Hi all. I’m a soon-to-be tub owner. My wife and I have given each other a spa for Christmas/New Year’s and it gets delivered Monday. Although the electrician will not yet have run the 220 wiring that will be needed, we’ll at least have it…so I’m needing to get some advice on how to handle the water treatment once it’s ready to go.
The tub is a fairly small Beachcomber, model 538LE. 264 gallons, seats 4. Regular micro-filter system, no ozonator or other supplemental system. It’s a fairly basic setup, but we wet tested one like it, and it was wonderful. We think it’ll be just great for our modest needs.
The dealer we purchased from is polite, gave us a terrific deal, and has been as helpful as I believe he is able to be. I just don’t get the impression he knows a lot about the chemical aspect of the tubs. He advocates the bromine kit/bromine floaters because “well, I don’t even know anything about people who use chlorine. That messes up your pipes and jets, I think. You get a free bromine kit though.”
After reading a bit on this forum, I believe I’d prefer to go the chlorine route straight out of the gate, as it appears to be cheaper, the chemicals more readily available, cleaner to sit in and my wife is hyper-sensitive to a lot of things. So far, for chlorine, I see the process looking something like this:
1: Sanitize and clean the tub thoroughly. (can someone indicate what cleaner to use here? The tub is acrylic.)
2: Fill tub with water and begin heating.
3: Test daily to determine the properties of our water (use a reagent kit, Taylor K-2006 or other similar vs. test strips provided in my “free kit” from the dealer)
4: Take baseline readings. Adjust the PH and TA if needed using some combination of Sodium Bicarb, Borax or Sodium Bisulfate. PH should ideally be between 7.2 – 7.8.
5: Shock the water (use MPS here for the first time? How do I figure the amount to add? It’s on the label right?)
6: Use the tub as we normally would at this point – if you can give me some advice on “how long” before you can get in the tub, etc., I’d be grateful.
7: Upon exiting the tub, use dichlor for approx. two weeks in an effort to get to 4ppm FC, and 20ppm CYA. Can someone point me to the dichlor source, and approximate amount I'll need to add daily, or give me a formula to convert. In two weeks though, I'll switch to Clorox Regular, which for my tub would be approximately 2.3 ounces to raise my 264 gallon tub to 4ppm FC, and I'll add this after each tub use, right?
8: Leave cover off tub for approximately 45 minutes to an hour to allow dissipation of the chlorine gasses.
9: Shock weekly with MPS.
10: Test daily to adjust PH if needed.
OK, that’s my rough stab at it. I know that amateurish, but I’m totally new to this. I have no spa exposure, or friends with spas I can call. If some of you folks would help me with a few of those questions, I’d greatly appreciate it…and if I’ve missed something if you’d kindly correct my thinking I’d appreciate that too. Thanks in advance for your time.
Bill