jennylou

I wholeheartedly agree! Waterbear, your advice is priceless. I got the Leisuretime bromide, put in the appropriate amount in my spa, now my readings are: Temp 104 CH 150 TA 100 pH 7.6 Br 8ppm Success! Thank you, thank you, thank you! I'm trusting that keeping it here will be not too hard, now that I have been shown the way

Wrong stuff....This is mostly chlorine (dichlor) and a bit of sodium bromide to make a one step product for 2 step bromine. You want PLAIN sodium bromide. It is available from several companies (HTH, LeisureTime, Proteam to name a few). Create your bromine bank properly and you won't have ANY PROBLEMS. What you added was mostly chlorine. Ok, will do... Thanks for clearing that up! Your experience and advice are MUCH appreciated :-)

Yes, I followed it your instructions, Got the tub 1 week ago. It had already been filled and sanitized for about a week at the store, so I figure any biofilm in the pipes is gone, and I don't see the need for a refill. I added the floater with the 1-Bromo-3-chloro-5,5-dimethylhydantoin tables at that time. It took me a few days to get the extra SpaGuard "Brominating Concentrate" (82.5% Sodium dichloro-s-trazinetrione 14.7% Sodium bromide) to create the bank. I added that on Thursday. I also added the SpaGuard Shock-Oxidizer (31.0% Potassium Peroxymonosulfate). (I have the MPS already so I figured I'd use that until it runs out and then switch to bleach). I did get a good reading on Friday of 7.5 ppm, but yesterday and today I'm getting 0 readings for Bromine with my test kit. I wasn't sure if I should wait for the levels from the tabs to go up, if I should add more to the bank, or what. Water looks good and seems fine, but test says 0.

Hello! Excuse me for jumping into someone else's thread, but I am also having trouble with the bromine tests, I have a bromine float and I added the brominating concentrate (SpaGuard) to build up the bromine bank, as was suggested in your post, and then added the MPS to shock it. I got a reading of bromine reading of 7.5ppm yesterday morning, and then 1.5 last night. I went in last night with some friends, and added more shock after I got out. This morning my reading is 0 with the Taylor k-2106 test kit. If I understand it correctly, The tabs and concentrate I added are bromide ions, which get converted into bromine sanitizer by either ozone, or some type of shock (either Chlorine or MPS). When I do the test, I am testing for the level of bromine sanitizer. Assuming I added enough brominating concentrate to get the bank up, or that my tabs are finally starting to dissolve, the reason I am having a 0 reading is that the bromine sanitizer has all been converted back into bromide ions because we've been sitting around in the spa for hours at a time. Is that correct? So, to raise my level on the tests, I need to shock more, not necessarily add more brominating concentrate or open the floater more, is that right? If we have 2 people using the hot tub every night for 20 minutes, and 1 person using it every morning, do I need to shock more often then once a week? Do I have to run these tests all the time to see if I've got enough bromine to sanitize the tub, or will this all stabilize at some point so I can test weekly? Thank you in advance.

Does anyone have advice on where to purchase chemicals online? I need A LOT of Dry acid to lower the TA in my tub (just went through initial bottle and still not anywhere near TA 100) and I'm thinking it will get expensive if I have to do this all the time and keep buying from the dealer. Also, I have noticed that the "brand" (Leisure Time, SpaGuard, etc.) pH down comes in smaller bottles and the pool websites sell the same type of thing (sodium bisulfate) in 8 or 15lb. pails. Are these all the same thing? Can I purchase a big pail from the pool store and use it in my spa? Can I store it outside if it is below freezing? Or is lugging it in and out the downside of buying a big bucket? Thanks for the help!

OK, I won't worry about that yet. Thank you so much for your help!!!

I am expecting delivery of my new Sundance Chelsee in a few days, and I took my water to the dealer to be tested so I would know what to expect. I am planning on using 3 step Bromine to sanitize. According to the levels, and reading Waterbear's informative thread on Bromine treatment, I know I need to increase my calcium (CH?) and lower my TA and pH before anything else. The dealer told me to add 2tbl. SpaGuard decreaser daily for the first 9 days, but I read Nitro's guide to lowering TA using dry acid, and it seems like it can be done in a few hours, getting everything into line that much quicker. His example was for a smaller tub, and when I entered his information into www.thepoolcalculator.com I didn't get the same information he reported. Perhaps I'm not doing the calculator correctly? So, I can't figure out how much to add to increase the CH and get the TA down. I'd just like a ballpark estimate to get started, so I don't have to put some in, test, put some in, test, etc. My tub is 468 gallons. I will have an ozonator. My water readings were: pH 8.5 TA 248 CH 58 Temp 103 I think once I get started I understand what to do, except the dealer told me to shock after every use, and I read in Waterbear's instructions to only shock once a week. We are fairly heavy spa users, 2 adults and 2 kids every day for 20 minutes. Also, he gave me Clarifier and Stain and Scale control - necessary or no? My only other question is: Borates? What is that used for? How do you add it? is it necessary? Thanks so much!

I won't comment on your sanitation method as you seem to have made up your mind about that. I'm not planning on using Baquaspa again. But I'd welcome any suggestions you have about how to sanitize the tub. The dealer included the ozone and Sunpurity with the deal so I'm not married to them. I'm not totally clear how they work, in any case. What would you recommend?

I was wondering if someone out there has any advice on how to deal with softened water in the spa? We have extremely hard and rusty well water, for which we employ a softener inside the house. We purchased our first tub (Tiger River Siberian) 12 years ago, and for the first year we used the outside, hard water to fill the tub. We used the Baquaspa system to sanitize it, since my skin has trouble with chlorine and we go in the tub every day. Using our hard water left our filters red and clogged from rust, the water stinky like sulfur, and itchy skin all the time. And we never really could get the water properly balanced according to the test strips. We then decided to just use the inside filtered and softened water, which led to gallons of calcium and pH decreaser being added to the tub, still trying to balance the water. The last 5 years or so, we got super lazy, stopped testing it, and just threw in H2O2 each week and used a little of the Baqua sanitizer every once in a while. We also would lower the temperature of the spa to around 80 every few months, thinking that most bacteria that inhabit our bodies have a narrow temperature range and would not be able to survive such a drop in temperature. I know, there are people out there cringing! But it sort of worked, and the water was mostly clear, and when it got cloudy or stinky, we would drain the tub, rinse it all out, throw out the filters and start over. Our tub finally died, and I just bought a new Sundance with an ozonator and Sunpurity cartridge. My question is, can I use the softened water? I would prefer it, since my skin is dry, and my son has eczema and the soft water is much better for that. Is it so important to balance the water? Are there better ways to increase the hardness, and does it really matter? Someone else told me to get a pre-filter and use the hard water. Would that be a better choice? I'm not even sure I can get to it in the winter, all of our outside (unsoftened) taps have been winterized. Please remember I am new at the chemical thing, I'm not even really sure what MPS is, so any advice would be helpful.