Lithium As Sanitizer

[swimspa]

Hi There, I have 2 months ago purchased a 2 zone swim spa that has the ozone as part of the filtration system.

It was recommended to me to use a Lithium sanitizer and spa shock combination to keep it sparkling. After just 3 days we have gotten cloudy water, so after adding more lithium and talking to spa shop and chemical co.

It turns out we are supposed to use this lithium at a rate of 120g/day plus shock it when in use. and thats just for the swim end!

the swim end is about 5300lt and we keep it at around 27-29degC.

The spa is about 1300lt and runs at about 37degC

We use it about 4 times a week

and it will be costing about $50aus/week to maintain.

Does this sound excessive or was I just fooled by the Spa salesman who told me it was easy and cheap to maintain.

I feel like I am going crazy and the more i read the worse the confusion gets. Can someone please give me a safe and easy routine to maintain my beautiful Swim Spa. Thankyou

[chem geek]

Lithium hypochlorite is about 5-6 times as expensive as bleach or chlorinating liquid that you could be using instead. There is no reason you need to use lithium hypochlorite unless you refuse to use a liquid form of chlorine. So find a pool or hardware store that has chlorinating liquid (usually 10% or 12.5%) or see if you can find a high-quality bleach such as 6% Clorox Regular (I don't know if they sell that in Australia). You can use The Pool Calculator to help calculate dosages.

You should have some Cyanuric Acid (CYA) in the water, probably 30 ppm. You can either add that from pure CYA or from using Dichlor as your source of chlorine for a short time. For every 10 ppm Free Chlorine (FC) added by Dichlor, it also increases CYA by 9 ppm. You should target having 4 ppm FC in the water most of the time, though you could target around 2 ppm FC as the amount when you start your soak and then add enough chlorine to handle your bather waste when you get out. Though the rough rule-of-thumb for the amount of chlorine needed for every person-hour of soaking is 5 fluid ounces of 6% bleach or 3-1/2 teaspoons of Dichlor, in your case with the lower tub temperature you may not need to use as much and the ozonator will probably cut down the required usage as well. You'll just have to see what it takes to maintain a chlorine residual. If you properly maintain the chlorine level and never let it get too low, then you will rarely, if ever, need to shock.

You need to get yourself a good test kit. If you cannot get a Taylor K-2006, then see if you can get a Palintest PoolTester SP315C (make sure it's the "C" since that also tests for CYA).

120 grams of lithium hypochlorite in 6600 liters (total volume of swim end and spa) would be 16 ppm Free Chlorine (FC). That seems ridiculously high. Is the water exposed to sunlight? If so, then that's the problem since the UV in sunlight will degrade half the chlorine every half-hour if you don't have any CYA in the water. Also, without CYA, the active chlorine level will be too strong.

Read the Pool School for more info on how to maintain your pool.

Richard

[swimspa]

Thanks for that. makes total sense! Yes it is exposed to sunlight, most weekends it is for 6 hrs as the kids are in and out. We will go to a pool shop tomorrow and get the testing kit and liquid chlorine etc.

Would you suggest to use the liquid Chlorine in the Hot Spa end which is at body temperature or different?

That Bleach is not available here. however there is a peroxide sanitizer (150g/L Hydrogen Peroxide) I came accross while doing some research from "Poppits" would that be an option?

Thanks Again

Lithium hypochlorite is about 5-6 times as expensive as bleach or chlorinating liquid that you could be using instead. There is no reason you need to use lithium hypochlorite unless you refuse to use a liquid form of chlorine. So find a pool or hardware store that has chlorinating liquid (usually 10% or 12.5%) or see if you can find a high-quality bleach such as 6% Clorox Regular (I don't know if they sell that in Australia). You can use The Pool Calculator to help calculate dosages.

You should have some Cyanuric Acid (CYA) in the water, probably 30 ppm. You can either add that from pure CYA or from using Dichlor as your source of chlorine for a short time. For every 10 ppm Free Chlorine (FC) added by Dichlor, it also increases CYA by 9 ppm. You should target having 4 ppm FC in the water most of the time, though you could target around 2 ppm FC as the amount when you start your soak and then add enough chlorine to handle your bather waste when you get out. Though the rough rule-of-thumb for the amount of chlorine needed for every person-hour of soaking is 5 fluid ounces of 6% bleach or 3-1/2 teaspoons of Dichlor, in your case with the lower tub temperature you may not need to use as much and the ozonator will probably cut down the required usage as well. You'll just have to see what it takes to maintain a chlorine residual. If you properly maintain the chlorine level and never let it get too low, then you will rarely, if ever, need to shock.

You need to get yourself a good test kit. If you cannot get a Taylor K-2006, then see if you can get a Palintest PoolTester SP315C (make sure it's the "C" since that also tests for CYA).

120 grams of lithium hypochlorite in 6600 liters (total volume of swim end and spa) would be 16 ppm Free Chlorine (FC). That seems ridiculously high. Is the water exposed to sunlight? If so, then that's the problem since the UV in sunlight will degrade half the chlorine every half-hour if you don't have any CYA in the water. Also, without CYA, the active chlorine level will be too strong.

Read the Pool School for more info on how to maintain your pool.

Richard

[chem geek]

Hydrogen peroxide is incompatible with chlorine and in fact can be used to dechlorinate a pool so do NOT get that.

When you go to the pool shop, get some Cyanuric Acid (CYA) which may also be known as "stabilizer" or "conditioner" (to get to 30 ppm in your swim spa, both sides combined, you'll need about 200 grams). Or you can get Dichlor which is a granular/powder form of chlorine whose ingredients will say something like "dichloro-s-triazinetrione" since that will add both chlorine and CYA at the same time (to get to 30 ppm CYA in your swim spa, you'll need about 400 grams of Dichlor, but this will be added over time as you need chlorine, not all at once, and after you've used this to get to 30 ppm CYA, then you'll switch to using chlorinating liquid).

The chlorinating liquid would be used for both the swim part and the spa part. Just note that you will need to have the Total Alkalinity (TA) much lower than is usual in pools -- probably around 50-60 ppm (maybe 70 ppm will be OK in your case) -- in order for the pH to be stable. That is assuming that you are using aeration jets on your spa.

What is the material of your swim spa? I assume it is not plaster/gunite and it probably isn't vinyl. Is it fiberglass? Acrylic? If the TA is lowered, you'll want to increase the Calcium Hardness (CH) somewhat to compensate, but how much depends on your swimspa surface material. So when at the pool store, see if they have Calcium Hardness Increaser which will have the ingredient "calcium chloride". You could also use de-icers such as Peladow, Dowflake or Tetris as these are all calcium chloride as well.

If the pool store doesn't have chlorinating liquid, check hardware big-box stores (if you have those -- like Home Depot).

Are your swim and spa sections connected at all? Does one overflow into the other? It sounds like you'll have to chemically balance each separately unless you have a way to mix them thoroughly and then isolate them again to heat them to separate temperatures.