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ottawa_mike

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  1. Hey Greg, We have been out most nights regardless of weather here in Ottawa as well. It's awesome - I agree though, that 5 second walk getting to the tub is pretty chilly when its really cold - getting out is fine. When the wind is strong and the temp below -10c we have the tuques on - otherwise they are not needed. I must say we are enjoying the tub even more than we thought - drinks after skiing / boarding have never been better!
  2. Our tub water has been in great shape with sustained family use. My problems stem from having friends over for hot tubbing. It seems most times, the water gets quite cloudy ( yesterday was awful!) and sometimes thin flakes floating and some minor foam. After a couple of days, it clears up back to normal. I am pretty sure this is detergent in bathing suits. Any ideas / thoughts? If this is the primary case, I don't know what to do - can't have my daughters teenage friends hot tub "aut naturel" and it would seem ackward to issue friends a bathing suit that I know has been laundered / rinsed properly. Thanks in advance.
  3. We had some initial Onzen problems with our Arctic Spa Summit but the local dealer got us set right with the new Onzen 7 system. Our water / tub has been in great shape for over 2 months with sustained heavy usage. In summary, I would / will recommend Arctic to my friends. Mike
  4. I think you can access a few more here... http://www.flickr.com/photos/45437086@N08/ Plans came from http://daveosborne.com/dave/index.php Regards,
  5. see my profile pic - built it based on great plans obtained on the internet for $15. You can't seethe whole roof, but it has a 40"x40" skylight as well. Can be built as a 12x12 or 10x10.
  6. Hi Andy, I am a fairly new Artic Spa user and without going into detail about my onzen experience, I am now on the Onzen 7 method also and hoping that the issue is now properly addressed. I am no expert, but I beleive the Onzen system is designed to provide the ongoing daily sanitizer needs to handle normal usage - in fact, I believe this is true of any approach to sanitization. In situations where you have a high bather load ( several users for several hours) your need to compensate for the surge of use by shocking after the party is over (so to speak). This is normal and even documented in Artic Spa materials and the concept of having to boost sanitizer levels to compensate for high usage is clearly explained in Nitro's methods of properly maintaining your water balance. Even if you do not have a high bather load, once a week you should shock or use something like Brite Plus ( not sure of the ingredinet name) to convert used chlorine into free chlorine. Regards, Mike PS, I was on sodium bromide to start but switched to sodium chloride. It seems to work better and easier to manage ( and alot cheaper). We have a friend with sensitivities to chlorine but she has not had issues with our tub. Is there a specific reason you are using bromine?
  7. After 2.5 months with my Artic Spa I am starting to get the hang of things re: water balance and clarity. The first month was a bad experience due to an Onzen issues and I never want to see my tub that cloudy again. Anyway, after the first month the Onzen "element" was replaced and tub emptied, cleaned and refilled and filter changed. The filter was quite discusting which I felt was understandable with all the factory goop issues etc. from a new tub. I have been running pretty good for 6 weeks but starting to have slight cloudiness and it has been hard to keep the chlorine high. I shocked twice this week as the onzen has not been handling the load ( average 3 people hours per day). I also used "bright plus" to eat up the bad chlorine. I was wondering if my onzen unit was starting to degrade in performance as I have heard of this due to calcium build up ( though my calcium is not high). I checked the filter I put in 6 weeks ago and its quite coated with greyish sticky goop again - I guess its body oils and lotions though I think our family is probably pretty average in our use of skin products etc. Question: does it seem normal to change a filter every 6 weeks? I have a Filbur FC-2392 no maintenance / disposable filter. Water readings: -free chlorine: .21 ppm -total chlorine: .73 ppm -PH: 7.9 (little high) -Alk: 87 -Hardness: 100 -CYA: 45ppm Thanks all!
  8. If your pH is too high, your Alkalinity is NOT too low. You need to lower your Alkalinity until pH is correct. Forget the range for Alkalinity, it means nothing. Read the top link below (Water Balance section). BTW, what is your TA? Artic is wrong, which doesn't surprise me. If your Calcium is 20 ppm, you need to raise it to at least 100 ppm. Again read the Water Balance section below. That dealer is talking BS, which doesn't surprise me. Your Calcium should be around 100-150 ppm. If it's 20 ppm, that's way to low. My advice is to add Calcium, and stop talking to dealers. I don't think I explained this well - what happens is that when my TA reading is fine, my PH reading is often high. So, I add PH down and the next day the PH is lowered but then my TA reading is lower than the acceptable range. So, I add buffer to raise the TA and the PH goes up as well. I will have to get a proper test kit - as you can guess all I have been equipped with is test strips and, driving 30 minutes to the dealer for a water test can;t happen every few days! I will get my water tested tomorrow and post. Regardless, I will add something to rasie CA as well. .
  9. New Arctic Spa Summit owner - quite happy with the tub though had a defective Onzen system from the get go - go figure (based on what I have now read on this forum)! Since the water refill, things have been working farily well though struggling with Alkalinity too low and then PH too high (vicious cycle up and down between the two.) I seem to get a bit of cloudiness if PH is high but then it goes away once I add PH down. It just seems like I am always tweaking things. In reading this forum and getting a water test at another hot tub vendor I am starting to wonder if my water hardness ( lack there of) is a factor. Artic says there is no need to adjust my calcium in my system since I am on city water. From what has been measured at another hot tub store, they indicated my calcium was at about 20 and I should get it over 100. This forum seems to says the same thing - ie. bring calcium above 100 and then work on Alkalinity and the PH. Called Arctic spa dealer back and they said, "no, it should not be an issue since your on a salt water system" - though they did not have alot of conviction in their answer. Can anyone help?
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