that, you're gonna sacrifice one thing.

you're going to sacrifice that Windex Blue Sterilized Pool look because you're killing everything. The majority of the microbes that live in a body of water are resoundingly beneficial. Yet we need to treat the water for the less beneficial microbes, pathogens, the E. coli, enterococcus, pseudomonas, gerardia, crypto. I mean, there's.

There's lots of pathogenic organisms out there. So in a natural pool, we suppress their growth simply by providing competition for the resources. If you've ever seen a swamp, lumpy green swamp, or as you come into spring opening season for pools, you know, that spring swamp you see in somebody's backyard is a eutrophic environment.

Rudy (14:59.423)
Okay.

Rudy (15:11.254)
Well, I get that. Let me ask you this though, because I do understand what you're attempting to do is to outgrow.

Allen Schnaak (15:12.224)
Nutrient rich.

Allen Schnaak (15:20.072)
Now it's not what we're attempting to do, it's what we're doing. We're building natural pools.

Rudy (15:23.098)
Are you though? I know you're building them, but my questions pertain to safety. I was gonna ask you, you know, before we even jump into that though, you're into this now and obviously, I've known you a long time, you're a fantastic salesperson, the Windex look. I like to refer to it as the crisp Caribbean clear look. You see, so there's a difference in which way you wanna go. If I'm calling it Windex,

Allen Schnaak (15:48.052)
Yeah, well that crisp Caribbean clear look is non-chemical though.

Rudy (15:49.822)
If I'm calling it Windex, it automatically sounds like something I don't want to swim in.

Allen Schnaak (15:55.44)
Well, you probably wouldn't. Having had conversations with you about it, then this is not, yeah, well, this is not a genre of pool where you would be a considered client. And it's, and you know, we all have to remove ourselves in a sales role or sales environment or marketing role environment. Our client is not ourselves.

Rudy (15:57.943)
So to me, it's not a Windex look.

Rudy (16:07.43)
I am not, nor am I a fan. And yet.

Rudy (16:14.826)
But let me ask you this. If we could go back to when you and I first met back in 2003, we were talking about that a moment ago. If we could go back then, that Alan Schnuck, did I say it correctly that time? I hope that Alan Schnuck, is he a fan of a chemical free swimming pool? Or does that guy need some convincing?

Allen Schnaak (16:30.88)
You did.

Allen Schnaak (16:40.304)
No, I'm a fan. I mean, I've seen it work.

Rudy (16:43.094)
But even 20 years ago, I mean, I'm trying to figure out how you get from A to B, chemical manufacturer, chemical free pool, something happened. You converted. I don't wanna say you drank the Kool-Aid. We're not gonna call it that.

Allen Schnaak (16:47.08)
Well, you know, you know, I don't know

Allen Schnaak (16:58.476)
Well, I mean, it didn't convert. It was like another door opened. It was like suddenly realizing there was a door number two to choose from. Up to this point, everybody, a perspective pool owner and a current pool owner really believe they only have one door to choose from. What's behind door number one, Johnny? It's chemical treatment. So what we want to offer people the understanding is that if

If they're aware that there is an option, then give them the option. There are many people out there who don't have an OCD characteristic that expect the water to look Windex Sterilized Blue. Natural water that exists in ponds and quarries and streams and lakes, we've been swimming in forever. So why not harness and optimize the conditions that occur in nature?

Rudy (17:49.762)
We have, and it's become more and more, it's become more and more of a health risk swimming in those natural bodies of waters over time. Andrea, go ahead.

Andrea The Pool Girl (17:53.726)
Can I interrupt for a second?

Allen Schnaak (18:00.796)
No it hasn't. No it hasn't.

Andrea The Pool Girl (18:04.437)
just have a question because I don't know can you just explain Alan so it's not there's no chemicals at all there's no you don't do anything to the pH you don't do anything to the hardness so I was trying to go ahead

Allen Schnaak (18:17.196)
Well, now, if it relates to a structural water balance issue, I realize that there are conditions where water would have less than desirable levels of mineral hardness that ends up sacrificing the interior of some pools to the water due to its aggressive nature. So calcium hardness adjusted to that 250 to 275 part premium level, that's not a problem. That's not affecting the biology.

Andrea The Pool Girl (18:46.765)
Gotcha.

Allen Schnaak (18:47.38)
What does affect it is when any sidal products are used, biocidal, algaecidal, chlorine, oxidizers, copper, silver.

zinc, those things are all sidle and are non-discriminate in killing all microbial activity. So we just believe that why not harness the beneficial microbial life and optimize its environment so that it can suppress potential pathogens from thriving by out competing them for nutrients. That is the nature of a food web.

it's competition for resources. So we just want more people at the table than there are food, than food, and we have a nutrient deprived environment. And it's a nutrient deprived environment that allows and provides that clear, clean, soothing, chemical free water.

Andrea The Pool Girl (19:50.793)
Okay, I understand. So, because I was trying to read up a little bit before we started talking and everything. And I was trying to look at how the filter works. Can you tell me about that? Because I know I was reading about the biofilm and that stuff.

Allen Schnaak (20:03.452)
Yeah, well, that's a great question, Andrea, because they're really, in a freshwater environment, natural biological filtration occurs in a lot of ways. The two predominant ways are ways that Europeans have characterized as slow flow filters and fast flow filters. Well, it seems rudimentary to describe them so simply.

But the reality is that's kind of the way they exist in nature, ponds, lakes, reservoirs that have passive filtration. There's not a stream running through it. The water's not being forced or driven through some type of aggregate. It's just sitting there. And plants grow in that environment because the water's not moving very fast. So plants grow because they can. I mean, all of nature is opportunistic. You give it a chance.

and you give it a good condition to grow and nature will flourish. So in this environment, we create a, if we wanted a pond like slow filter, it'd be designed to look kind of like a wetlands, a manmade wetlands environment. Generally those filter areas require 50% of the space allocated for the swimming area, allocated as additional space for the regeneration area.

So a 600 square foot pool is a 900 square foot waterproofed environment. It could be a 600 square foot separate vessel and a 300 square foot separate vessel, in which case I've got two swimming pools, one for my plants and one for my people. And then it's a matter of moving the water from my swimming pool to the biological filter. So the surface of the water is what's capturing the nutrients.

Andrea The Pool Girl (21:46.765)
Gotcha.

Allen Schnaak (21:58.452)
That's where all the nutrients come from. They don't come from the bottom of the pool. They come through wind, rain, dust, bathers, animals through the surface. So the surface area is the first thing that helps as criteria to define the size of the biological filter. Our European cohorts, our German European cohorts have done a lot of legwork in computing what the actual human contribution is per square meter of water.

Rudy (22:25.59)
Hey, I wanna-

Allen Schnaak (22:27.688)
so that we can understand what the nutrient load is.

Rudy (22:29.79)
I do want to talk about this, Alan. I hate to interrupt, but I do want to jump back a minute just speaking with the health of natural bodies of water. I think that's where we were when we took off in this direction. And we're going to come back to filtration definitely because I am interested as well. But there has been over the past few years, more and more reported cases of different zoonoses that have become problematic in natural bodies of water.

In fact, there's also a series of books, fantastic books, called Waterborne Zoonoses that have been put out by the World Health Organization that I have read through cover to cover. I highly do recommend. And they speak on the problems with the natural bodies of water. And I agree with you, it's not nature that causes the problems. A lot of it is in the turns and changes that we've brought to the world.

Allen Schnaak (23:27.316)
Well, actually, quite frankly, I mean, we've brought...

Rudy (23:28.238)
farming, agriculture, ranching, and I get that. And that doesn't affect somebody's backyard, but it does because that same animal, which fine, we spoke about at the beginning here about how animals are attracted to all bodies of water. Fantastic, that's great. We have that in common. But when they go to a natural pool, there's nothing that's gonna immediately kill off what comes with it. And there isn't something that you can grow that can out...

compete the nutrients when you're talking about things that thrive within the biofilms that could be problematic to people.

Allen Schnaak (23:59.752)
Yeah, well, here's a real wake up call for a realization for all your listeners. There is likely to be pathogenic organisms existing in a volume of a chemically treated pool. So, yeah, so the characterization that these organisms are only going to be a problem in a natural pool is a fallacy. They're equally a problem in a chemically treated pool.

Rudy (24:17.654)
We know that in the filter. We already are aware of that.

Allen Schnaak (24:29.556)
Probably even more so because there's this artificial crutch that I think people have that, well, because I'm throwing stuff in it, then nothing should grow. Well, we know that's not right. It takes a prescribed process to manage a chemically treated pool. And it also...

Rudy (24:43.914)
If there are biofilms in the system, there are things that are harmful to people in the water. Period.

Allen Schnaak (24:51.956)
Well, there could be, but to cast a generic net over all natural pools and say they are a health hazard is inaccurate. I could cast that same net of exclamation over the chemically treated bodies of water in the world. There have been more waterborne diseases in the past 15 years than there have been in the previous and that ain't because of natural pools.

Rudy (24:53.258)
No, there is.

Rudy (25:01.788)
I'm.

Rudy (25:19.374)
Would you agree that there are more chemically treated pools than there are natural pools? So would you also not agree that we are such a small niche market swimming pools that science doesn't really often look at us the way that they should?

Allen Schnaak (25:24.164)
Oh, absolutely. There are significantly more chemically treated bulls.

Allen Schnaak (25:37.416)
Yeah, well, science doesn't have to look at natural pools to describe limnology. I mean, this biological science was not invented for the sake of natural pools. Limnology recognizes the criteria and the environment that needs to happen in order for that natural system to optimize itself. Yeah, I mean, in the presence of man, nature has a difficult time finding its way. We're getting we're slashing.

Rudy (25:39.316)
Either one.

Allen Schnaak (26:07.596)
cutting, eroding, polluting. So one of the things that we can do with a natural pool though is optimize a good environment for the development of the biology. And by doing that, we create.

Rudy (26:24.234)
Okay, but we have to stop comparing this to all natural bodies of water because it's not the same as all natural bodies of water. Most natural bodies of water are spring fed and there's constantly replenishing water supply that comes from the earth. So we're specifically talking about comparing it to ponds.

Allen Schnaak (26:43.152)
Well, rivers, streams, I mean, to Andrea's point, that fast flow filter is indicative of a pond. The biofilm filters, the fast flow systems are indicative of the biofilm systems. Don't use plants. There's no plants required whatsoever. In fact, even in the bioswim pond with a planted regeneration zone, 80% of the nutrient reduction is done by the micro-

Rudy (26:45.738)
Rivers and streams are fed.

Allen Schnaak (27:11.796)
microbial life, not by the plants. They do have some beneficial contributions to the water. One is the fact that many submerged species can aerate. If you've had an aquarium, you've set their mesmerized watching the oxygen bubbles come off the submerged plants.

Rudy (27:29.126)
I don't. I actually grow cyanobacteria from samples that were drawn from all types of pools. I am weird, Alan.

Allen Schnaak (27:33.064)
Well, you're just weird. Yeah. So hurry, hurry. We know we're all cyanobacteria. We know where the black algae is coming from. Rudy's growing it in his basement.

Andrea The Pool Girl (27:43.161)
He's got you that I've been saying that. No, it's in his kitchen. I've been saying that. He's a weirdo, been growing it in his kitchen. Hehehehehehe.

Rudy (27:43.79)
Bye.

Allen Schnaak (27:45.312)
Yeah, I know.

Rudy (27:48.727)
Uh, you know, no, here's the thing, because if you don't understand what you're dealing with, you can't really speak on it. And the problem is, is there's not a lot of information on biofilms out there. There's not, not in the swimming pool industry. I don't know about in the natural pool industry. It's still new. And there's really not a lot of resources out there for natural swimming pools as far as scientific studies.

Allen Schnaak (27:50.277)
Yeah, that's me, right? I'm in a cunt.

Allen Schnaak (28:02.763)
Yeah, I would.

Yo.

Allen Schnaak (28:09.852)
Oh, there's huge, there's huge resources out there. Yeah, well, there are. And the limnology that's been, we have not rewritten the science of the biology of water. All we've done is recognize that there needs to be an input, nutrients, and there needs to be a consumer to consume it. And there needs to be a reduction force to reduce the biomass. Those all exist in a typical food chain and a food web.

Somebody's producing food, somebody's eating food, somebody's cleaning up the mess. Same thing's true in biology.

Rudy (28:40.146)
One of the species.

One of the species that I grow, which has been drawn from samples in chemically treated pools where the chlorine level subsided because they didn't keep on top of it, is Nostoc. If you're familiar with Nostoc, that's actually a nitrogen fixing cyanobacteria. So here we have something that can grow, which can harbor Legionella, which can harbor, harbor.

Nigel refoulery that can actually take things from the atmosphere. It can take things from the, you can take things from the app. It can take things from the atmosphere and turn it into what it needs. It pulls nitrogen from the atmosphere and it feeds itself.

Allen Schnaak (29:14.684)
move so don't let it harbor don't give it safe harbor

Allen Schnaak (29:26.472)
Yeah, but in the grand scheme of things, that is an opportunistic organism. It is well distributed, but it's very opportunistic.

Rudy (29:31.894)
That is extremely common. Yeah. Okay. And it's problematic in a body of water where it can easily get established, which it just require.

Allen Schnaak (29:40.42)
I've never seen anybody wrestled into the water from a mad cyanobacteria, but I have witnessed

Rudy (29:47.818)
No, but you have heard of people who swim in ponds who have died from nigelary phallery.

Allen Schnaak (29:52.136)
Yeah, well, and that's also stirring up a muddy bottom, getting to the anaerobic area. Yeah, we don't want any of those sandy bottoms. Yeah, that's exactly where they are.

Rudy (29:57.07)
Hmm, not really Alan. If you look at the way these things work, what happens is there's something known as hiving where it does kick out cells and it does dislodge these from the cyanobacteria directly into the water in periods of time. These are facts.

Allen Schnaak (30:11.464)
And just so the listeners are all clear, these are all conditions that can also occur in a chlorinated pool, is that not right? Okay, so let's talk about what natural pools are. Yeah, let's talk about what natural pools are and not the slice of the minority for problematic issues. Well, it is, Rudy.

Rudy (30:18.086)
as long as yes, if the chlorinated water dips and it has a chance to become established. Well, I think.

It's not a slice of the minority that's the thing here. There is actually, no, there is actually research available as well. There's, University of Barcelona has also conducted studies and they have found that in three out of four pools studied that the water exceeded bacterial coliform tests.

Allen Schnaak (30:51.212)
I wonder how many times that happens in a chlorine pool. You know, the CDC has those results. Can you tell us how many times a chemically treated pool was failed due to it exceeding the threshold for the indicator organisms in the swimming pool?

Rudy (30:57.424)
Mm-hmm.

Rudy (31:05.09)
So what you're saying is that the health department stay on top of these things and close the pools after the test is done. That's not necessarily true because in the areas where they do test for coliform bacteria, it is the health department that pulls those samples.

Allen Schnaak (31:09.32)
No, pool operators do.

Allen Schnaak (31:19.572)
Well, they do. And obviously, I mean, a trained pool technician should have the skill sets necessary to maintain the water quality in the pool. And so long as the water quality parameters eliminate or prevent the opportunity for these organisms to grow, then it's not an issue. But when those parameters are exceeded, when chlorine level is too low or pH is too high, yeah, those opportunistic organisms in a chemical pool can come to life.

Rudy (31:37.262)
Agreed.

Allen Schnaak (31:46.888)
Now, the same conditions can occur in a natural environment where the suppression, the competition for the resources is overwhelmed by a natural or unnatural input of nutrients. How does that happen? Over broadcast of fertilizer, six inches of rainfall. Well, those things occur in a natural pool, the additional food that enters that environment that exceeds the ability of the consuming

Rudy (31:47.211)
Agreed.

Allen Schnaak (32:16.472)
microbes to take care of. Yeah, they flush green, possibly with an algae bloom, but when the nutrients are gone, the nutrients are gone. They eat themselves out, literally out of house and home. Now, in that case, the stable generation of microbes, the beneficial microbes, the biofilm, that community

Rudy (32:40.531)
What is this exactly that we are growing? That we, the beneficial...

Allen Schnaak (32:43.484)
Well, we're growing a community of numerous bacteria, fungi, phytoplankton, zooplankton. I mean, they're all, they are, you know, if we could only live in our community as easy as they all live together, they live in what's called a centropic community, centropic, centropy, look it up. It means that the metabolic output of one organism benefits the metabolic needs of the other.

Rudy (32:49.23)
calls.

Can we get a listing?

Rudy (33:06.796)
Mm-hmm.

Allen Schnaak (33:12.884)
So from a community standpoint, I've got organisms that are tasked to do one thing only. And it's to take, well, let's take nitrosomus bactor. It converts ammonia to nitrite. Well, I didn't do plants any good. Nitrites are worthless to a plant. It needs to be a nitrate. So there's another organism that converts that nitrite to a nitrate.

Now that's just one cycle of the nitrogen cycle. And there's more in your high school biology book.

Rudy (33:44.667)
Actually, just pulling up the nitrogen cycle, you'll see that ammoniifying bacteria taking nitrates to nitrite is actually important to plant growth in a pool environment or any body of water environment, not necessarily a pool environment. If you look at the nitrogen cycle like you referred to, but...

Allen Schnaak (33:48.216)
Yeah, bacterial oxidation, biological...

Allen Schnaak (34:00.244)
So let's just recognize there are numerous more beneficial microbes that we're speaking of than the Carina brevis or the crypto or the E. coli. They are far outnumbered by microorganisms that outcompete them for the ready resources and nutrients that are put in the water. They feed, they're happy, they reproduce, they poop.

We wash them out of the filter, they regrow again. We don't have to seed them, we don't have to encourage them, we don't have to sing to them. These organisms know what they need to do in a water environment, and we just optimize the conditions that allows them to flourish. And by doing that, it suppresses opportunistic growth of passages. And we're not trying to do it, we are doing it.

Rudy (34:53.13)
Okay, but again, jumping back, the nitrogen cycle does include converting nitrate to nitrites, which is important for plant growth. It can happen just due to the water alone that can do it, or it can happen from ammoniifying bacteria that can do it. In either case, then...

Allen Schnaak (35:01.96)
nitrite to nitrate.

It goes the other way around. Yeah. Nitrate is the last.

Allen Schnaak (35:15.892)
No, it takes microbial intervention to convert that ammoniated nitrogen into nitrate. Right.

Rudy (35:21.03)
into something that plants can use. Yeah. And I assume that's why you have the plants there, but it's not because nitrites are bad.

Allen Schnaak (35:28.796)
No, let's say it's not. You weren't listening earlier. I don't need plants for biological filtration.

Plants, I mean phytoplankton at the most microscopic level, yes, phytoplankton that uses, through photosynthesis creates its food source. But yeah, plants, they basically are nutrient fixers as they uptake nitrogen and phosphate. They're fixed in the plant, which is why you should always use a mulching mower when you cut your grass. Put the grass back down on the ground, it's fertilizer.

Rudy (35:36.022)
because we are lying on biofilm.

Allen Schnaak (36:05.084)
It decomposes into those essential elements for growth that nature continues to need.

Rudy (36:12.086)
I don't know if you know, I know you know this person, Dr. Roy Vor, and he came on a while back because they had some groundbreaking information. And one of the things that they did when they did some research, just looking at some of the different disease concerns that we in the pool industry have, which would also be in your industry as well, rules going with yours that affects everybody. We're looking at poorly maintained pools. But unfortunately,

I mean, that's, that's the comparison though. I mean, for us to grow these things in a swimming pool, we're calling it a poorly maintained pool for them to grow in the pond, for them to grow there. We're not.

Allen Schnaak (36:48.66)
Well, yeah, because you're killing all the beneficial organisms. You're killing everything with that first pound of 10,000 gallons of calhypo. There's nothing going to be live in there. So you've killed off all the

Rudy (36:59.786)
But what he's found was that the things we've been chasing disease-wise, crypto, giardia, that type of thing, has actually not been the main problem. The main problem that's taken more lives in the past 20 years than any of the others combined is Pseudomonas. And Pseudomonas is destroyed with a light chlorine level.

minimum chlorine level that we maintain in pools. We don't have that in the body of water that you're talking about. And.

Allen Schnaak (37:28.02)
Now, well, we don't have any food for that pseudomonas either. Because, I mean, we measure the same indicator organisms, pseudomonas, E. coli, and terracocca, same organisms that the chemical industry uses as marker organisms. And they recognize that at 100 CFUs per 100 milliliters and below, E. coli is not a threat.

Rudy (37:33.662)
Mm-hmm.

Rudy (37:50.623)
If this was a sealed body of water, I would agree with you. If the planet hadn't become what it has come due to industry over time, I might be inclined to agree with you. But things have changed.

Allen Schnaak (38:00.232)
Well, you need to then get with the World Health Organization and the CDC because there's not any sealed pools out there and that's the criteria they're using.

Rudy (38:04.686)
And how should I correct them? That is not necessarily the criteria they're using, and that's not necessarily the criteria that Roy used. We did this off of, I know he conducts his based off of samples that were drawn from actual bodies of water. The samples that I have and that I grow were drawn from actual bodies of water. So these things do exist.

Allen Schnaak (38:15.924)
Well, it is.

Allen Schnaak (38:29.512)
Yeah, 50 CFU per 100 milliliters of Max for Enterococca, 10 CFUs per 100 mills for Pseudomonas, and 100 CFU per 100 mills for E. coli. So those are WHO levels. Those are CDC levels. They are the ones that are written into the guidelines for the Model Aquatic Health Code and the anti-standards. So

Rudy (38:48.941)
Mm-hmm.

Rudy (38:52.481)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, we can go back to.

Allen Schnaak (38:54.94)
No, these are not random things. These are indicator organisms that are the canary in the coal mine. They get to an excess level above those limits, then the conditions are optimal for the development of other less desirable organisms, more opportunistic organisms. But in a healthy organism, they don't have the food.

Rudy (39:19.727)
And again, going back to that study from Barcelona that I was speaking of, which is one of only few studies that I can find on actual zoonoses growing in swimming pools or bacteria growing in natural swimming pools, is that these did exceed 100 calorie or colony forming units, CFUs, of E. coli per milliliter of water. So this isn't that alarming that

Allen Schnaak (39:39.412)
Well then yeah, it was not properly maintained. But obviously.

Rudy (39:47.022)
There are so few studies out there by universities on this topic. I mean, if what you're saying is correct, where is that information? I mean, not done by you, not done by somebody selling the product, where is it done by somebody who's not?

Allen Schnaak (40:05.16)
Yeah, well, I mean, the very specified research that is going on relative to natural pools and the efficacy of biological filtration is being coalesced and is being organized in Europe. Just had a meeting this morning with cohorts from Austria and Germany where they've got a database of 200 and maybe close to 300 public natural pools in Europe. And they've been doing...

Rudy (40:32.386)
Mm-hmm.

Allen Schnaak (40:34.156)
once every other week testing, as is our typical protocol for a biological pool. And the results are amazingly contradictory to your concern, Rudy.