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Ok, I'm glad someone is seeing the same numbers that I am!! At the rate I'm seeing, the 16oz would raise the hardness about 160ppm, which is what I need. I just can't figure out why the bottle is saying the capful should raise it 30ppm and that the capful is 3oz. It is a small cap and they are saying that it holds about 1/5th of the bottle of stuff, that can't be even close.

Ah once again you get a big win. I didn't have a chance to check it again tonight, but I'll try starting with a few drops of titrant in the beginning and going from there. I was taking the change in color from red to blue as the time when I could no longer see any red. I suppose the video and webpage explain it a little bit better. Although the changed color did look a bit purple, or a blueish purple, the red doesn't exactly appear bright red either, more of a pink. I'll do more analysis tomorrow and report my findings. Thanks again. I tested today again and came out around 50ppm, adding 2 drops of titrant before everything else and 3 after the calcium buffer and indicator dye. The one funny thing I noticed is the calcium up product says to use 1 level capful which equals 3oz. I've put in about 6 level capfuls total and I've only used about 1/4 - 1/5 of the bottle. The bottle shows that it is the 1lb bottle. If a level capful is 3oz and a pound is 16oz, the bottle should only be about 5-6 capfuls and it is WAY more than that. With that being said, I believe the level capfuls I've been putting in are around .75oz and thus why 6 capfuls only raise my calcium hardness about 50ppm. Does this seem right? The guy at the tub store told my girlfriend that she shouldn't need to add very much to get the hardness up, but at this rate, we would be adding almost the entire bottle to get to around 150ppm.

Ah once again you get a big win. I didn't have a chance to check it again tonight, but I'll try starting with a few drops of titrant in the beginning and going from there. I was taking the change in color from red to blue as the time when I could no longer see any red. I suppose the video and webpage explain it a little bit better. Although the changed color did look a bit purple, or a blueish purple, the red doesn't exactly appear bright red either, more of a pink. I'll do more analysis tomorrow and report my findings. Thanks again.

No, that shouldn't matter for the CH test though getting the sample to room temperature might be reasonable to do. I am also seeing something similar. I refilled the tub, shocked with dichlor. I've started to adjust the PH and TA, but also wanted to up the calcium hardness to 150ppm. I started at about 0-10ppm. So we purchased some "Calcium Up" which says it should raise the calcium hardness by 30ppm per 3oz capful in a 500 gallon tub. My tub is 475 gallons. I put in 3 capfuls and let the tub run for a few hours to dissolve. I then tested again and it was right at 10ppm. I put in another 3 capfuls and tested again after 12 hours. I'm at 30ppm now. I'm wondering if the "Calcium Up" is just going to raise this level way slower than I thought? The product is "Calcium Up" by Proteam. It is a 1lb bottle of crystals, but doesn't show any % of anything. Should I just keep adding and retesting? I'm testing with a Taylor kit.

Thanks again for all the help everyone. I kind of have been going on feel/smell of the water. I know that isn't the proper way, but I know if the water gets funky, something is out of line. I just didn't want the CYA to get overly high, but it seems like it must have only been a time or two that I tested that it was high. I am now out of "oxidizing shock," so I'm going to try to pick up something that has the ingredients/percentages readily available. I will also pick up a test kit, the reason I got the cheap strips was to keep alkalinity/PH at decent levels, especially when I first filled the tub. I didn't have a clue what my regular water would be like, but it was actually pretty close to normal levels right out of the faucet.

Ok, now that I'm 100% certain that I'm using MPS, this is all starting to come together. The specs list the tub as 400 gal. My test strips do not measure CC, just FC, so I gotta get new strips. Based on the fact that I wasn't 100% certain that I was using MPS, I just wasn't sure about adding MPS before AND after the soak. The local spa guy told me to Dichlor once a week, Oxidize after each soak and I would be fine. I am glad I understand good enough now to pay more attention. I was trying to use N2 + MPS to avoid exposure to cholorine, but also to keep the chemical part simple unless I had more time to learn. So I think I'm going to order a Taylor test kit and be a little more careful about keeping MPS in the water before and after a soak. I think it would be easy enough now that you all have passed the knowledge, to go with dichlor+bleach method. Would I need a complete drain/refill to start using dichlor than bleach? It won't be possible to drain/refill until after the winter season. I went back and did some math, I've been adding about 2oz of MPS after soaking 2 people for 30 minutes. 2oz is a half capful. I'd say on average we use the tub about 3 total hours per week, 1.5 hours x 2 people and are normally showered before soaks.

Ok, let me rephrase. I'm not actually using non-chlorine shock, I'm using something called oxidizing shock. I'm not sure if it is the same thing, but this is what the local pool and spa store gave me along with my N2. They told me to do 1 cap full each week(I've been doing about 1/2 capful each week as it seems to be plenty) of Dichlor. Also, they told me to use the oxidizing shock each time AFTER we're in the water, so I've been adding about 1.5 tbsp of this give or take after each soak. I'll add more if we spend more time in the water or have more people. So the oxidizing shock is made by ProTeam, see this link. It doesn't list any ingredients/chemicals. http://www.hottubwarehouse.com/PhotoGallery.asp?ProductCode=72412268 The dichlor is 99% Sodium Dicholor-S-Triazinetrione, 1% Dihydrate made by the same company. I just decided to re-check the balance to see where I was, I normally add Dichlor on Sunday, but I wasn't able to yesterday, the water smells a little bit, but this is what it normally smells like before I add the dichlor. Hardness was about 50ppm, free chlorine was at 0, PH around 7.6, TA around 100, and CYA was actually pretty low about 20ppm. Hmmm... We soaked last night for about 30 minutes and I added about 1 tbsp of Oxidizing Shock afterwards. Does this seem normal?

Hey everyone, had a good time searching for my answer, but couldn't pin point a real good solution, so I thought I'd ask... We have a Evolution/Strong spa that we bought in July of this year. We've been using the Nature2 cartridge along with dichlor(weekly) and non-chlorine shock(after each soak). If I remember right, this non-chlorine shock isn't exactly MPS. This is what the pool/spa store recommended. I noticed that when using dichlor weekly the water is staying fairly fresh. I've been checking the water with test strips and it appears that my CYA is getting higher, around 80 or so. I read before that you could use Dichlor then bleach, but not sure if this also applies with Nature2? It is now winter and would be tough to drain the tub for about another 10 weeks, just worried my CYA will be through the roof by then, thus wanting to switch to bleach if I can. It is possible this question is dumb/basic, but was looking for an expert to give me the thumbs up. Can anyone help? Sanitation On a fresh fill use Dichlor until you get to 20-30 ppm CYA. (10 ppm FC = 9 ppm CYA) Then switch to Clorox Unscented 6% bleach. Never let FC drop to Zero for any length of time. Keep it between 3-6 ppm normally, min of 1 ppm, and shock to 12 ppm once a week. Use MPS if needed before hot tub party's and/or once a week to help oxidation. Don't use more than needed, because it's acidic and may lower your TA/pH. Check your Chlorine Demand, and keep it low. Dichlor, Bleach and MPS is all you need to keep your tub sanitized. Use The Pool Calculator to calculate exact amounts to add.

I've seen plenty of QCA spas, and a few Strong spas. They both fall into the same catagory of cheap value line tubs. As long as your expecting this it is what you will get. I have a Strong spa, CSXI80, getting colder in Omaha, NE. I mainly leave the tub on economy mode, which only heats during filter cycles. I normally have the cycles set to run for 2 hours in the morning and at night, typically before we'd want to get in the tub. If I know for sure we're having people over, I just turn it to regular mode 30-60 minutes before to heat it up. We had a PVC connection break initially when we had the tub for about 1 month, but Strong hired someone locally to fix and we haven't had any additional problems. We got ours through Costco.