At the end of August, I had a 2011 HotSpring Vanguard (with ozonator) installed. We have a walkout basement, and it sits on the slab by the basement door, under a deck. (I'm working on getting a "roof" installed over the tub so dirty water from the deck doesn't drip in). I am in the tub almost every night for 15-30 minutes, my wife joins me 2-3 times/week, and one of our teenagers might get in weekly. No parties yet, but I'm sure they will happen.
About a week ago, I drained and refilled, and based on what I've read here, I'm moving towards the Dichlor/bleach method from straight Dichlor (although I may use lithium hypo because the HotSpring warranty doesn't like bleach). After a month, I've come up with a few questions:
1. Test strips: I use a Taylor K2006 kit for my weekly evaluation, but I like the convenience of sticking a strip in the water each day, just to make sure the PH and TA haven't gone crazy. However, the strips I have (HotSpring house brand) seem to consistently be low for FC when compared to the Taylor kit. (My daily chlorine routine is to test, then add some Dichlor if there's less than 3ppm.) Is there a better brand of test strips out there?
2. Shock. I was given the standard HotSpring (FreshWater) startup kit, plus a 2lb container of SpaGuard Enhanced Shock (which is chlorine). My dealer isn't a fan of MPS shock, which comes in the kit, but after not really getting rid of the CC with the SpaGuard, I tried it and it seemed to work better without running the FC level up to 20. (High Chlorine = me not using tub = sadness.)
But I may be doing this wrong, so I'm wondering how I should be using this stuff. I've read about breakpoint chlorination, does this mean I need to add 10ppm of chlorine to get rid of 1ppm of CC? With my current chlorine routine, should I also be adding a little MPS to get rid of the CC each day? Is there some reason I shouldn't be using MPS?
And my final question on the SpaGuard chlorine shock is this: Why does this stuff appear to have a lower percentage of available chlorine than the "regular" Concentrated Chlorinating Granules I use every day? Makes no sense at all.
3. Water stabilization: My tap water starts out very high in PH (over 8), and I add enough calcium to get the CH up to 150. Eventually, PH and TA both crash, and I have to add the increaser to get them back up. (I'm guessing this is due to the acid in the Dichlor). I've read a little about borates, will this help maintain the PH and TA? Can someone direct me in the direction of a how-to article for borates?
Thanks for the help! This forum has been really, really useful as I start to understand what's going on in my tub.