SiriusPwr

doing more research on this Prevent 2 Sequestering agent, manual and bottle says it prevents staining and scaling on heaters and plumbing. when i look further into it, it says these compounds combine with metal ions, like Calcium, to substantially inactivate the ion. So by me adding the sequestering agent at the beginning kept breaking down the calcium added. gotta treat chemicals like food ingredients, Less is better. Can't wait till next fill up, 3rd time is a charm.. Thx Greenhorn for questioning the use of the prevent 2.

i'd like to see TA of a 100 and PH of 7.4 and a CH of 150-250. Going by the manual of the H2X swim spa it said to add prevent 2 only when fully refilling the tub. The iron in my well is extremely high (don't have numbers off hand but eyes bulged when i told water specialists) I have to take apart my house jet pump once a year and flush it out. the amount of iron sludge that comes out is insane. My water goes through 6 stages of filtration before hitting my taps and still a tiny bit of iron trickles through. this afternoon i just made a bypass in my water system that will allow me to fill the tub just before my water gets softened, it will have a CH of 125 after going through 5 stages and insignificant amounts of iron. Saves me $100 not having to call the water truck. Its just nerve racking not to know why my CH level is not increasing... I've now put double the amount specified and only increased 25-30ppm. Yes, cal-rise is calcium chloride. Its good to know that it won't be affecting my TDS within the 6 months. My ALk is now 105 and my PH is 7.5 I'm adding my dichlor , the hell with the CH level.

Second year with the tub and constantly learning so I'm still fairly new at this. I'm on well water with very high iron so i had potable water trucked in. I added prevent 2 (Sequestering agent) while the tub was being filled. The next day i realized that the water trucked in was soft water after checking with my Lamotte colour Q7 digital tester. it was showing 30ppm of calcium hardness. My ALK was at about 60 and PH about 7.8. i added ALK rise and went to 100ppm so i then started to add Cal-rise. First off i got "pool calcium rise" in a 1.7kg container. i was told at the store that its the same stuff for pool and spas. For my 5000L swim spa i was to use 1kg of cal-rise. i did just that, jets on high, waited about hour and tested and only went up 10ppm. waited another 3hours another 10ppm. waited another 3 hours and no change. i dumped the rest in so total of 1.7kg and few more hours went to 60ppm. a day later its still at around 55-65ppm. Today my PH is higher at 8.1ppm so i added some PH reducer. I haven't added any dichlor just yet, i wanted to get my ALK,PH, and CH right before i go any further. My question is why is the CH not rising up? do i need another 1.7kg ? And by me adding all this Calcium am i greatly increasing my TDS?

Hey chem geek, thx for response. I've read a few of your comments on other topics and you know your stuff! Ok so that makes total sense, My ozonator is running with a filter cycle.. By default It's programmed to come on every 2 hours.. Not sure how long the cycle last but I'm thinking around 20min or so.. I will change setting to every 6 hours and watch for change in free chlorine.. Also I will start to add more lithium after each use. However why is my alkalinity and calcium hardness low?? I'm adding the alk-rise and cal-rise and it will go up after about 2 hours but then 6 hours later or next day it's 20ppm lower. I read that ph levels will be bouncy until alkalinity is in proper range.. So I want to get alk and CH in proper range..

Ok first off I've been reading some great reviews on this forum from a lot of knowledge people.. Great that people share their experience.. I recently purchased a used H2X crosstrainer 2 swimspa.. It's roughly holds 5000L of water. It has an corona discharge ozonator. Went to a dealer and they got me started on all the chemicals.. All of the products are from spaboss lithium, non chlorine spa - shock, prevent 2, filter cleaner. So I was told to spa- shock and prevent 2 (removes metals, cloudy water, helps to keep parts clean)once a week. 3 or 4 teaspoons and 3-4 small cap fulls of prevent 2. If I read what the directions say for my size spa I would need like 30 teaspoons and about 10 cap fulls .. After each use 1 teaspoon of lithium per person.. If I go by the products direction I would need about 7-8 per use. I questioned the dealer and he said that because it has an ozonator I'm ok using less chemicals.. Also questioned that when I was using the test strips that chlorine didn't even registered, said that's normal because I'm using lithium and it only has 35% chlorine.. Alright so I continued to do what he recommended for about 2 weeks until my daughter got red little pimples behind her ears and a little on her neck.. We both stopped going in and I started doing research.. The pimples never got worse and cleared up after a few days.. So I don't think it was the hot tub itch but maybe another form of bacteria.. I got tired of using dip strips that I was unsure of results and bought a lamotte colour q7 liquid tester.. So my findings so far is ph is around 8, alkalinity about 75ppm, calcium hardness 80ppm, free chlorine 0.10 , total chlorine .20 and cyanuric acid 2ppm.. I got a ph reducer because I'm using the lithium which is not ph balanced , I got a alk-rise and a cal-rise. I started off small.. If I go by the instructions on the bottle I would pretty much dump the entire container 700mg because my spa is 5000L.. I also added about 7 teaspoons of lithium, I did another water test after a few hours and noticed ph was good 7.5, alk-86, ch-98, free chlorine was .30 and total chlorine was .60 , I then added a few more cap fulls of cal-rise and alk-rise, checked after a couple hours alk- 86 and ch-110 Water looked good so me and 2 buddies jumped in.. I keep the water at 98F because my 4 year old daughter comes in with me and I don't want her over heating.. So after about 2 hours we all got out.. I checked the levels again - free ch -0 , total chlorine .06 , ph 7.7, alk 80 and ch 93.. So I'm thinking because we were in the tub our bacteria ate all the chlorine??? What about alk and ch why did that drop?? About 2 hours later without putting anything in the tub just the jets on moving water around I tested again, and alk is at 93 and ch is at 117. Free chlorine .07 and total chlorine .14 , ph 7.9. Is this normal? The levels raise on there own? Why is the alkalinity so low and the calcium hardness so low? If I go by the products recommendations I will be using chemical containers every couple of weeks.. Is this normal for these swim spas? Just some more info, it was a used unit not even 2 years old, looks brand new, replaced filters with brand new ones, freshly filled with potable water from a water truck, I keep temp. about 98F, it has a corona discharge ozonator which I haven't checked if its producing enough ozone but I'm getting a kit next week.. I must be over thinking all this because I've talked to a few spa shops and they don't seemed concerned with low alk or ch.. Even though I read that it needs to be in the range of alk=80-150 and CH=180-250 They basically say if the water looks good get in.. After all the reading I've done in the last 2weeks, I disagree.. All the levels are important.. One last question my cyanuric acid is low at 2 and I red that should be around 20-30.. Was thinking if I use dichlor once a month just to increase CYA and then continue with lithium??? Any help would be great..