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your tub is overstabilzed which means the chlorine is not working since it's bound chemically to the CYA and that means your tub is undersanitized. 8 ppm CC indicates that something is probably growing in the tub. CC should never be higher than .5 to 1 ppm and ideally 0 ppm. If you are doing dichlor/bleach properly your CYA would not be that high so you are doing something wrong My guess is that the rash is from pseudomonas which can grow readily in undersanitized hot water, which is what you have. You need to drain and refill and STOP using dichlor and switch to bleach when the cya hits 30 ppm. You need to get your water balanced and learn how to maintain it.

Hi Ahhsomeguy Thanks for your response. I made an assumption that it was bio-gunk. Thanks for that repot that was quite interesting. I’m going to purge it all again I just have one question if I may. Would you please the cleaner directly into the filter area where it can be drawn through the pumps or directly into the water. I think this is where I made the mistake as I just put it in the water. I guess I’ve kind of answered that myself. The filter area would be best. I saw that it was suggested to leave the cleaning fluid in overnight then run pumps again, then empty. Is this the best way

Hi David: You did the right thing in purging your Hot Tub to remove plumbing bio-gunk. I am surmising that the Swirl Away was not totally effective in the bio removal. You still have materials that need to be cleaned out. Our testing has proven that the Swirl Away product was the least impressive regarding eradication results of all the brands that were tested at MSU in Bozeman, Mt. I will post those results for you. Purge again using a different product. I do think that you will see that you still had some nasty build up that was left behind. Was the released stuff you show in the images biofilm? Some of it could be along with a plethora of other gunk and grime that hot tub and jetted bathtub plumbing will always have until an effective plumbing cleaner flushes it out. Then, it starts all over again David. You will need to purge the plumbing every 4-6 months for effective hot tub chemical balance. Here is the posting for the testing. See Swirl Away results. https://ahhsome.com/wp-content/uploads/MSUBiofilmTestResults_1.pdf

Hello, It is a old post but maybe you guys can share some more if you still are using Colloidal Silver. I cleaned my tub and added fresh water and CI, worked great for a week, and then started smelling baddly, any advice? will Enzymes help, or is there anything else I could use to be able using it chemicall free? regards Mike

Hi, Need help getting this hot tub control running or replacing with new components. I'm writing this for my brother in law. This was a brand new spa, he wired it and the jet would run for a few minutes and then an error showed up. He bought it from some shady site, so no support or anyone to contact. Don't know the error. It been sitting for 6 months and now we just hear the pump hissing, jets don't even come on. Questions: Is it wired correctly? He is ready to just replace all the components, its a small tub 2person 200 gallons, so I'm thinking of just replacing it with a 120v spa control components. Can someone recommend a spa pack that would be a good fit. Also a new pump. thank you

Here’s my test results using the K-2006 pH 7.4 TA 70 FC 11 CC 8 CH 110 CYA is 100+ (the lines only go to 100 and mine as slightly below that when the dot disappears I did intentionally increase the FC this morning using bleach. We aren’t using the tub right now (last soak was Sunday) while we wait for our skin to clear up so I thought I’d run the FC a little high in case we are dealing with bacteria and maybe it would wipe it out. What do you think? I will try anything you recommend to be able to get back to enjoy our hot tub. For reference, water is crystal clear, no foam and only a slight chlorine smell. Thanks for any and all help!!!

I will post a full set of results as soon as I get home (1.5 hours) so that I’m sure I’m giving you the most accurate information possible. I just had our spa service company decontaminate, flush the lines and refill our tub 2 weeks ago. After what I learned on this forum and with a ton of help from dashmer, I started the dichlor/bleach method (with the omission of the borates since I was unaware) and my water has never looked for felt better. I’ve been checking twice a day with a Taylor k-2006 test kit and everything seems perfectly balanced. We finally returned to using the tub this weekend, and after 3 soaks, eve rash is back. It is so disappointing! Stay tuned for the test results. I appreciate any help I can get. We have only been hot tub owners for 4 months and absolutely love it. I’m determined to correct this so we can get back to enjoying it!

I have a HotSprings limelight pulse and I used swirlaway then emptied my tub cleaned it all and filled it back up. After a couple of uses I am getting a lot of stick stuff at the water level and the grey filter area is really sticky, please see the images I uploaded. I’m assuming that this has come from the pipes. My water is clear my chlorine level is good ph was high when I filled up but brought that down as I assumed I had hard water. I put a new filter in but the film keeps coming back. Having just emptied and cleaned etc I am a bit loath to do it all again. Could some please confirm this is in fact biofilm and is coming from the pipes. If I have to I’m guessing I’ll have to bite the bullet and clean it all again. Any help is appreciated I’m at a loss as to how this has happend

If you are getting rashes it's either a water balance issue or possibly "hot tub itch" (pseudomonas infection from understanitzed water). First step is to post a full set of test results (FC, CC, pH, TA, CH, and CYA) to give us some idea of your water quality. Adding borax won't really help if the water is not in balance or properly sanitized. Gentle spa is a mixture of borax and boric acid to create a pH neutral product. You can use plain boric acid and save some money. It will create a very slight pH drop but since the pH in spas is always climbing because of the constant outgassing of CO2 it's nothing to worry about.

I’ve been using the Dichlor/bleach method for about a week. I was unaware of borax addition to the water. We have need experiencing some rashes after the last few soaks so I definitely want to get this into the water asap. I say the mention of ProTeam Gentle Spa in place of the borax since it’s boric acid, but I see it as both a liquid and a powder in line. Which one do I want to buy? Then how much should I add (410 gal tub) and how often should I repeat it? thank you!

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I've got a 3600 gallon above-ground pool. I took a water sample in to Leslie's for free water test and got a reading for high phosphates, like 5000 ppb. Of course Leslie's tried to push No Phos chemical on me, but I feel that maybe it's just time to drain the pool and add fresh water. Anyone agree??? By the way: Leslie's is quite expensive for everything, and there are about 5 Leslie's within a 2 mile radius of me, they bought out almost every other place !!!

I bought my CalSpa brand-new in 1988, had professional electrician wire up 240 VAC/40 amp through the attic and to the spa. The only GFCI then was on the little electric light circuit. This was Phoenix Arizona. Years later, I read an article about spas in Popular Mechanics magazine about GFCI, and I went out and installed an electrical box and 40 amp GCFI and accessible shut-off for it, was apparently real dangerous as per the code didn't require GFCI then. Since then, I've had the GFCI trip a few times, all because of corrosion/leak with the heater element. Fortunately, heating elements for my 1988 CalSpa are the same type as used in a home electric water heater so not expensive.

I will try that (unplugging ACE controller), but am out of town for the next couple of days. Still awaiting a confirmation of service call.

Suggest you use the pool calculator effects calculator to figure out how much you need. It has both baking soda and borax options. https://www.poolcalculator.com/calculator/effects-calculator

Waste of time IMO. Find the trip and fix it. Oh no not again.

Personally I would never run a hot tub w/o a GFI. The amount of current that is leaking can be very small, medium or high depending on the issue. A small leak of current w/o a GFI protection is probably not too much of an issue (damage wise to the tub), but a medium or high current leak could cause further damage to a component IMHO. Anytime I had a GFI issue it was always solved by methodically removing loads and running the tub on the GFI, as others have suggested. Over 33 years I have had 3 GFI issues. Twice was the heater, once was a motor that had a slight intermittent current leak. The motor was the one that was hard to figure. The fault would only show up every couple of days. So it became important to run with each component removed form service for days before the culprit showed itself.

Yes...Please start your own post. Post pics of the circuit board and the schematic on the inside cover.

This was attached to the wall outside by the pool pump when we bought the house, it has power running to it. I just don't know what it is and its purpose. thanks for your help in advance.

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I am about to decontaminate my spa using Nitro’s instructions. I am also going to fill my (bromine) tub with reverse osmosis water, and the water I’m going to use has a TA of 20 and a pH of 6. I’m aiming for a TA of 80 and for a pH of 7.4. 1. Using TA increaser, which I have done in the past, is easy because of the instructions on the bottle telling one how much to add according to one’s alkalinity level. But there are no such guidelines on a box of baking soda, which I want to use this time around. As Waterbear said that baking soda is “the same chemical sold as TA increaser,” should I simply follow the guidelines on my old TA-increaser bottle to determine how much baking soda to add at first? And how much time should I wait for the baking soda to circulate before I can be confident that all that I added will be reflected in a measurement? An hour? More than that? 2. I’m also going with Borax to increase the pH, but unlike how TA increaser is (I’m assuming) the same as baking soda, Waterbear’s comments about Borax imply that it is nothing like pH increaser, thus I cannot follow the guidelines on my old bottle of pH increaser. So how many tablespoons of Borax should I add at first? And how long should I wait before I take a measurement?

Thanks for the good ideas. Its never been dry, and the control box/heater is new. Im going to put a non GFCI breaker in jus to see if I can get it to heat up and run pumps, an no I wont be getting in! Ha. Imagine the headline, electrician electrocuted in his own improperly wired hot tub...No thanks. ha

Take the plastic housing in your hand, and lightly pull outwards as you are unscrewing.... that should help back the screw out.

How do you remove the plastic housing it seems like the screw keeps spinning

Sounds like a stuck pump relay on the board. Disconnect the pump from the board and test for power off the board. If you still get power and there is no pump 1 indicator LED lit on the topside then you have a stuck relay. They can be replaced fairly cheap.