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Aqua Finesse Or Spa Balancer? Not Good?


edwin45

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Helllo i,m from the Netherlands,

I see a lot of questions about the water Ph etc etc.

I use Aqua finesse now for 6 months and it keeps my water ok.(it is verry easy to use).

Is this not a good product for spa?? , because i don,t see it on this forum, and i thinking why so diffecult with Ph + and - etc etc etc.

Or is this not for sale on USA Etc Etc

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It is for sale in the U.S. but by itself with no chlorine it is not an EPA approved disinfectant because it does not kill bacteria including fecal bacteria nor viruses or protozoan occsts that can be transmitted from person-to-person to cause disease. Aquafinesse inhibits biofilm formation but does not kill pathogens quickly. It also does not oxidize bather waste so it is best used in spas with an ozonator to handle that. Otherwise you end up soaking in your own sweat and urine. Aquafinesse does have some coagulants in it but that won't coagulate and filter out all bather waste -- most people report better results when using the system with an ozonator.

As for pH control, if your fill water isn't very low in Total Alkalinity (TA) then if you have aeration jets your pH will rise just as in any other spa. Perhaps you are ignoring that or are not using any spa jets. Aquafinesse helps to prevent scale formation so they may just say you can let the pH get up to 8.0 or higher and not worry about calcium carbonate scale.

Now Aquafinesse can be sold in different ways including WITH chlorine so I'm not sure how you are using it. There ARE plenty of threads on this forum about Aquafinesse. Take a look at this post and subsequent posts in that thread. See my post that balances reports where Aquafinesse should be seen as a supplemental product rather than standalone (i.e. you still need chlorine). This thread is a long older one about Aquafinesse with several people reporting pros and cons. This post is pretty typical that those using Aquafinesse without an ozonator often run into problems with water turning cloudy unless they shock with chlorine (some others reported water turning green as in this post).

We had a variety of hot tub itch/rash/lung incidents reported on this forum that I gathered in this post and quite a few were due to "alternatives" including at least one with Aquafinesse while some were due to Dichlor-only usage usually after 2 and especially 3 months after CYA had built up. That's when I fine-tuned the Dichlor-then-bleach method to avoid the CYA buildup, but to get better pH control I have the TA lowered and use 50 ppm Borates. One could alternatively use a scale inhibitor and/or calcium reducer similar to what Aquafinesse does (and if the CH is lower than handle foaming in a different way) and then not worry as much about the higher pH, but I was trying to make the system as inexpensive as possible. The Dichlor-then-bleach method has been very successful extending the time between water changes significantly (at least double) and unlike Aquafinesse it doesn't need an ozonator to work effectively at oxidizing bather waste. It's also dirt cheap since primarily what is used regularly is just bleach. On a water change one uses Ahh-Some, boric acid, and lowers TA with acid and aeration.

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Wizard of water,

Thanks for answering my question (and sry for my bad english writing).

My Caldera spa Kauai has a Ozonator and i use ideed aquafinesse with a despencer with chloor tab.

I have my spa now for 5 months and i keep my wather ok for about 5 months, i use my spa 3 times a week with my wife (2 persons).

My spa has 833 ltr waters and i use every week ca 100 ml aquafinesse and a new chloor tab.

My Ph is on this moment is 8.2 little bit to hy, this is with fresh water (2 days old) without aquafinesse, with chloor tab, today 05-07-2015 i put in aquafinesse.

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Next,

I have buy a aqua check meter for Chloor,Alka,Ph

I removed the chloor tab.(from aqua finesss)

First measuring Ph 8.4
Chloor 0.5 (low)
160 Alk

First i bring the Ph down (with Ph min).

Second measuring

Ph 7.7
CL0.7 (stil to low)

0.80 Alk

3e measuring

Cl 5.1
Ph7.7
Alk 0.40

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How long is each of your soaks (you and your wife)? That is how many minutes per soak?

833 liters is 220 gallons so the standard Water Replacement Interval (WRI) when using Dichlor-only and assuming 20 minute soaks is the following:

WRI (days) = (1/3) x (Spa Size in Gallons) / (# of persons per day) = (1/3) x (220) / (2 * (3/7)) = 85 days

With the Dichlor-then-bleach method one should be able to go at least twice that long so around 6 months. However, if you are soaking for longer than 20 minutes in a hot (104ºF or 40ºC) spa, then you are doing well. The ozonator is helping to be sure since it is oxidizing much of the bather waste that would otherwise build up (in spite of some coagulation/filtration from Aquafinesse).

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