Whoneedsavacation

I am a little afraid they are nesting in the tub.. I couldn't find a trail to it. This morning there were so many, the surface a moving black sea, that I did resort to poison around the rim of the tub and a methodical cleaning process. Fortunately, the tub structure is faux wood, so unless they short out the electronics they probably won't do permanent damage. I had scattered ant bait around the slab last night and they appeared to be carrying granules of it, so hopefully enough got into the nest to eradicate the nest. Wherever it is.

I just did a drain and refill, the tub is all nice and fresh and ready to use -- and crawling with ants. They are active everywhere right now. I sprayed the slab around the tub and the sides of the tub, but am reluctant to spray the rim where the ants are circling. Last time this happened, my hubby went nuts with the spray and we had ant poison and ant carcasses in the tub... I wound up doing a drain and refill once most of the bodies were filtered out. Any ideas?

I have had a much better time with the Leisure Time brand strips (for bromine) than other brands I have tried. Color changes are much clearer. Of course if you are color blind to any extent it could be problematic! They do make digital strip readers.

She could be sensitive to the shock (MPS), that's a fairly common sensitivity. Bromine apparently bothers more people than chlorine, but if you switch in the summer that's probably not the culprit.

I've read on this forum that MPS is a common chemical to be sensitive to. If shocking "heavily" means more than a normal amount of MPS, it may well be the MPS.

QUOTE (Rik-B @ Feb 3 2009, 06:02 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I own a Vita Spa Rendezvous hot tub with a water capacity of 1930 litres. I've been using Spaguard spa lite sachets (non-chlorine shock) fortnightly along with eco one monthly and bromine tablets in a floater turned down to minimum. I shock after each use or once a week, whichever comes first, so you may want to shock more often. Also, if you didn't add sodium bromide at startup, it's possible you don't have enough bromine reserve for the shock to be effective. How many ppm of free bromine do you mesure with the floater turned down? It's possible you are smelling bromine/chlorine if it is running high. Does it smell like the tabs?

Am I missing something? Wouldn't it be easier to remove the N2 stick and just run it as a normal bromine-tab tub until the next fill?

No one have ant issues?

So, we got the first heavy rain of the season and all the ants that got floated out of their hill wound up running around the rim of the tub. My hubby felt the right approach was ant spray, so he sprayed around the rim. I wasn't entirely thrilled with this, although he was careful not to spray in the water, plenty of sprayed ants wound up in there. Now I have some problems/questions: 1) What's the best way to get rid of all the ant carcasses that wound up in the water? They wind up on the surface of the filter and wash off into the tub again when I pull the filter out. It will take a vast number of iterations to get rid of them all. I thought of putting cheesecloth in the filter basket to catch them there -- do I need to worry about straining the pump? 2) The residual poision that wound up in the water -- is this a big worry? It's probably a tiny amount. Would the shock and sanitizer burn it off? (I have a bromine floater tub). Would it or the ants themselves with their formic acid affect the chemistry? My inclination is drain and refill, but hubby is resistant. 3) Our tub is a Freeflow Passport. It has a slightly rough granite-like shell. Do I need to worry about damage to the material from the ant spray? It's been thoroughly wiped down with damp paper towels. 4)Is there a better way to handle a situation where you have hundreds if not thousands of ants running around under your cover? Thanks for your accumulated wisdom.

I'm usually looking for 3-5 ppm of "total bromine". I don't think it's all in the form of hypobromous acid.... does it make sense to think of it that way?

IMO it comes down to : Bromine is easier to use for most people as you can leave it alone for a few days and not worry too much. We travel often, so that's a real consideration for us. However, people actually seem to report more irritation from bromine than from chlorine. I use bromine and feel no need to change, but there are lots of chlorine fans here.

Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that you do make chlorine gas in the tub, but the amount is so small it's effectively zero? So, no, a green cloud of death won't emerge from the tub, but yes the same reaction is going on, just at a low level.

I'd go with a floater in the tub.... the top of the line one costs less than $20 and they are easy to use.

Under the assumption that you have a bromine floater along with the silver ion system and just forgot to mention it, I had this problem until I got a floater with a locking ring. I could never maintain adjustement on the other styles I tried, and I need to cut it back to rock bottom to get a correct level with our rather small tub. Also, excessive shock may register as bromine on a test strip. If your skin isn't getting irritated, I don't think having too high a level is actually harmful, within reason, but I could be wrong and would defer to the experts.

I'm not sure exactly, we need chem_geek or one of his peers for that, but chlorine gas is a definite possibility and potentially lethal. Kids, don't do this at home! Seriously, people have died from throwing too many unused household cleaning products down the drain at once, let alone concentrated reagents. The classic one is ammonia and chlorine bleach.