Craddock02

I just meant that you should not start off using bleach after a fresh refill. You don't want to add unstabilized chlorine to the spa water unless you have built up or explicitly added CYA to the water first (an exception to this is if you are doing a decontamination procedure). When you use Dichlor, which is a stabilized chlorine, it adds CYA to the water. After the amount of CYA has built up to around 30 ppm, then you can switch over to using bleach. About once a month you should use Dichlor for a day or two to build up the CYA again since it drops around 5 ppm per month.Yes, after a refill you chlorinate with Dichlor, but you may not need to adjust the TA right away unless it is high. The reason is that Dichlor is net acidic when accounting for chlorine usage/consumption so using Dichlor cumulatively adding 33 ppm FC to get 30 ppm CYA will have the TA drop by around 12 ppm. If you find that the pH is rising too much even when using Dichlor, then you can lower the TA earlier. If you lower the TA to 50 ppm, then be sure to add 50 ppm Borates, most easily added by using boric acid. CYA has risen to 40. I have stopped using the dichlor to keep CYA from getting higher and since I have a pool as well I am using Vertex concentrate (Pool Shock) as the sanitizer (basically diluted sodium hypochlorite). pH is ALWAYS high. I lowered alk. to 70 and still each time I use muriatic acid to lower pH the next time I check it is high. Just checked and pH was high, Alk is at 80, chlorine is good very little combined chlorine (negligible). CYA 40 and calcium hardness is good as well. I fell like I am always adding muriatic acid and pH is always high. The spa is not used between tests - it's been hot here so we haven't used the hot tub for months and pH keeps creeping up. I continually add muriatic acid until my TA gets low. Why can I not control the pH week to week.

I will check tonight. I was out of town this weekend but do not think my wife got in so there was no use between the last time I checked and adjusted. I'm not sure where or why I figured I needed to add chlorine once per week. I appreciate the assistance. I'm sure I will have more questions later ;-) Thanks again.

OK - I'm new to the chemistry side of hot tubs. We've had the tub for several years now but I just recently started trying to check and balance all of the levels (never had problems in the past but I'm sure water chemistry was not right). I've been posting in the lowering total alkalinity section of this forum but figured this was a better spot to post. I recently rinsed and refilled tub - balanced all levels. With it still being warm in our area, the tub has only been used once or twice since the refill. We use dichlor for sanitation (vs. bromine). I didn't check the levels again for a little more than a week and the chlorine was almost non-detectable. The pH was also high. All other levels were good. I lowered the pH and "shocked" with the dichlor. I checked today (less than a week later and the pH was high again and chlorine non-detectable. I thought alkalinity was slightly low as well - Taylor book states alk. to be 100-110 and mine was 90 but here it shows lowering to 80. First question - what is the best level for alkalinity? Next - I lowered pH (muriatic acid) and shocked again using the Natural Chemistry concentrated chlorine granules (1 tsp/100 gal.). Question 2 & 3 - why is my pH going up (8) and does the concentrated chlorine go bad with age (shelf-life)? I think this container of dichlor is a few years old. Thanks. I will recheck tonight but my CYA was almost non-existent, pH was 8 but I lowered, alk. like I said was 90 - I did not check hardness but will do so tonight.

OK - Thanks. Stabilized dichlor was used (not bleach - will only use bleach once the spa is established and then only after use). For my knowledge, please explain your post "need some CYA in the water". I thought I read where CYA should be at or near 0. Lastly, then I can infer the process after cleaning/refilling should be chlorinate with a stabilized chlorine, adjust alk., adj. pH then re-test all and then make minor adjustments if necessary?

OK - we just cleaned out the hot tub and refilled. I figure the logical way to "balance" the water would be to adjust alkalinity first, then pH then add chlorine? I assume this because adjusting pH if the alkalinity is off will be difficult and in my dealings, I've always known to adjust pH before adding chlorine - is this correct? The reason I ask is once the tub was full my wife added chlorine before I had a chance to test. I now test (have not tested chlorine yet) and pH is high and alkalinity is VERY high (250 ppm). I figure I will bring the alkalinity down using Muriatic acid and then adjust pH from there. Have I caused any irreversible damage by adding the chlorine first. Historically my cyanuric acid levels have been high and I remember someone told me the only way to lower this is to start over. Any help?

Well - I'm not using the hot water any more - going to try without it since each week the chlorine level is almost at zero. And to answer your question; it is not my hot water tap. It is a hot water dispenser for making tea, instant coffee, oatmeal... It is safegarded in as much the lever is on the back side where it can't be inadvertently activated. It is mounted on the back of thie sink. I checked it after you asked since I knew it was up there but had no idea how hot. I used a non contact IR thermometer and it is 183 F. So yes - it could burn quickly.

I posted this earlier under my old forum name and somehow got black listed so I'm back, asking 2 questions; For the admin; 1 - why was I banned from this forum? I reported some responses to this thread as spam and then I'm out? I've sent the admin multiple emails asking this question and have yet to receive a response. If it turns out that the spam cam from me I would like to know because then it would mean that my computer has been compromised and I would get it cleaned... For anyone else; 2 - my original question - when I add Dichlor to my hot tub - I like to have it predissolved - thinking this helps it circulate and become homogenous. Everything (OK almost everything) dissolves a lot faster in hot water. So I add the granules to water that I get from a hot water dispenser on my sink (160-180F). Will this hot water cause the dichlor to degrade or cause problems? Lastly for the admins; If you access this site by searching “pool and spa forums” in Google Chrome using McAfee Antivirus, your site shows up as being unsafe. Apparently your SiteLockSecure program isn’t playing well with McAfee. Remember this is coming from someone that has been blacklisted from your site for some reason. I have a screen shot if anyone cares to see it...