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2009 altmar with two pump system. Circ pump, pump2 and bubbler all fine. Pump 1 will buzz loudly for a few seconds then click off. Tonight i opened the panels (not tooooo cold out right now) and the motor is super hot. hotter than motor 2 that had been running for 40 minutes. I'm guessing the starting cap is bad and that the temp overload breaker is kicking it off. Why it's so hot i don't know when i haven't been running it. Since i can't / don't want to drain the tub in sub zero temps i just unplugged the motor from the board until it warms up. Can anyone a) confirm my suspicion of starting cap? think of anything else it could be. Pump spins freely when i spin the motor by hand. Can not get it to start by giving it a "push" Thanks

Make sure your panels are tight up against the bottom of the shell. If not they are just held into the 2x4's with wood screws so you can relocate the panel. Then if you are still concerned about leakage take some great stuff and fill the gap between the 2x4 framing and the shell. Make sure you take off the panels first as the great stuff makes a mess.

use your acid demand test in the taylor kit to get your ph down to 7.2-7.6 (it will go back up some from your TA too high). Keep doing this until your TA is 60-80. You will find the sweet spot over time and time is the only way you will find what works for your tub and chemicals. I HIGHLY suggest adding 50 ppm borax as it makes ph super stable. I can honestly say the only time i ever add acid is during startup when i put the borax in. The ONLY chemicals i need to maintain my tub are baking soda, bromine tabs (acidic hence the ph and TA drops), and bleach (plus my start-up chems). As far as the number of tabs you need, it depends on your floater type. if it's a flooded floater (not the best) like mine, i've found about 4-5 with the floater closed almost all the way works for me but i have a low bather load (1 person 3-4 nights a week for less than a half hour). the best floater option out there is the pentax that chem geek recommends as it doesn't flood all the tabs.

a 10 year ozonater will be non-functional. At that point in their life, they need to be replaced if you want one. Read around here to see if you need it or it will benefit you as in some cases they can be more detrimental than good.

The Technichlor SWCG is a very good option for you. Like Chem Geek said it will take care of the background and does have a boost mode for lighter load soaks. Think of it as a floater in the bromine system. then if you get a spike in bather load occasionally you can just drop in a little bleach to suppliment. Very easy. Only $300 to implement. I may head in that direction eeventually but bromine is working for me. I do have a friend with one and he swears by it.

it's possible that since your strips can only read to 10 on bromine that you shocked it much higher than 10 and it is still eating away at it but may you went from 25 to 12 overnight and it's really not holding, you just can't test it. I think WB has it and you're just going to have to keep at it.

I didn't see if you mentioned where you are but if US (and maybe canada) you can get the sodium bromide right at walmart. They are in handy little 2 oz pouches which is the perfect amount. And they're CHEAP! However, Don't by the brom tabs at walmart. They are not round and they disolve fast / different. Since i have a flooded floater they fit but since i switched i'm having a much harder time controlling my bromine levels from the floater.

As chem geek mentioned above I was off in my earlier description of the make up of the brom tabs. I edited my post above to get rid of that info so others don't get confused like i was. Any of the chemicals you currently have will work for oxidizing along with the bleach. We use bleach because it's CHEAP. There's no reason for you to not use up what you already have other than learning a differnet amounts that need to be added and keep it straight. Once they are gone, switch to bleach which as chem geek mentioned is really easy. I know chem geek says you don't need to worry about weekly shocking, but i have found that with my rather low bather load (just me for a half hour about 3-4 days a week) that if i add an extra cup of bleach on a saturday afternoon (so i can run the pumps for an hour or two to bring the levels back down) every other week to "shock" that it keeps the smell down a little more. It also tends to help reduce any foaming i may be getting.

Close but no cigar. Bromine tablets contain organic bromine and chlorine (attached to a dimethylhydantion molecule and directly add hypobromous acid (bromine sanitizer), bromide ions, and chlorine, which then oxidizes the bromide into hypobromous acid. The majority of the hypobromous acid added by the tabs is direct and not from the oxidation of bromide. The amount of bromide added is not that large, which is why it can take several weeks or more to create a bromide bank using only bromine tablets. This is why sodium bromide is added on filling. It needs to be plain sodium bromide, not a mixture of mostly dichlor with only a small amount of sodium bromide. That type of product is designed to be does daily and offers NO advantage over using chlorine! The tablets contain no inorganic bromide (sodium bromide) and no dichlor, btw. Thanks WB i knew it wasn't exactly right. I'm still learning the theory of why we do what we do and the best way to learn it to try and expain it right and be corrected on what we misunderstand.

Start by reading the Nitros water maintenance stickie in this forum. Re-read it until you think you understand it. then read it a few more times. then get yourself a proper test kit. Trying to do this with strips is aggrivateing at best and nearly impossible at worst. You need to be able to do an acid / base demand to know how much is needed. You didn't say how you "brought the TA to 80" and what it and the pH were when you started. If it we me in your spot with the tools you have I'd add about 1/8 of a cup of baking soda to bring the TA up slightly and then just aerate (run the jets and air). that should get you close but until you can get exact numbers with a good test kit you'll be chasing it forever.

as long as you have CYA up to around 30 you wont get that bleachy feeling. Chlorox is unstabilized so it behave differntly when combined with CYA. I don't understand how or why but it doesn't really matter to us users. It shouldn't bleach your swimware like the laundry (which is way higher concentration) but there may be some affect (which isn't any different than if you were using dichlor).

Bromine is active sanitizer and what you are testing. The bromine when it oxidizes waste converts to Bromide (over simplifying). The 2 oz Sodium Bromide you add at start up is not bromine, it's bromide and therefore just a salt sitting in the water. You need to add shock (bleach, mps, dichlor, etc) to activate (convert) the bromide into bromine. This becomes and cycle as the bromine oxides and converts back to bromine and you shock again. Make sure you added sodium bromine on start up and not the bromating granules that is used as a sanitizer. It should say "Sodium Bromide" and that ingredient should be well over 90%. The bromine tablets are just bromide and diclor (if i'm understanding it correctly) and the dichlor activated the bromide in the tablet when it disolves. (Edit: i was wrong, see Waterbears correction in post #10 below) I may be off on this a little but that's basically what it's doing. In addition to bleach / MPS, ozone can also convert bromide into bromine which is why it works well with the three step program. If you aren't maintaining a bromine level you need to increase the floater setting and probably need to add bleach / mps after use. Remember the floater is not designed to keep up with bather load. it's there to maintain a bromine level when the tub is not in use. You still have to shock occasionally and add some everyuse (if your floater can't keep up, mine typically does becuase i have a very low bather load). I don't have any knowledge about your test system. Also, don't worry about TA. Like Topspeed said, 50+ is fine. Mine usually runs in the 50-70 range. I don't ever raise it if it's above 50. I've never had to lower mine because the bromine tabes are net acidic.

i have an altmar which is just a tiny bit smaller than yours and i often have to keep my floater closed all the way and regulate the number of tablets. I have a flooded type floater so that's part of the problem. It certainly sounds like you may have some high demand stuf growing in there. If it was new there can be water left in it from factory testing that can then grow stuff. If the 370 gallons of water aren't an issue for you I'd super chlorinate it per the decon sticky. Probably don't need to spa flush it but you could add that 24 hours before doing the decon.

you won't trip individual breakers, you'll trip the main power breaker. Sounds like your 100 amp is already overloaded before you add the spa. I would not recommend adding a 220v 50 amp spa to that mix. do you even have a spot left in your panel for a 50 amp breaker? If you already have a sub-panel, i think you know the answer.

use the acid demand test in the taylor kit. It will tell you exactly how much acid to add and you can just do it once.

you can use the pool calculator to determine how much bleach to add to get to a certain PPM. The ppm level is what you are shooting for when you shock and it doesn't matter what type of chlorine you use to get there. you can switch the type in the pool calculator to get an equivilence value.

don't worry about CSI in a fiberglass tub. It doesn't really matter. General rule of thumb on TA: don't worry about it. Find a point where your PH is stable and that's where your TA should be (above 50 minimum).

This is what i do and it works great and is very stable. I have a bigger tub (350 gal) but i think it works great. My load is a little smaller, maybe only a couple hours total a week (20-30 minute 3-4 days a week) and my floater pretty much takes care of everything but the bi-weekly shocking. I add BS maybe twice a month.

it's fine to mix chlorine and bromine. In fact in a bromine tub many shock with chlorine. You just can't add bromine to a tub that you are trying to sanitze with chlorine as it will convert the tub to bromine. Read the sticky thread in this forum about decontamination as it will tell you everything you need to do to clean it up. I don't think you need to worry too much about the water chemistry. Just make sure the PH is between 7 and 8 when you start the decon process. Superchlorinating will shoot the pH sky high anywhay. As far as the cover, I'd think you're going to have a hard time saving it. Just a regualr bleach and water solution will clean it if you can. If the foam has mold in it, i don't think you'll be able to get it out. New covers can be had for around $300 so it's probably worth it to get a new one. try rhtubs.com The tub should not have lost any water in the time you are talking about. Certainly not 5" worth. Take the skirting off and see if you can find water inside the cabinet. The fact that you have "corrosion" on your pump would point me to look there. You may have to replace the pump anyway so it may just be a leaky seal in the pump and you get lucky. A taylor kit (K2006 for chlorine or K2165 for bromine) is you best choice, but you have to order them. If you go to walmart you can get a cheap OTO kit that will work in the short term while waiting for the taylor kit to arrive If you find a lot of issues with it i can be quite costly to bring back to life and not really worth it.

This is the wrong sub-forum but to answer your quesiton, the the little lounger jets are not really jets in the sundance (jacuzzi) tubs. They are just bubble ports so there is no parts in them to break. Just air. they do give a good subtle massage though.

yes, it can take a little while to reduce the bromine level after shocking. You should do it during the day when the sun is out as that will help lower it as well. I usually run it for 2 cycles (40 minutes) then cover it back up if i don't plan on using it. I take the floater out if it's still high and check it the next day. it's usally ok by then.

my 350 gallon sundace altmar only takes about 3-6 hours to heat up from fresh fill (60 degree water) depending on the time of year. If i was going to be gone for more than 4 weeks i'd definately drain it. Otherwise like WB stated 3 step bromine works great. For extended absences you can go with two floater on 1/2 the normal release setting to get longer lasting tablets.

I don't know anything about the silkl balance and i bet not many do which is why you haven't recieved any replys. However it looks like you are maintaining a proper pH and cholrine level (perhaps slightly high?) so you should be safe. There are much simplier and cheaper methods you can use such as the dichlor/bleach and 3 step bromine. There are detailed stickies at the top of this forum that describe them very well and their benefits. Watchout for using dichlor exclusively as you can build up too muchCYA which reduces the effectiveness of the chlorine. Gentle spa is great but you could also just use 20 mule team borax with acid for less money. it will help stabilize you pH as well as give you the nice feeling on your skin.

Thebromine is not bad at all. I have no issues with the bromine smell or coughing or any of that. Three step is really easy. With my floater i hardly every have to add anything except a bi-weekly shocking with bleach. My usage is about the same as yours. I do use borax which is a big help in keeping stable pH and my TA at 60-70. I use baking soda maybe once or twice a month when the TA gets under 50. If i have a large bather load spike (kids are in or such) i'll add 1/8 cup of bleach afterward. Very easy maintenance. i test with a taylor bromine kit and couldn't do without it.

if you have a light bather load (1 person a couple hours a week like me) you will likely be able to get away with not adding bleach/mps after a soak. If you are higher load then yes you will have add bleach after the soak. My floater keeps up with my tub but like i said, i use it for a half hour every other day or so my usuage is low. If the kids go in or i have more usage i will add 1/4 to 1/2 cup of bleach when done. Then test before your next soak and adjust the amount of bleach added.