Elbyron

For best results, I like to hold the sample a few inches in front of a brightly-lit white piece of paper. I'll usually put the paper up against the wall next to a light fixture, and hold the sample in front of it. Sometimes I find the sample to be a less intense color than the block, but if you have a bright background behind both then it's easier to see the shade. When the pH is too high I find it harder to see exactly which shade of "pink" it's closest too, but when it's on target then the orange is easy to match.

After 3 weeks of using the PowerBrome and also some bromide ions from the floater, I would think you should have a 15ppm established by now. If that's the case, then the only explanation for your problem is that the bromine demand is extremely high. Sometimes you can solve this by just super-shocking the tub, but serious cases may require decontamination. I know that having to do the draining and refilling twice is a big pain, having done it myself recently, but that's what ended up solving the problem for me. You could leave it as a last resort if nothing else works. I've read that the ozonator helps by oxidizing some of the bromide ions, and also by killing some organics. But on it's own, it's not quite good enough at either task. It is supposed to reduce the amount of bromine and shock that you would need to add. I'm not really sure what the effects of having too much reserve would be, but I don't think it would harm anything. My guess is that in the worst case your bromine levels are too high and you can't go in for a while. Again, I don't know what happens if there's too many bromide ions. I guess you could use PowerBrome to shock, but you'd have to figure out the correct amount. Maybe Richard (Chem Geek) can help you with figuring out the chemical ratios. That is correct, as far as I know.

Waterbear's guide to using bromine is great, I learned a lot about my bromine system from it and it helped me understand how all the chemicals work. It talks about the 2-step and 3-step system, but it doesn't mention the granular bromine products such as PowerBrome that are part di-chlor and part sodium bromide. When I bought my new house, I inherited some of this stuff and wasn't really sure how to use it when starting up (since we drained and cleaned it after moving in). The spa vendor said to just put in a couple capfuls, but it seemed to me that this wouldn't be enough to establish a 15ppm reserve if it's only 15% sodium bromide. I was having the exact same problem, with the bromine levels dropping to zero every day. If I used some MPS shock, the bromine level would jump up initially but then it's gone within 24 hours. I figured it had to be a result of bad test strips or a very high demand. Since we didn't change the filters when we drained (they were only a month old), and we didn't follow Nitro's decontamination procedure, I figured it might be a good idea to do both and also to switch to a 3-step system. So I went and purchased new filters, a container of pure sodium bromide, a floater, a bucket of BCDMH tablets, and a Taylor test kit. Since then, everything has been fine. I'm still in the process of tweaking my floater setting, but the bromine levels now seem to stay around 3 - 4. Even though the tablets are supposed to contain enough oxidizer (in the form of chlorine) to oxidize the bromide that it adds, I still super-shock the tub once a week or after heavy use. I use unscented bleach beacuse it's cheaper than MPS, and doesn't add sulphates. For my 430 gallon tub I add 1 cup of 6% sodium hypochlorite. The bleach may temporarily lower my pH slightly, but it comes back up as the chlorine is oxidized. I found that MPS kept messing up my pH and TA a lot more. Since you already have the floater, I would suggest you use the 3-step system. But first you should decontaminate and upon refilling, you need to establish a good bromide reserve. If you can't find sodium bromide (sometimes called bromine salt or disguised with various product names), then you can just crush about 6 tablets, or use a lot of the PowerBrome - I'm not really sure exactly how much it would take. After you've added the bromine, shock it with MPS or bleach and continue to do so weekly or after heavy usage (like having 2 more guests in with you).

What kind of granulating chlorine are you using? If the bottle says Calcium Hypochlorite on it then it's probably not a good idea to continue using that - it will increase your calcium level, which you mostly likely have already balanced. It's more likely di-chlor, which might list the ingredient "sodium dichloro-s-triazinetrione". In addition to chlorine, di-chlor contains cyanuric acid (CYA) which doesn't help a bromine system, but probably doesn't hurt either (not 100% sure about that). Also I thought I read a post here that said di-chlor can slowly increase the pH, but maybe that was only tri-chlor. Anyway, the main reason not to use di-chlor to shock your bromine system is that it's expensive. Use it up if you like, but switch to using bleach if you want to save money. MPS is also more expensive than bleach, and it adds some sulphates to the water (not a big deal though). A few unlucky people get reactions to MPS, so it's not the ideal choice even though most spa vendors will probably try to tell you to use it. They are usually against people using bleach or any other product that they don't sell. I tried to tell my vendor that I use baking soda to increase TA, and she said "huh, others have tried it and told me it doesn't really work". Then I tried to explain that the Alk-Up she sells is just pure sodium bicarbonate, (aka baking soda), but I couldn't prove it because the stupid bottle doesn't show its ingredients. Anyway, to answer your last two questions: No, it's not too late to lower your TA. Follow Nitro's guide to lowering TA without affecting pH. It doesn't do any harm to switch the chemical you're using as shock treatment.

Not sure why you waited a day before adding your sanitizer, it's usually a good idea to put it in as soon as your water is balanced to prevent bacteria from getting a foothold. The bromine tables should not affect your pH. Perhaps it was the jets running that caused the increase, but you would have had to run them for quite a while to see such a large increase at a TA of 120. I usually run mine for one cycle (I think they shut off after 15 - 20 minutes) anytime that I add a chemical, and it doesn't noticeably affect my pH, although my TA is usually kept lower - around 80. A lower TA means less pH rise due to aeration, but don't lower it too much or the pH becomes to sensitive and swings all over the place. As for the zero bromine level, you need to add something to oxidize the bromide ions (the reserve). Vendors usually recommend MPS (Potassium mono-persulfate), sometimes referred to as non-chlorine shock. Adding chlorine also works pretty good; I use a cup of 6% bleach in my 430 gallon tub. This needs to be done on the initial startup and about once a week. You should also shock whenever there's been a heavy bather load. Since you're new to bromine, you should read Waterbear's bromine primer.

I'm using bromine and I opted for the cheaper K-1004. My reasoning was very much the same as yours: I can just use my remaining test strips for occasional testing of the CH, plus once and a while I'll bring a sample to the pool store to get tested. The CH doesn't change since I never add any minerals, so I don't worry about it. I've never used the acid demand, nor have I missed having base demand. The K-1004 is the way to go (for bromine) if you're happy with color-matching for the bromine level. You may want to give some brief consideration to the K-2006 or K-2106. These use FAS-DPD testing, which lets you measure the bromine level by counting drops rather than the color-matching used for regular DPD. So these kits are more accurate, but are usually quite expensive. The K-2106 is slightly less costly because it excludes the CYA test that you don't need for bromine, but it's also harder to find. And don't forget to factor in the cost of shipping. Based on those prices I assume you're from Canada and are looking at Apollo pools. If you buy over $99, they'll charge you an additional $9 shipping. If you want the FAS-DPD testing, you're actually better off buying the K-1004 and ordering some R-0870 and R-0872 with it (total cost would be $76.54 + $13 shipping). Oh, and you can forget about the TF100 kit from tftestkits.com, they aren't allowed to ship to Canada.

I've never used a Nature2 or other mineral system, so I probably can't help you much. If you can substitute Sanitize for the Shock, then you can use any brand of dichlor since Sanitize is made of 56% Dichloroisocyanuric Acid. Buy cheaper dichlor and save yourself some money at least. I doubt that the MPS is directly responsible for the cloudy water, it's probably something else - usually a symptom of unbalanced water. But if it only occurs when a specific jet is used, then maybe there's something in the plumbing. Hopefully someone else can offer some suggestions on what to do about the cloudy water.

I have no opinion on Baqua, but I can tell you that bromine is very simple to use. For regular maintenance all you have to do is once a week you: 1) Test the water balance, maybe make adjustments (same as with Baqua or any system) 2) add some shock: MPS, bleach, or other form of chlorine. 3) keep the floater stocked with bromine tablets. Startup usually requires adding some Sodium Bromide, but I've heard you can just crush some of the tablets instead. So there's really just two primary chemicals going in regularly: bromine, and either MPS or chlorine to oxidize.

I'm not a spa frog user, but I do use bromine. I had the same trouble as you, but it just takes a little patience. Sodium Bromide is the correct starter. Try opening the floater a bit more. Give it a super-dosage of shock and your Br test should be really high initially (if not then add more Sodium Bromide), then test again in 24hrs and see if the Br is around normal. Keep adjusting the floater (and shock weekly & after usage) until you get it where the bromine levels stay in the ideal range. Not sure what's causing your pH drop. Is there something else you're adding to the water? What brand of drop testing are you using, and do you know the kit #?

I've used sodium bromide powder in my tub, and it always fully dissolves. The "dust" is probably a result of using the clarifier. Some of those products make the water clear by clumping up pollutants so they can be filtered out. If it's not getting filtered, it just sinks and coats everything. It's usually a very good idea to run all the pumps a few times right after adding clarifier, so that it gets collected in the filter (which you should then clean - at least spraying it off with a hose). In terms of your regime, you probably don't need to keep adding sodium bromide if you just adjust the setting on your floater. They both do the same thing: add bromide ions. The floater also releases some chlorine which oxidizes these ions into hypobromous acid, which is what kills the bacteria. Your "activator" is probably just a non-chlorine shock sometimes referred to as MPS (potassium mono-persulfate), which also serves to oxidize the bromide ions. You should continue to use this weekly and after using the tub. If you test the bromine soon after adding the shock, it should be quite high - if not, your bromide "bank" is depleted and you should boost with the sodium bromide (and adjust the floater to prevent it from falling again). Test again 24 hours after getting the high reading, and it should be around normal. If it's back to zero, either your test strips are no good or you have a lot of bacteria living in your tub. Given that you had cloudy water, it's likely a bacteria problem. You can try a super-shock to kill it off, but you may need to follow Nitro's decontamination procedure. The ozonator can help kill bacteria and also helps to oxidize, but isn't enough by itself.

Maybe your test strips are contaminated? If any water or steam gets in the bottle, those things are toast. Also, they do expire and some spa stores sell them anyway. You should consider switching to a drop-test kit such as the Taylor K-2106 (Bromine version of K-2006). It will give you far more accurate readings of your bromine level and pH. Is the "dust" just along the waterline, below the surface, or on the top surfaces above the water? Most floaters let you adjust the amount of the tabs that are exposed, what number is yours set to?

There's no setup, you just fill the sample tubes, pour back a little until the water level is at the marked line (or use an eyedropper), then add your reagents and check the result. Depending what you are testing you'll either count the # of drops to make it change color, or add a fixed # of drops and check the color. You'll find that the color checking is much easier with the kit than with the strips. Cleanup is just dumping and rinsing the tubes. Most of the time I just test my bromine and pH, which takes me about a minute. Every so often I check the TA as well, which adds another minute or two. Testing chlorine might take a little longer because you need to measure the total chlorine and free chlorine. I don't even have the reagents for the calcium test, I just use my leftover test strips and check it only every few months - it doesn't change.

I'm no expert, but I have heard that bacteria loves to grow in the plumbing, and if the water isn't cycling through properly then the levels of sanitizer in the pipes could become too low and allow the bacteria to get a foothold. I would suggest you: 1) Fix that pump, preferably replace it. Hopefully it's still under warranty. Test the new pump for a few days to make sure the problem isn't with your circuitboard or something else. 2) Decontaminate your tub according to Nitro's guide. In your case it's especially important to use the rinse/flush stuff for many hours or overnight, and run all the pumps often during this time. 3) Get your new water balanced properly, using a drop-based test kit and not those inaccurate (and possibly contaminated) test strips. The experts will recommend the Taylor K2006 kit (or K2106 for Bromine) because it has the FAS-DPD test. I found it to be too expensive (especially in Canada) and opted for the K1004, which uses the regular DPD test. It's not as accurate because you have to match colors, but still better than the test strips. If after all this you still have foaming problems, get a bottle of the foam-free product from anywhere that sells spa products. It's not expensive, and works really well if you put it in a spray-bottle and spray onto the surface of the water.

I've looked around the cleaning supplies section at a few hardware stores, but have yet to find a product listing Trisodium phosphate as an ingredient. Can anyone list some brands and/or product names of cleaners that contain TSP?

The reagent prices at Apollo aren't bad, provided you optimize on shipping by purchasing slightly less than $100 worth of refills. By phoning around, I was able to find a pool store in the city (Edmonton) that sells Taylor chemicals for a bit more than Apollo but it saves me the shipping. Presumably the store orders through Lowry & Associates. You could also check out Aqua-Solutions, a Canadian pool supplier based out of Quebec. They have an online catalog but no prices, and no online ordering.

I'm from Canada too! Before draining it can be good to put in a "rinse" product and let it circulate for several hours or overnight, running the jets periodically. Supposedly this cleans out the pipes and jets. All I do to drain it is hook a hose to the drain valve and open the valve - no pump required. It takes maybe 3 or 4 hours to drain my 1600L tub. Then I scrub it down with diluted bleach before refilling.

Actually I use a bromine system, so when I mentioned automatically adding bleach I was referring to the weekly shock used to oxidize the bromide ions. So I'm not worried about CYA levels. What would be the effect of shocking a bromine tub (with bleach) and not removing the cover? Also, could slowly adding the bleach with the peristaltic pump act as a replacement for weekly shocking?

I like the idea of an automated testing device, even if it doesn't dispense chemicals and just tells the user what it recommends - kinda like The Pool Calculator with the testing device providing the "Now" readings. My bromine floater is adjustable so after some tweaking, I can more or less maintain the sanitizer levels with only having to shock once a week. The water usually stays in balance pretty good for me, so I rarely have to use any other chemicals. But it would sure be nice to automate the weekly shock... some kind of bleach dispenser would be cool. My sprinkler timer box is right next to the hot tub, I wonder if I could use it to send a scheduled signal to a contraption that would cause it to dump a cup of bleach through a tube and into the tub. Of course it wouldn't be able to lift the cover off, which I believe you're supposed to do after shocking. I wonder what happens if you don't? The only theory I subscribe to is that if the tests show something is not in the ideal range, add chemicals and test again. It's not a matter of using less or more, what's important is the test results!

That's good to know. I'm pretty sure I read it somewhere that monopersulfate and peroxymonosulfate are chemically different but are identical in their effect. But it probably was just some random website and not a reliable source. I'd rather trust chem geek on this!

I'm from Canada, but I also initially had some trouble finding plain sodium bromide. The problem is that it's almost always disguised by a silly name that some marketer came up with. Worsening the problem is that the people at the spa stores don't even know what's in the products that they sell. At best, they know what the product is used for, but have no idea about the chemistry behind it. While shopping around for NaBr and tablets, I talked to many spa stores. I found that I could ask about "Part 1" of their brand of 2-part or 3-part bromine systems, and have them check the label to see if the ingredient is sodium bromide. Also, I found that two major hardware stores also carry sodium bromide, but of course under a different name. Oddly, the hardware store prices were higher than some of the spa stores.

Did you use Leisure Time's "Jet Clean" product before you drained? It's supposed to help clear out the residue buildup in the plumbing. Did you use the proper dose of Control (1 oz per 100 gallons)? Too much of it and it might not fully dissolve, even at full temperature. You might have to drain and refill again to fix these problems. Then there's the possibility of the water balance being out of whack - read Nitro's guide to find out more.

I doubt their "boost" contains anything other than the usual dichlor. I found through a Google search that they contain 62% chlorine content, which seems to be typical. Beachcomber probably also gave you a tub of chlorine pucks, which are Trichloro-s-triazinetrione, also known as "trichlor". You should read this post by chem geek, where he warns about using trichlor in a spa. Also, scroll all the way back to the top of that topic to read all about chlorine vs bleach. The weekly granule would probably be their MPS shock (it probably lists Potassium Monopersulfate as an ingredient). You can find MPS shock in many brands, but there aren't any "grocery store" replacements that I know of. There's probably a whole bunch of threads here about chemical alternatives, here's a recent one in which chem geek lists substitutes for most of the typical spa chemicals. Hope this helps!

I also found the Aquacheck strips to be very hard to read. Using a drop-based test kit is much better. If the K-2006 is too expensive for you, try the K-1004. It's not as accurate as FAS-DPD, but it's far cheaper. I don't know how long the reagents will last me or what refills will cost, but it does seem to be a fairly similar cost to buying test strips. You could probably also buy refills of the R-0870 DPD powder and R-0871 FAS-DPD reagent seperately, if you wanted to have accurate testing without buying the whole expensive kit.

My 2 cents: - Spa frog is expensive. My spa vendor tried to sell me on it (my tub is even equipped with the cartridge holder for it), but the cost was way higher than a basic 3-part bromine system. - Both chlorine and bromine systems require balancing, but there's not really that many variables. Nitro's guide makes it pretty easy. With bromine, you probably don't have to test as often, but it's usually a good idea to check the pH and bromine levels before going in (I don't bother checking afterwards though). About once a week I do a full set of tests to make sure everything's still balanced. - Bromine systems are usually somewhat more expensive than chlorine, but not a huge difference. - After shocking you'll get a high reading for your bromine, and generally don't want to use it if it's over 10ppm (though I've done it without any problems). The same goes for shocking a chlorine system though. Either way you gotta wait before you go in - that's part of the reason people usually shock it after getting out. - Oxidizers such as ozone, MPS, or chlorine (I use bleach) do regenerate the killing stuff (hypobromous acid), but the catch is that there must be a sufficient "bromide bank". In the 3-part system, maintaining this bank is done with the tablets in the floater. Most kinds of tablets also contain chlorine to oxidize the bromide, but you still need to shock.

I've been using regular unscented bleach to shock my bromine tub, and it seems to work quite well. I recently saw some lemon-scented bleach on sale, and was wondering what would happen if I used that to shock with? Would it just make the water smell nice or could there be some undesirable side effects?