Spa Slacker

Waterbear... Thanks again for your email!! By your suggestion, I've ordered bromine granular, and was planning to use the bleach for creating the chlorine for shocking. Are you suggesting that I should order some MPS for weekly maintenance? Is there some benefit for MPS shock instead of bromine/bleach regimen? Prawny ... thanks for your thoughts. If I had a helpful local shop with Waterbear- I wouldn't need this forum! It seems like compared to the local stores I've been to the 'net has much better selection. Also the price seems reasonable- the site ordered the bromine also had MPS - 100% pure DuPont Monopersulfate Compound (potassium peroxymonosulfate, 45.2%) 6 lbs for $25 + $3 handling. The brand they carry is Oxy-Spa. It would be really gr8 if poolspaforum (or some URL) had an FAQ page w/ the latest thoughts and instructions for simple / safe / low-cost bromine spa maintenance. Thanks again all.

Waterbear recommended that I buy spa shock that is plain sodium bromide and doesn't contain any other ingredients like diclor or MPS. On refills he also recommended bleach. I've looked a couple online shops, and most do not mention their shock's active components. Can anyone recommend reliable online shops- like ones w/ tech support numbers? Anyone know where I can buy plain sodium bromide shock? What size shock is good to buy considering I have a 280 gal spa w/ moderate use?

Is there a recommended place to buy this online, and if so what size? I found some spa shock on ebay but many don't list the ingredients and one contained Potassium Peroxymonosulphate in a 42.8% active ingredient

Thanks again. Based on your message... on refills did you mean to use the Bromstart as well as the bleach? Or just one or the other? Also I assume the trick you mentioned about the bleach would not work if the spa was on a chlorine regimen. True? Daniel

Thanks again for your comments. Is there a website you recommend that has more detailed directions on using this 3 step bromine process? So my shopping list looks like: 1. Brominating Granular 2. shock: ordinary chlorine bleach (supermarket brand) rather than a traditional shock like potassium peroxymonosulfate 4. Taylor K-2106 test strips 5. Bromine tablets My questions about these chemicals are: 1. How much granular should I use on refills? (my spa is 250 gallons) 2. I assume you meant the bleach as a shock will react with bromine to form hypobromous acid 3. How much bleach should I use as a shock? 4. I'll be using the strips to test for the bromine levels... anything else I should be measuring ie. good range for pH? Thanks again

Sounds like bromates are bad. Is there a specific test for bromate level? Does your answer imply that if I use bromine I should disconnect the ozonator? Thanks waterbear so much for your answer.

I'm a lazy spa owner who uses the spa maybe once every other week. I need to purchase new chemicals. It seems like there are 2 camps: either chlorine and bromine based approaches The other consideration is that I have an ozonator- although I can't tell if it is actually doing anything. Can somebody point me in the right direction. Thanks

I have a Belize (like sold by this website's sponsor) since 2002 and it keeps running and running- just needed to twist on a couple new jets and now I’m finally replacing the waterlogged cover. I added the company’s own ozonator to the ozonator port after install but I could never tell if it did anything. Is there any way for me to tell if the ozonator is doing anything?