Accent

I'm not a chemist, but I have personally found that 1 week of use doesn't build up enough CYA to switch to bleach, and maybe that's why you're having to use more bleach for the FC to stay up. Without CYA, the chlorine will dissipate more quickly. MPS and an ozonator may keep CYA from building up quickly, and with them, I start switching gradually to bleach after about 4 weeks. That's my experience, anyway. Hope it helps.

Hello, I'm about to leave for a three week trip. I'm about 1.5 months into this fill and my water is currently in great shape - I predict I'd need to refill in 3 months, assuming no major water quality changes. I use chlorine, N2 and an oxidizer. Here's my question: would it be better all-around to just drain it and unplug it for the 3 weeks, or to shock it before I leave and put it on sleep mode. My concerns are both saving electricity and preventing a big buildup of nasties while I'm gone and saving the hassle of an extra drain. One concern I have is that if I drain it, there will still be a little water in the pipes (I won't have time to get it totally dry before I leave), and that could grow stuff; whereas if I leave it full, at least the N2 and the ozonator can work on it while I'm gone. Thoughts?

why not install a solar electric system that has enough power to run your tub in its current configuration? Power the tub's heater and pumps with solar electric power. Put in the batteries to store the power for night-time use. That way, your tub still works great, and you can save money on electricity. Solar electric heat is less efficient and more costly than solar water heat. As I mentioned above, it would cost me more than $15,000 for an electric system to cover my usage of about $30 a month. Whereas, if it works, this system would cost between $1000-$2000 to cover my biggest energy user and would eventually pay itself back. As for the whole night thing, the water gets heated up during the day and then put into the tub. It should stay hot until night if the tub is well insulated, which mine seems to be. You're right that it'd be colder in the morning. In any case, this acts as a supplemental system to the electric tub which would be doing more work on cloudy days. Anyway, I'm not totally convinced yet, but the math certainly seems good.

I think your costs/savings would all depend on where you live - how much sun exposure you have - how much electricity you use. My tub is small and efficient and so far it adds about $20 per month to my bill - definitely less than the $200 that the website mentions - but it's still about 2/3 of my electric bill (I use very little electricity). I looked into getting solar electric panels and, to cover my usage, it would cost about $15,000, including the tax credits we are about to lose. Most solar experts claim that solar water heating is much more efficient than solar electric, so the product's claims sound feasible. I called the guy today and I'm going to look into installing this system - I figure it's worth it if I can cut back on my carbon emissions and still enjoy my tub - and certainly a lot cheaper than panels. If I were to eventually save money, than that would be a bonus. If I do it, I'll report back.

I use chlorine + N2 + ozone in my tub because somewhere I got the idea that chlorine was better than bromine - or at least you can keep the levels a bit lower by adding after soak, it's possibly healthier, and it's cheaper. But, I've had issues when leaving town for more than a couple days and I'll be going on a 3-week trip soon and I'd like to keep problems in check. Can I use a bromine floater in this tub? Would that allow me to basically leave the water alone for a few weeks - even if someone uses it occasionally? Would the bromine have a bad or unpleasant reaction with the chlorine or N2 which are already in the tub? Would people recommend a floater or the frog system? Any thoughts on this or other plans for leaving the tub would be much appreciated.

I was never diagnosed with hot tub lung, but I've had some problems with coughing while using the tub which I've attributed to lapses in hot tub maintenance. I've had the cough go away after super-chlorinating the water to something over 10 ppm (sorry, just test strips) and leaving it in overnight, draining, and refilling. Just super-chlorinating without refilling did not make the cough go away. This last time I got the cough, after I superchlorinated but before I drained and refilled, I used a product called "spa flush," which claims to remove biofilms from the pipes. I don't know if it made the difference or not, but the new water seemed extra clean and sparkly when I refilled after having used spa flush. I've also noticed that it's easier than before to keep my free chlorine levels up, so maybe spa flush removed some bad gunk that was hiding in the pipes and causing trouble before. I had read Hillbilly's instructions and somewhat modeled my first clean and refill after them, but to be honest, they seemed more involved than I was willing to try and I think mine did the trick - at least for a couple months before I started coughing again.

I'm in the same boat, except now it's been 4 days with both metal gon and N2 in the tub together. Does N2 continue to release silver after the first few days - and, if so, would this early interaction with metal gon stop that? What's the point of using a metal remover when we also want to be putting (some) metal into the water with N2? Also, my water tends to be very soft - does that mean I don't need a metal remover in the first place? Thanks

I just did it with the filters still in. My water wasn't very clean and I didn't want to risk it. It seemed to work fine - the filter looks good and my new fill of water seems extra clean and sparkly - not sure if that's the reason, but I'm glad I refilled and tried the product.

I'm having the same problem on a new water fill. I had added a little baking soda because my TA seemed low and now the test strip is blue and the Ph is in the normal range. How do you lower TA without lowering Ph? Also, I just used a Phosphate buffer for the first time and am wondering if this has anything to do with it. Thanks,

I saw this online. I have no idea how well it would work, but I'm curious about it myself. Sounds a lot cheaper than the equivilent in PV for electricity, but I don't know much about this stuff. If you learn something, let us know: http://www.solarhottub.com/

I recently ordered a product called "Spa Flush" - which is supposed to breakdown microfilm and scale and stuff inside the pipes. You use it right before you drain and refill. The directions say to remove the filter when you use, but my manual says to never run the pump without a filter in place (with many exclamation points). Has anyone used this product before? Did you remove or not remove the filter? Thanks

I'm not sure I understand. Does that mean that the calcium gets seperated out of the water and gets all over the place? That sounds bad. My tap water has very little calcium in it - I always have to add a bunch when I fill the tub. Should I wait to add calcium until I've had the buffer in it for awhile? Ot do it the other way around? Isn't it harmful to have water that's very low in calcium? Not sure how to proceed, so more guidance would be much appreciated.

My CYA levels are in the OK range, according to my test strips. I've tried to minimize the issue by alternating with MPS+Nature2 and using bleach at times. Also, the first time I had the cough problem was 4 weeks into the fill, not at the end. I think that was due to poor sanitizer maintenance from the last fill and into the next, but there was a use of clarifier right before I started coughing. Sea Klear is the last clarifier I used in this fill. Totally coughed for a couple days after, who knows why.

Hi, I'm finding myself having to check my water balance a lot - both when I use dichlor and when I use bleach. I haven't actually had much of a problem with Ph rise from the bleach, but I do have a lot of Ph drop when I use dichlor. Has anyone used a product like: "Control the PH" - Active ingredient: phosphate buffer (as KH2PO4/K2HPO4). It's supposed to help Ph stay constant when you add at fill. Any thoughts? Thanks

Hi, I posted several months ago about hot tub cough. I was coughing and having tightness of breath when the bubbles were on - even just testing the water. I never saw a doctor about it. After a few posts and questions here, I super-shocked the tub, drained it, refilled, and followed a more careful regime of Nature2 + ozonator + alternating between 1tsp dichlor and 1tb MPS after each use and 1 oz of enzyme weekly in a 260 gallon tub. After a month or so out, I sometimes use an oz of bleach in stead of dichlor. I've gone away a lot during this time, so sometimes have had to shock a bit with extra chlorine. Overall, it seems to have worked pretty well, though now it's about 2.7 months into the fill and I'm starting to cough again and will probably refill soon. Oh yeah, twice when I've had a cough problem, it's been right after I used a clarifier (the kind that's supposed to make particles stick together). Who knows why, but I'm just going to avoid those in the future. In sum, I think this is a workable method for me, though not quite perfected yet. Cheers

Thanks, Richard. My tub is 260 gallons. The reason I asked about the amount of time it took for water to interact with the ozone is because of the article I linked to in my original post indicated that ozone is effective in cutting up the biofilm to allow the chlorine to get to the bacteria. I did superchlorinate my tub before draining, but I'm concerned that wouldn't be effective without the ozone enabling access to the bacteria that have been protected by the biofilm. Here is the link again (not a fabulous article, but a start): http://www.prozoneint.com/pdf/biofilms.pdf. It notes that gaseous ozone is best, and suggests cutting off the circulation route to water in order to use gaseous ozone, but I can't figure out if that is possible - are they suggesting developing a new kind of spa to allow that? Or does a typical ozonator produce gaseous ozone that maintains its state within the water? On another note, having read the discussions that using mps + Nature 2 with occasional dichlor is effective, I was considering alternating between 1 tsp of dichlor and 1 tbs of MPS post-soak. That is, use dichlor one day and MPS the next. I still like the idea of cutting back on chlorine, particulary given the CYA issue, and think more MPS would help, though I don't want to use it daily. I have tried bleach on occasion and think that after awhile I'd be frustrated by the ph issues. What do you think?

Usually one person for about 15 minutes almost every night. The tub had gone over a week with no chlorine on the prior fill (pre-nature 2), and since it sounds like biofilm colonies can live in the pipes, it's possible that maybe they were allowed to grow then and just stuck around. Does your equation mean maintaining continuous 7ppm? How many circulation hours do you think it would take for the ozone to get 99% of the water? It may support my theory that keeping the ozone/filtration cycles longer would help. And my chlorine levels have been higher since the coughing started, but it did not help the problem. This makes me think it was too little too late in combatting the biofilm. By the way, this situation seems pretty serious to me. It got to the point where I couldn't be near the tub with the jets on and I felt the effects for hours after. I'm an athlete and have strong lungs (for now), so this concerns me a lot. But I love my tub!

I would first suggest you stop purchasing from thermospa, go to your local dealer, purchase from them, you will spend the same or less and have a person you can talk directly to about your issues. As far as the staining, it depends what caused the stains, it it probabley wont come out. You can try removing the jets and putting them into a bucket with the cleaning solution that you are using to clean the spa shell, or with the pipe cleaner you are getting from thermo. I've had good luck getting out those kinds of stains with baking soda.

OK, so I did a bunch of research online and learned about something I haven't seen here before: biofilms. They're the stuff that helps bacteria stick to the hot tub (and protect them from disinfectants), but they get loosened up and aerosolized by the jets and make people cough and get sick when they breath them. See Montana State article. It's a relatively new field of research and it's not clear what all works to break them down (mixed reviews on enzymes), but ozone is supposed to be effective (see here) and it seems to me that my switching my filtration/ozone cycles to 4 hours from 6 may have been the trigger to this problem after all. I also hadn't used enzymes on this fill because the Nature 2 had made the water seem so clear I didn't think I needed them. But maybe they had helped prevent biofilm build up in the first fill. Anyway, I have drained my spa and will let it dry out a couple days and will start all over with more ozone and more filter-cleaning and see if that helps. I'll let you all know if it works. In the meantime, maybe we all need to become biology geeks!

I think it's unlikely they're too high. My routine is to use a tsp of dichlor after night use (usually 1 person for 15 minutes), and when I test it in the morning, it's almost always under 1 ppm. I know that's less than most people in this group recommend, but it's the method recommended to me by my dealer and I figured with the ozonator it would be enough; plus I had no health problems with this system for the first fill, though occasionally the water would be cloudy. I'm not allergic to any plants in my yard, but would lemon blossoms getting in the tub make a difference? T'is the season.

So is there any point in keeping the cartridge in there for the duration? I'm wondering if having it inside my filter is impacting my pump, as the motor lately has been pulsing, as opposed to humming along smoothly, when the pump is on high. I'm also wondering if the contact with all that silver is really a good thing and if it has anything to do with my coughing situation that has only come about since using Nature 2 (see other post). Thanks.

Hi, About one month into my first refill on my hot tub, I've started coughing when inside it or even when just checking the water or adding chemicals. I am more sensitive when the jets are on, but I still feel sensitive sometimes without them. I've read about hot tub lung, which sounds scary, but I don't have any of the fatigue-type symptoms - at least not yet! My current set-up is dichlor with Nature 2 and an ozonator on a 260 gallon tub. I had no coughing problems during my first 3-month fill, when I did not use Nature 2, but used dichlor and the ozonator. I've also been using a scum bug, which sometimes seems to block the filter a bit, but I already tried removing it with not much difference. The only triggers I can think of are that the coughing/breathing trouble started after I rinsed my filter and used a small amount of clarifier, and I switched the filtration from 6 hour cycles to 4. I used an over the counter test to check for bacteria today (psduedomonas) and it came out negative. I don't have any itch problems, just the respiratory ones. I've tried shocking, but that hasn't helped much so far. The water balance seems ok. My CYA level is not too high right now. I've seen somewhat similar posts from long ago here - anyone have any success in fixing it? Should I re-drain? Get rid of Nature 2? Thanks.