K.Cool

ChemGeek: Yes, I keep track of our CYA monthly. Waterbear: We did use MPS a couple times, and I initially thought it was that. But the problems returned after a complete water change where I used only bleach to shock, and we haven't had issues with MPS when using a friend's chlorine hot tub. The only variable that changed was switching from bromine to chlorine.

I placed a very similar post awhile back.We had our tub for about seven months and ran it with 3 step bromine with no problems. All of a sudden my husband started getting a rash. I am immaculate when it comes to water chemistry, so iI was suprised that he was getting these symptoms. We decontaminated just in case, but the rashes continued. We then drained, purged, and refilled, but still his rashes continued. I decided to ditch the bromine and started fresh with diclor then bleach. He has not had any skin problems whatsoever since the change.

I wanted to post an update to this: it turned out to be a bromine sensitivity. Seven months ago I switched to diclor-then-bleach and we have not had a single problem.

We thought about the hot water theory. He took several long, very very hot baths after it had gone away to see if it would come back. It did not. It was only after he used the hot tub again that it returned. I thought about the MPS idea, too, but there is no MPS in the tub on this fill: I shock only with bleach.

Mystery solved, then! The additives in the splashless bleach foam like crazy! If you give plain, regular bleach a try you should be fine.

My husband and I got our tub last September. We've used it almost every day for the past seven months and have never had a problem. I use a Taylor rest kit and am very, very consistent in using it. Our tub is always right where it should be, chemical-wise. We use three step bromine, shock with bleach, use a spa stick filter to fill the tub, have low metals, low calcium (we raise it to 150pm). My current test results (these are typical): Bromine- 5 ppm Calcium hardness- 140 ppm TA: 50 PH: 7.8 Here is the problem. Sometime in April my husband started having a reaction from the tub. Forgive the indelicacy, but he wound up with a rash on his genital area. This happened right after I tried an experimental shock with MPS, so I figured he had a reaction to that. However, I quit using it and the rash continued. I did a decontam just in case and refilled. He took a several week break to get everything healed, but after going in the freshly filled tub the rash returned. The doctor checked things out and said it was not fungal or bacterial. No one has ever had a bacterial reaction from the tub, and I do keep the water at adequate bromine levels all the time. He took a one month break from the tub and the rash cleared up completely. Over the last two days he decided to try the tub again. Day one was okay, but 12 hours after day tow the rash was back with a vengeance. So it looks like it is definitely the tub. Do you think this could be a reaction to the bromine? If so, any idea why it took so many months to manifest? And why only in a certain area? The only things in the tub right now are calcium, sodium bromide, bromine tablets, baking soda (for PH and TA), bleach for oxidizing weekly. No cleaners, clarifies, scents, etc. on our last fill we had borates, but not this time as I was trying to rule out as many causes as possible. Any advice you cold give would be great. I was thinking of trying a switch to chlorine (which would mean a new new Taylor kit and chemical set... Arrrrg!). I've been reluctant to do so because we go out of town for 4-7 days several times throughout the year, and I like the freedom 3 step bromine gives us for that. To my understanding this doesn't work so well with chlorine.

Does the white stuff have the consistency of thin, wet tissue paper. If so, it is most likely white water mold. We had white water mold. We bought a used tub and then could not fill it for two weeks. Silly me did not know that we needed to do a decontam after filling, and so we ended up with all of this white tissue-like stuff floating in our tub whenever we ran the jets. I hoped that if I shocked well a few times it would go away, but that did not help at all. It was pretty gross. I used Nitro's water decontamination method to clear up the problem, but made some changes. http://www.poolspaforum.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=19115 1. First I tossed my old filters and got a new set for after the decontamination process. 2. I did the initial spa flush for 12 hours, overnight. But instead of draining right way and refilling before shocking I super-shocked with bleach to 50+ ppm right away, and ran all of the jets for one hour. Then I treated the water with enough hydrogen peroxide to neutralize the bleach, then drained (I didn't want to hurt my lawn.) After draining I used my Shop-Vac to get all of the water out of the pipes: about 4 gallons of white mold infested water came out. Yummy. 3. Next I refilled, balanced, and used another bottle of Spa Flush. This may not have been completely necessary, but I actually got quite a lot more gunk out of my pipes, so I believe it was a good idea. Then I super-shocked again, this time to about 75 ppm (I had researched and found that white water mold can be halogen-sanitizer resistant once established and didn't want to take any chances. I ran all the jets for another hour, and used a brush to scrub down the exposed parts of the tub and the inside of the cover with the bleach water from the tub. Then I neutralized the chlorine with more hydrogen peroxide down to a reasonable ppm that wouldn't kill my lawn, and drained. Again I used the Shop-Vac to remove all of the water from the pipes. Then I refilled, balanced, and have not had a single problem with white water mold since.

Reasons not to buy a hot tub: 1. If you don't think you will take care of it, or if the care of the tub will cause more stress than it is worth. This one is tricky. My husband and I both love our tub, but if I was not around there is no way he could be a hot tub owner. The chemical balancing and care really stress him out, and it would not be worth it to him to have the tub. I, on the other hand, find water balance interesting and easy once I got into the rhythm of it, and it doesn't bother me. I do have friends with a tub and haven't taken a lot of care with their sanitizing and balance, and they have had some issues that led to hot tub rash. They are thinking of getting rid of the $10K tub they purchased last year because dealing with the water is too much work and stress for them. 2. The upfront costs Tubs are expensive! You have the tub itself which can run from $7K to $12K new. You have your start up supplies which can cost $200-$300 bucks (chemicals, cleaning net, stairs, thermometer, thermal blanket, etc). And don't forget about pad installation (if needed) and electric hook-up. We did our own pad for about $300, and it would have cost more like $600-$800 to have it professionally done. Our electric hook-up cost $900. So for a new $8K spa you are looking at about $10K total. If you are financing the tub add interest charges to that. Paying off the tub over 5 years at 9% interest, at $210 a month, would result in an extra $2500 paid in interest. We opted to get a used 2006 Marquis Everyday 530 spa on Craigslist. We lucked out and found a single owner tub with the manual, years of records of water testing, the purchasing paperwork, maintenance records... nice reliable tub used by responsible people who found they were not using the tub enough to make it worth their while to own it. We paid $1300 for the spa, $300 for the delivery, $300 for upfront supplies and chemicals, $300 for pad, $900 for electricity: a total of $3100. It was $7K cheaper than getting a new tub would have been, but still not cheap! 3. The ongoing expenses ain't cheap either! I think a lot of folks don't take into consideration what it is going to cost to run a tub every month. You have chemicals, which even when done cheaply can cost $20+ a month average for the year. Electricity varies, but we have been paying about $35 a month over last year's bills, with an increase of about 350 kWh a month of electric usage. I'd guess our annual "hot tub usage" costs to be about $700. Some people pay more or less than that for chemicals, and some pay more or less for electricity. This is not counting costs that will eventually come up: a replacement cover and be $300-$500, repairs for the tub that WILL happen sooner or later, new filters every year, etc.

I am using the three step bromine system, and once a week shock with bleach. Is there a "target" PPM of bromine that I should be aiming for when shocking? I'm heard it said that "over ten" is good, but I've heard other numbers like 15 ppm, 20 ppm, or even 30ppm. In the past I have simply poured in about 8-10 oz of bleach for my 300 gal of water, but it occurred to me that I may be using too much, resulting in more time running with the cover off trying to get the levels back down. If I can use less bleach and less electricity I am all for that. Today when shocking I added 6 oz bleach, and came up with 15ppm of bromine. Is this enough for shocking, or should I be going for more PPM?

I've been wondering the same thing. I bought a used Marquis spa, 5 or 6 years old (can't remember exactly just now). It has the original cover. I know the normal "life" of a cover can be in the 5-7 year range, depending on care. The cover is pretty heavy, but is not sagging in any way and fits well. I am worried about the insulation value, but the last few nights we've had under-freezing temperatures at night and the frost that forms on top of the spa cover has not melted off at all until the sun hit it. There is a few inches around the middle seam that does melt slightly, but that makes sense, I suppose. I figure that if the cover is not leaking enough heat to melt frost it might be still okay? What do you experienced folks think?

I believe you should not go in if the bromine level is 10ppm or over. Have you tried running the jets with the cover off for a while? That always brings my levels down quickly after shocking (if I use bleach, not dichlor).

I was considering the saturation index a factor in that I seemed to notice a correlation between a high index and the point where my tub would cloud up and begin to feel and smell "off," which was not resolved by shocking. Once I got it back into a good range the water cleared and the odor dissipated. I am a beginner so it could be that I am wrong about this. It could simply have been a matter of the PH and alkalinity being so off that were causing my issues, and not the SA at all. The calcium was in fact my error when I first filled the tub: we mistakenly added too much. We have very low calcium in my area, about 50ppm. The goal I was aiming for was 150 ppm. My husband thought I asked him to add the calcium when in fact I had told him that I had added the calcium, so we mistakenly added twice as much as was needed. On our next fill we will be much closer to the desired range. I try not to run the jets except for a minute or two per day to keep sanitizer in the plumbing lines. I don't really enjoy jets all that much, so it works out for me that I should be using them less due to the PH rising so much for me. I'll get the TA up to 80 and see what happens with the PH from there. Thanks again

Thank you very much for your reply, Waterbear. I will leave the TA and PH alone for awhile (I'll check it every few days) and see if things stabilize. It is good to know that a TA of 50 or so just might be my water's "normal" zone.

Hello, I am new (this is my first post). I have really appreciated reading this forum over the past month as we went through the process of learning about and buying our hot tub. We have had our tub for two weeks now and really love it. However, I am having a heck of the time keeping the water balanced, and was hoping you might be able to give me some advice. Where we are at: I have a Marquis Everyday 530 tub (2005), 350 gallons. I am not using the ozonator right now. I am doing the three-step bromine sanitation process. For some reason I simply cannot get my TA and PH in balance. My TA is constantly low, and the PH is consistently high. Every 4 days or so I wind up with cloudy, harsh water, which I have discovered does not go away by shocking but does go away when I bring the PH down. Of course, then my TA goes down even further! Here are my recent results and process (using the Taylor K-2106 bromine kit) 9/30 PH: 8.0 Alk: 50 CH: 270 BR: 3.5 Saturation index: .45 (borderline of too high, too high being .5) I added, as recommended by the Taylor kit instructions, 4oz baking soda to raise the alkalinity, as from what I have read I should get the alkalinity in a good range, then deal with PH after. 5 hours later... PH: 8+ (I guessed about 8.2, since the kit color range doesn't go any higher than 8.0) Alk: 110 Saturation index: 1.0 (way too high, and water became cloudy) I did the acid demand test, with a result of 3 drops. The instructions said to add 1.1 oz sodium bisulfate, and I did so. 12 hours later (10/1)... PH: 8+ (8.2 by my guess) Alk: 100 Saturation index: .95 (too high, water cloudy) So no change in PH, but slight reduction in alkalinity. Same acid demand test of 3 drops. As the recommended 1.1 oz of dry acid was obviously not enough I decided to add sodium bisulfate according to package instructions for my water capacity, and added 3.5 oz. 5 hours later... PH: 7.7 Alk: 50 Saturation index: -.15 (within the acceptable range) 12 hours later (Oct 3) Same results as the night before. So PH is now in a good range, but alkalinity is way low again. This seems to be the constant for us: I cannot have the alkalinity above 50ppm without the PH soaring to 8+. But the PH doesn't stay very stable anyway when the alkalinity is this low, so I feel like I am in a bit of a pickle here. Any advice for me? Thanks!