BitsnBear

Your problem is the floater with chlorine pucks. Trichlor is extremely acidic and is usually not recommended for use in spas because it dissolves too fast at the very high water temps. The low pH of trichlor will drop the pH in the spa quickly because of the small volume of water. The acidity of the trichlor can cause damage to the heat exchanger if you do not CLOSELY monitor the TA and pH. I would suggest testing it DAILY in this case. If you are using trichlor you need to keep the Ta at around 150 ppm and do not let it get beloe 100 ppm at any time (120 is probably safer) to prevent the pH from crashing to very low levels that can cause damage. So what suggestions do you have that we should use instead of the puck floater? The tub was originally bromine but due to the fact that it really irritated my skin and we had so many issues getting it to work they switched us to the pucks.

We've had our tub for almost a year now - have gone through adjustment issues - made the switch from bromine to chlorine (turns out I am allergic to bromine plus we had major issues just getting our onzen system to even work) All has been going well BUT we've been having issues with the PH and TA dropping to the point they are almost disappearing. On the advice of our guy from Arctic Spa's due to my sensitive skin we are trying to use as few chemicals as possible...... we've used baking soda to raise the PH and TA, muriatic(sp) acid to lower PH and TA (only have to do that when first re-filled) then scale free once a month and a floater with chlorine pucks in it. I check the tub levels about once a week to once every 10 days - every time I do it seems the PH and TA have disappeared. What am I doing wrong that's causing this? There are 4 of us in the family and we use the tub pretty much every Fri/Sat/Sun night plus at least once during the week.

So do you recommend NOT using Aquafinesse?? The water tech I've been dealing with didn't mention using it - he's jsut told us to get the PH and TA right, drop in the pucks with the dispenser then use 3 to 4 caps of refresh each week for 3 to 4 weeks. Our onzen system is still not working so they have switched us over to bromine pucks and we've turned the CP to 0 as it's not doing anything - it dropped from .4 to .3 to .11 in less then a week even after we cleaned out the cell. They have also suggested we keep our PH at 7.2 and TA at 80 and the BR at 5 - we are taking a sample in today but from the test strips I believe the PH is around 7.4 and AK are around 100. I didn't realize owning a hot tub would be SO much work!!

And we finally have some answers!! Apparently they think the 'rash' I have has been caused by the low bromine levels in the tub - bacteria they think it is. They had us take the cover off the spot where the bromine bubbles come out of and it was packed full of flaky white gunk and couldn't push anything out - apparently they are having major problems with the onzen system in hard water area's and because of that are just trying to get approved a removable salt cell so people can clean it. Until that happens we are going with either bromine or chlorine tablets in the tub as removing the gunk didn't increase our bromine reading - it's still dropping. They have told us they would set us up with the removable salt cell once it comes in! I really do wish someone at Arctic had told us they were having such troubles with the onzen system in hard water area's before we bought - we would most likely stuck with the chlorine system!!

Thanks - I will take another water sample in tomorrow - my biggest concern is what the heck am I going to do if I can't use the hot tub because of this. With the reading it does sound like a reaction to the chemicals.

I'm getting very frustrated here and am really hoping someone can help/shed some light on my issues. We got our tub on Oct of '09 - the Arctic Spa's Summit Legend Bromine system. Set it up and had to drain it and have the onzen system replaced as it wasn't producing Bromine - while it was filled the first time I had no issues when I got in. The replaced the Onzen system at the end of October/beginning of Nov and we re-filled it. Got all levels regulated and started using the Aqua finesse - everything was fine then too. Had to add water the middle of December just before our hoses froze for the winter which threw all levels off for a while - have since managed to get the levels right again BUT...... Tub is cloudy and won't clear up AND since the middle of December I have started being covered in a rash I just can't seem to get rid of. It started on my legs and has now spread up my trunk. I had it cleared up almost this week and decided to go back into the tub again last night and it's back in full force - it's red and bumpy and incredibly itchy. I'm really hoping I'm not allergic to the hot tub - none of the rest of my family seems to be having an issue..... jsut me. Please help