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Jim F

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  1. Thanks, Tony, for taking time to respond I actually have a Sweetwater Bahia vintage 2000-2002, I believe. (Came with home we bought in Italy) Just curious: was Sweetwater a unit of Sundance or bought by Sundance before or after Jacuzzi? Re my problem, the one pillow that deteriorated the worst is under half the cover we don't remove, and nearest most powerful jets. (But we dont use the jets either) Still. it may be vapor from occasional shocking
  2. I have head pillows purchased from Sweetwater/Sundance the spa manufacturer (now Jacuzzi, I believe) that have developed blisters after only a year. (I am careful about adding chemicals (bleach and acid) and chlorine levels are not high) 1/ Can anyone shed any light as to the likely reason for the blisters? 2/ Recommendations as to where to buy good, durable replacements? Not necessarily from Sweetwater/Sundance/jacuzzi which are expensive, and obviously not long-lasting Thanks
  3. I have read on this forum that filters can be soaked in a 5 or 10% muriatic solution to remove mineral and other residues. Does it make sense to routinely disinfect filters by soaking them during the cleaning process in a solution of bleach/ 12% liquid chlorine? If so, what would be the correct dilution? (Nitro, you didnt cover this in your Decontamination post)
  4. After shocking with MPS after a hot tub party, I noticed that the next day, the TA reading (using Taylor kit) was "off the chart", meaning when I added the green drops, the water sample changed to red not green. (pH had dropped to 7.1 from 7.5) I know MPS gives false FC and CC readings Does it also make TA readings unreliable? If so, for how long?
  5. If your pH tends to rise with a TA of 70, you can try lowering it to 60. You could also use 50 ppm Borates in your spa (with Gentle Spa, for example) as that will also to help stabilize the pH or at least slow down its rate of rise. When the TA falls with MA addition used to adjust pH, you do not need to add baking soda unless the TA falls too much, which I doubt it will, at least not from a single MA addition. Usually the pH moves a lot more than the TA when you add MA -- going from 7.8 to 7.4 with an initial TA of 70 will end up with a TA of 66. Many thanks, Richard. Very helpful as always
  6. Richard, thanks as always. I also dont understand numbers but perhaps it was adding both chemicals at same time, or testing too soon that gave such a high TA reading. Regarding MA, i dont trust the labeling in my part of the world. I use CL for chlorine, 12% solution. Before I start to "meddle" as I did, TA and pH seem fairly stable, so i wont fine tune to get closer to 0 CSI Q:As pH rises above 7.7 or 7.8, with a constant TA of 70, am I correct assuming the only adjustment is MA to lower pH? Q: If TA falls with the above MA addition, can one add MA AND baking soda at the same time, to offset the fall in TA brought about by the MA? Thanks !
  7. Sorry to have to ask, but am having trouble balancing from the subject position. (have added acid to lower pH and baking soda to raise TA but both pH and TA shot way up) Using pool calc, I have now have CSI of .24 pH 7.7 TA 70 CH 300 CYA 25-30 (Taylor kit doesn't measure below 30) temp about 100 degrees CSI equals .24 365 gallon hot tub If I lower pH to 7.4 and raise TA to 80, CSI = .01 Reason for my confusion, a day ago when i had pH of 7.8 and TA of 70, I added 20 ml of muriatic acid (SHOULD lower pH by .45 and SHOULD lower TA by 7) and 30 grams baking soda (SHOULD raise TA by 13 and SHOULD raise pH by .03) per Pool Calc Instead, it blew pH to 8.0+ and TA to 250 !! I re-tested after 4 hours I then added 30 ml of MA to get to my current levels (and feel lucky) Would appreciate your advice to correctly fine to to 7.4 and 80, if I should bother PS: what did I do wrong before? can one add both MA and baking soda at same time? how long to wait before re-testing? (I waited 4 hours) Thanks
  8. Nitro, I may have mentioned somewhere earlier in a post that I live in Italy. (no offense to any Italian readers here, but this forum and its experts are a much better source of intel than what I can get anywhere here) But... buying name brands isnt easy, and usually impossible. Its hard to get a handle on what ingredients are in different products available locally. Which brings me to this question: In Gentle spa and pro team Supreme plus, the active ingredient for borates is "boric acid". Wiki tells us that boric acid is borates mixed with sulfuric acid, which I guess is why it is pH neutral. I havent seen advice on adding "boric acid" to get borates into a tub or pool. Admittedly, it means working with acids but we are kind of resolved to doing this anyways to lower pH etc Nitro, can u or anyone else comment on boric acid? (I am sure I can find that locally) and speculate as to how much is needed? it may be that different sources of boric acid have different percentages of borates , of course
  9. Nitro, TA is about 120/130 pH is 7.5 /7.6 But CYA is over the top (200+) since I was using dichlor before I learned from Chem Geek, you and others about CYA build-up So I will soon drain the spa, and start over, and hence my question about order of adding chems PS: even with high TA, and CH at 200 too, Pool Calc's CSI is -0.18, which is a desired reading , I believe
  10. Thanks, Nitro 2 follow-up questions: 1/ you wrote: "then check TA/pH. If TA is above 100ppm, I lower it to 60-80ppm range VIA AERATION." Don't you mean you lower TA by adding acid? I thought aeration raised pH after using acid to LOWER TA 2/ I dont have access to Gentle Spa, so will add borates via Borax, which will of course raise pH. And this rise in pH, I need to lower with acid. Does it make sense, therefore, to add borax BEFORE the TA/pH balancing?
  11. many thanks to both of you Good explanations
  12. Many thanks, Richard. A quick comparison of the two web sites listed above shows that the TF site has better prices by far (by %) for same sized bottles of the same reagents. If starting from scratch, I would certainly go for TF 100
  13. I want to get stated on a refill. I have read, re-read, printed and posted Nitro's post "classic" post, and Chem geek's advice But one thing isnt clear (or I am dense): what should be the order of adding chemicals to balance the different parameters? Does one start with CH? TA/pH ? When to add borax and offsetting acid? and when to add dichlor to get CYA up to 20/30? I imagine the order is important since so many of the chemicals have effects on each other Thanks
  14. I have the Talyor K-2006C test kit. As Nitro pointed out, one uses a lot of the pH and chlorine reagents and powder (and the R-0009 reagent for TA test), and much less of teh others Can one use other companies' reagents (like TF) or must one stick with the same manufacturer who has produced the comparator tube (with specific colors)? Are there generic reagents available that can be used for the Taylor kit?
  15. I keep reading about MPS and its value as an oxidizing agent to help chlorine "do its job" I believe that using MPS will alter effective DPS chlorine testing afterwards, for how long I don't know What do you do to correct this, especially since some users, like Nitro, add MPS before a heavy use and check chlorine levels during the soak?
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