Hillbilly Hot Tub

Chlorine/Nature 2/MPS are not the safest if you are leaving the tub for periods of time. Bromine is the suggested sanitizer for people who are not going to tend to their tub every few days. Much safer than having sanitizer drop to zero till your next visit, even with the Nature 2.

Make sure there is enough tablets in your feeder to last the 2-3 weeks, when you leave, shock the tub with MPS, bringing up the bromine level and I would suggest using sea klear clarifer to pick up any small particles. When you arrive next time test the water, make sure you have a bromine reading, if not shock the tub with MPS to re-establish the bromine and when you leave again for the next time, shock it a little heavier. If you shock it enough to create enough bromine to sanitize and oxidize the wastes, plus have tablets dissolving whule you are gon it should be fine. the clarifier will help the filter pick up the small crap, make sure to adjust PH etc. upon arrival and departure.

Clean your filters...depending on filter size and spa use will depend how often you clean them. Most people do them monthly.

If you continue to use the tub with no sanitizer, you will really hate it because of the bugs you will get! When you add the chlorine, you may have to add extra to kill all the germs you brought in and are growing and multipling. Supershock!

I would check with the salt system manufacturer. I know with the Gensis system (creates bromine from salt) you can not add stuff like calcium or anything that may have minerals or salts. It ruins the electrodes, thats part of why you must use the pre filter with it also. Check with the generator manufactuer to see what they say before you ruin the system. Low CH is not a bad thing in a hot tub, they are not plaster, just keep you PH and Alk in check.

How about using a pre filter rather than softened water. These remove much of the "junk" that is in your well water and much less exspensive than trucking in. If you have an issue with PH being high on dichlor, you need to be real careful with the bleach method. It is going to take work from your side, you cant skip days without checking your balance unless you want to damage the tub more. Swirl away will also halp remove some of the scale from the lines and heater.

Tyhe Aqua Chec tru test is also very accurate for a system that uses test strips. It only does free chlorine/ bromine , PH and ALK though. Watch the Color Q on the calcium hardness reading. It is the only one in that test system I have had issues with.

I read that post with great interest. FYI There is another source of irritation that wasn't mentioned. If you have an ozonator, they usually have a restrictor inline to keep the bubbles small. If it is removed (bad repair technician, bad...) the result is significant PH drift upwards. But it also irritated (burned) my skin! On the backs of my calves where the filter pump outlet sends a stream of ozone "bubbles". No where else was my skin irritated. But for the longest time I didn't connect the rash with the ozonator issue. Newer, by law have to have ozone surpression. The ozone shuts off as soon as you hit any buttons. Is you tub older than 10-15 years? You should not be breathing the ozone gasses while using the tub along with the burns it can cause. Even if you are not turing your jets on, just sitting and relaing, you should hit the jets button when getting into the tub, then just shut them off. this should shut the ozone off for at least 40 minutes. Don't forget, just because there are bubbles coming out does not mean there is ozone. Sounds like all the tech did is take out the mixing chamber.

HTH did this because Calcium hypo is much, much cheaper according to our Arch dealer. Clarifiers help pick up and clump particles smaller than 10 microns. Filters let them by and they begin to collect, clarifers are a great help with this. We always suggest Sea Klear. I agree with water bear. I have developed a sensitivity to bromine over the years. I have to keep my bromine reading at 2 or lower or I get a nasty rash on my back and chest. At first I though it was spa itch, but it was not. Until we put our new tub in last week, I used the Nature 2 with low chlorine recipe and it was great. our new tub has a bromine generator in it, so i am going to see if using the pure bromide salts in this and keeping it low (only 2 adults use the tub) if I am going to be able to use this. If not i will have to shut the generator off and go back to Nature 2. If the case is a sensitivity, you may find showing after and applying hydrocortizone cream may help also. Good luck

about 40 minutes, full power jets entire time.

We used to deal leisure bay spas. They will need added insulation, cover is lower quality, but they were not totally horrible. The big thing is what is the damage to them and why are the components not warrantied longer since the manufacturer warranties them for 2 years (IE Pump and control system) Are these used tubs they took back( we had a couple we had to pick up for them that had shell discoloration issues) How is she actually purchasing them from, and which spa line are they (they have 3 levels) Would she be willing to have a local spa tech go out and check them, this would cost her a little, but may save a lot.

The only reason i can see to shower after is if you have sensitive skin and what to get the remaints/salts from the chemicals off

Bromine will keep feeding in the tub while you are gone, so sometimes it is better for some people. Yes you would continue to use the other products. Bromine is just substituting for the di-chlor. Make sure to put enough bromine tablets in the floater to last till you get back and read the various posts about bromine so you get an understanding to how it works. It can be re-activated by shocking it unlike chlorine.

According to Clearwater, The white colors are the biggest overall sellers. I personally like the green marble or the rose marble color. Blues are nice too. Green and rose are not offered to us anymore.

We just had a customer get his pump motor rebuilt locally, it cost him $475.00 to have it rebuilt, it lasted less than a year. He purchased a new pump this time. It depends on what needs to be rebuilt. We don't have any local people that rebuild them at a reasonable cost anymore. Sounds like water got into the windings and you are losing your high speed. You probably have bad seals that have been allowing water into the motor. If you have other pumps in the tub, i would also check the seals on those before they leak back into the motor. A tell tale sign of seals leaking is white residue on the shaft of the motor or on the floor below it. Dont drain the spa, even if it is very cold weather, this will cause it to freeze quicker. Right now you will be safe with the tub full, and if it does drop off in temp to much, you can always hang an old fashioned 100 watt light bulb under the tub untill it is fixed to keep it from freezing (or a space heater on low) Lokk us up in your local phone book and give us a call, we will talk you through.

We also have hundreds of customers on that program with no issues. As stated a good working ozone and 24 hour circ pump help greatly. If you use the tub nightly, you may have to add a small amount of di-chlor mid week also.

it is small particles that are bypassing the filters. We suggest a clarifier called Sea Klear all natural clarifier. It works great, specially if you add it weekly, cloudy or not. It helps prevent the tub from getting cloudy to begin with.

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. Not all dealers are stupid, maybe he needs to talk to the correct local dealer. The internet gives a lot of bad advice too, see it here often.

First, there are no EPA approved sanitizers that contain no bromine/chlorine or biguinades. Even eco one you are suppose to keep a risidual of chlorine in the tub, and I personally tried it last year and had poor results. By the sounds, the metal remover then the addtion of nature 2, (try their low chlorine recipe) was what was working for you. Is there a medical reason you switched from that? If you go back to the N2. use the metal remover before adding the N2 stick or adding any other chemicals. You should be waiting at least 24 hours before adding N2 after adding metal remover anyway since you would be removing the metals N2 is adding also.

The gooey part is oils left from the factory, in the plastics ect. The brown is a reaction fro iron/manganese. Adding PH decreaser, an acid is "oxidizing" these metals causing them to show up. Metal remover will help, left it filter for a few days, then pull the filters and clean them really well. A pre filter on your next fill will also help a lot in removing these impurities

The other advantage to keeping it to the temp you want is, say you have a power outage, the tub was down to 80 degrees, thats 20+ degrees below you set temp and now you cant heat it back up, if you are without power for a few days, having it up in temp keeps it further from the freezing point.

Being a dealer, I have had the ability to own/use several different spas. It's a toss up between the Clearwater Orlando or the Clearwater Monaco for me.

Non chlorine shock will convert bromide to bromine also, the issue lies in that if you use tablets and no sodium bromide, there is no bank to shock, so you need to rely on chlorine till that bank builds up.

Nitro, Bromine generators do not create the smell that bromine tablets do, pure bromine (bromide) does not have much of a smell till mixed with chlorine. If you use non chlorine shock with these we have seen no serious smell. The way the control systems in most tubs are set up, you have to remove the ozone generator to replace with the bromine generator. Since you still have a warrenty, I would check with them to how you should go. Are you talking about the spa filter or the bulb or chip in the ozone? All spas have filters that need to be cleaned and changed, and cleaned more frequent than yearly....???

. Unfortunitely, scientists have shown that the present methods recommended by this industry do not prevent the reinfection that occurs. Sanitizers in the dosages now applied to pools and spas will not have the effects on biofilms necessary to maintain a clean pool or spa. Reinfestation will not happen if you get all the bio film out (100 ppm chlorine for 24 hours) make sure to get under the pillows etc. Then keep your sanitizer at the proper levels. Dr. Vohre did a whole class in Atlantic City in "spa germs" Are you suggesting that pools and spas are no longer safe to use