JeffB

I think there may be some confusion here. I think you are referring to the Frog floating system that has a frog mineral stick and a bromine cartridge inserted into a specially made floater. This is simply a special product marketed by the Frog people to accomplish the same thing as using a frog mineral stick in your filter and a traditional bromine floater. That is the system I use. It works well when you learn it. I don't see why the frog floating system would not work just as well. Just realize, you are essentally using a classic bromine floater system with the supplemental help of the mineral stick.

I recently purchased a 2005 Artesian Captiva. It is in their Island line like the Santa Cruz. I have had no problems and it has been easy to maintain. Just be aware that the Island line has many options allowing you to order the spa in many variations. The Santa Cruz can be ordered with 2 3hp pumps or one 6 hp pump. It can be ordered with different jet counts. You can get it with or without ozone and a 24 hour circulation pump. You get a standard 3 year warranty. You can upgrade to a 5 year warranty. This allows you to get a Santa Cruz at just about any price point. My dealer is at about $5,500 for a fully loaded Santa Cruz. This includes tax, cover, cover lift, steps, five year warranty, and start up chemicals. I have sat in a Santa Cruz dry. Very comfortable. Hope this helps. Jeff

I am not a chemist and am not in the hot tub business in any way. I had an Optima for a number of years and recently purchased an Artesian tub. So take these comments any way you like. I believe you are not using an adequate method of sanitation, and you are not adequately removing the metals from your water. I believe the SpaGuard stain and scale product is more for calcium scale control than to remove metals. You need to use Leisure Time Metal Gon. As soon as you fill the tub, pour in a whole bottle around the edges of the tub. Put in nothing else. Run the pumps and filter the water. The iron and other metals will get caught in the filter. If you have lots of iron, the filter will turn an orangish color. Keep rinsing the filter until the metals are gone. In bad cases of well water (like mine), this can take a day or two. If your water is clear when you fill the tub (rather than brown or green), use the Metal Gon, but then you probably do not need to wait to do the rest. Nature2 is great, but in most cases will not work by itself. You really need to use a clorine (dichlor) or bromine system. Clorine involves putting some in after each use and weekly shocks. Bromine involves using granular bromine when filling the tub and bromine tabs in a floater thereafter, and weekly shocks. The RHTubs website, under faq, has a couple of detailed clorine procedures. There is also some good bromine information. Nature2 should allow you to use less clorine or bromine, but it will not work alone just with weekly shocks. I tried it once just as Nature2 says with MPS (a nonclorine shock) added before each use. It did not work. The water always turned bad. To be fair, my tub had alot of use at the time. I use a bromine system with ozone and a frog mineral stick (Nature2 cannot be used with bromine). It is easy once you learn it. Lots of people like and use a clorine system. I think the real difference is whether having to put chemicals in after each use works for you. Hope this helps. Jeff

Thanks

Spa-Guy, thanks very much. 40 to 50 gpm is alot. I used to have a Sundance where I could set the filter times with the low speed jet pump to where I needed them, in addition to the circ pump. As I understand it, wtih the Artesians, there are no filter times with a low speed pump, just the circ pump for filtering. I am considering an Island Captiva or Antigua with the circ pump, and I was worried about enough filtering with only a small circ punp. But the pump you describe must do the trick. Am I right in understanding that the "filter" times on the Artesian just control the time that the ozonator is on?

I am having trouble pinning down the performance of the circ pumps used in Artesian spas. I understand they switched to a larger, 48 frame circ sometime in 2004. Is this right? The Artesian literature says the circ pump pushes 11 gpm. Is this the spec on the old pump or on the new large one? How many gallons per minute does the current circ pump push, and what are its other specs? Is it a GE like the jet pumps. Thanks in advance.