feather

I shocked it with granulating chlorine, and the bromine reading went up from zero to like 30..I'm using a drop test, and level is just up to 6. But I could tell that it's so high because the water is redish...then after 30 mins I lowered pH using a pH decreaser..then retested 10 mins later...reading was pH@7.5 and bromine was still little high but the color is yellow (maybe it's around 10)..I read Waterbear's writing about bromine and it help me understand why after shocking the water the reading goes up. I'll test the pH and bromine again when i get home. Is it too late to try to lower the TA to 80 or 90 so the pH won't go up that much everytime we turn the jets on? I don't have MPS right now, but would it hurt it if I switch to MPS after using chlorince for shock? thanks!!

After trying to figure out and reading some post about chlorine, bromine or baqua, we decided to go for bromine...thep problem is, we don't have much idea on how this really work and what other chemicals do we really need and how this affects pH. Last night the water was balance. I waited another day to put the bromine, I even check the pH and TA level again. TA @ 120ppm, pH@7.5. I added the sodium bromide to establish the reserve, run the jets...and ten minutes later I filled the brominator with bromine tablets. Ten minutes later, I tested the pH and it went up to 8.2...does bromine supposed to do that? How long does it takes for your bromine level to go up..it's zero right now when I tested it together with the pH testing. Should I keep the jets running or not? I think this is what raise pH (correct me if I'm wrong)...should I add a pH decreaser to adjust the pH or wait? Please help!! thanks!!

thanks for all the advice...no one seems to know what i'm talking about when we to home depot. so, we just drop the idea of shimming. we'll leave the hot tub for now the way it is... They didn't know what 2 x 4's and pea gravel was?!? "long thin shims" - this is what they don't have any idea...maybe the two guys we ask in the lumber department wasn't familiar...or maybe we asked the wrong department...

What's the pros and cons if you change the programming/setting of the circulation pump, so it won't run 24 hrs a day? Would it save you some energy bills? Would it affects water quality? If we're going to change the setting, what's the ideal setting we should program it? like run every 8 hrs or so? If it's a bad idea to not run the pump 24 hrs a day, would anyone let us know and why? Any help on this will be greatly appreciated.

thanks for all the advice...no one seems to know what i'm talking about when we to home depot. so, we just drop the idea of shimming. we'll leave the hot tub for now the way it is...

Now, we're confused..we're starting all over again, but we're confused on what's the best sanitizing method we're going to use. Some people is against using Baqua Spa. Is Baqua Spa really that bad? I have a Sundance majesta, we got it use. The previous owner was using a Baqua system. And she gave us the Baqua chemicals she had. If Baqua Spa is that bad, how come hotspring is listing it as one of their recommended sanitizing system. Besides the fact that it's expensive, what's the other drawback of this? We called our local Sundance dealer, and she recommended the bromine. Some people we know was trying to tell us that bromine would require more chemicals to be added, is this true? Any advise would be greatly appreciated. We have three sanitizing system here in the house, chlorine granules, bromine and baqua, which is which!! need help deciding..we kind of like the idea of a chlorine/bromine free water, but if this is not best for both the user and the spa itself, then please tell me know.

Being new to this spa chemistry, we switch from chlorine to Baqua Chlorine free sanitizer with out draining the spa. It was two days ago since I used the chlorine, and I tested the chlorine level it was at zero. We decided to used the Baqua sanitizer instead of putting another chlorine in the spa. I tested the water and pH was at 7.8 and TA at 100ppm. I brought a water sample to Leslie pools for testing both from the spa and source water. Their testing resulted to a pH at 7.8 with TA at 35ppm. They told me to drain the spa and start all over again. That the switch from chlorine to Baqua sanitizer screwed up the TA. That we're supposed to drain before we can switch from chlorine sanitizer to a free-chlorine sanitizer. Do we really have to do this? What will happen if we will wait another week to drain the spa? We just filled it a week ago. We are in a well water. And our well water test result to a pH @ 7.0 and TA @ 200ppm. Does water temperature affects TA result? We live an hour away from where Leslies Pool is, and maybe the spa water temperature dropping resulted to a low TA result than what I have at home. Help!!

I need help on trying to lower TA; last night pH was way too high (above 8.2) though TA was just around 100ppm; today I try to lower the pH by using a pH/Alkalinity down, I followed the instructions on how to lower the pH; when I test the water the pH did go down but the TA went up to 160ppm. I added the same chemical again but different measurement (per instruction to lower TA use 1oz), but the Ta just won't go down and the pH just keeps going down. I tried the same thing again for the 2nd and 3rd time (instruction in the bottle state to repeat steps) but no result in TA. pH is at 7.2 right now...what should I do to lower TA? please help.

This question is for Hillbilly - I'm a newbie with regards to spa...we just got a used sundance spa, and when we filled it up we also used Metal Gon...do you know if Metal Gon does lower the calcium hardness? Our water is at 260ppm hard but when we tested the spa water, it's at 80ppm...and pH is under 7. We have corrected the hardness to 180ppm using a calcium booster and then we used a pH increaser...the pH went up to high though (more than 8). We also have a whole house water filter that help with metal problems. My questions are: 1.) should we not use the metal gon again next time we fill the spa? 2.) does calcium booster affects pH level? do you think this is the reason why our pH went up so high due to adjusting the calcium first as opposed to adjusting the pH first, then adjust the calcium level.? 3.) if you need to have calcium at a certain level, why does some spa chemicals manufacturer recommends using a calcium defender? i'm confused... 3.) what is the proper start up chemicals that we should have used? your answer would be greatly appreciated...thanks!!

Thanks!! I was just worried that the weight of the water on one side would crack the spa or weaken the frame because of the slope. I'm new to this, and really appreciate your reply.

We just got a used 4 yrs old Sundance Majesta, and we put in our patio which slope down a little bit. When we filled the tub, the water on one side was like a few inches above the pillow and on the other side it's few inches below the pillow (just right at jet level). The size of the tub is approx. 7.5 x 7.5, would this create a problem later on having one side of the tub seems to have more water than the other? What I mean, are we supposed to shim the tub to level it out? Any advice/info would be appreciated. thanks!!