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There's going to be some quat bandwagon effect as different mfgs suddenly wake up and try to ride someone elses shirt tails. It takes more than a few fear quotes and references to things we already know about to convince me that they truly understand the nuances of hot tubs and portable spas and how to control biofilms in them. Quats are used all the time in restaurants for surface cleaning, for example, so there's realky nothing new here. For me to test this i would need (1) epa registration which verifies that the product is safe and effective and that the label tells the truth and (2) demostrated primary knowledge of biofilms in the applications we care about, not just repeating what others have said. Those of us who have really studied these things have a rather high standard . Just personally i don't have interest in it, but if the two conditions are met then ill take them seriously. Are they epa registered for residential spas and hot tubs?

What chlorine levels are you running and how are u testing? Did you achieve ahhsome dosed spa, with filters in their normal positions, releasing no new material?

by the way -- be easy on spa stores that tell you not to use bleach. they are just trained by their respective big-label partners and they fear the unknown. they have been taught that bleach will destroy your shell and cause all kinds of apocalyptic doom. just remember that they are well-meaning, even if mis-informed, and that the big labels know that a gallon of 6% sodium hypo is like US $4, when they can charge you $18 for a bottle of dichlor. yea you gotta take responsibility for not splashing bleach on your shell, and you have to know about CYA as well, just as you do if you want to use pool chlorine.

its quite common for an ahh-some purge to produce more material than any other product. yes I agree with RD -- purge again until you get an ah-some dosed spa with no new material released

you should consider the "ppm level of your bromine bank" separately from actual bromine levels. if you have a large enough bank (label directions) then you can forget the tablets and floaters and just use regular dichlor just like the chlorine guys do. if you know how to calculate the amount of dichlor that will produce 3ppm of chlorine in a chlorine aps -- just use that same amount. the bromide bank will do the magic and produce the correspondingly safe level of bromine.

Below is a link to my spa purge blog where I discuss a number of fun things, including ahh-some and its competitors. "part 6" of the series is where i show a photo of my PVC pipe holding my filters in place while in the ahh-some dosed vessel. While this technique is successful, I might try your trick and hang a weight onto the pipe. the length of pipe is carefully chosen to correspond with the contours of the vessel in order to keep the area in front of the skimmer weir clear. https://boisediesel.com/blog/2019/10/ahhsome-vs-leisure-time-and-proline

if you follow the label directions for ahh-some you find that it should be used with chlorine. I dose with 20ppm chlorine whenever I purge. don't separate the two! upon the new fill, there is no harm in dosing to 10-ishppm just for extra margin, but you'll have to leave the cover off (to attract sunlight) or neutralize with 'peroxide to get the chlorine levels down to where you can get in.

A few thoughts: ozone is a strong oxidizer and, even in a chlorine spa, creates localized oxidation of contaminants that chlorine misses. but I rather agree with RD -- ozone eats chlorine so its kind of a catch-22. I turned my ozone generator off when I'm using chlorine. ozone with bromine is quite another matter 🙂 Cassie -- yes, even though I am a fan of Serum I would start simple in your case. first, purge multiple times until the recommended ahh-some dose produces no new material and your filters are in their normal positions (what I call the cleanest spa known to man). then balance pH (dont' target TA), treat for metals only if that is a problem, turn the SWG off and use straight dichlor at 3ppm.

Sorry for the delay im not going to have access to the forum for a few more days. Bleach works.... just don't use the anti splash. Just pure unadulterated regular sodium hypochlorite 6% .

Nicely done keith01! Yes I too find that wiping up the residue (rinse microfiber cloth in separate bucket of ahhsome) works good. Youll end up wiping it down anyway so best to do that when its easy. Submerging the filters is clever too! They might get damaged from banging around so folks should beware of that. That's why i use pvc pipe. I might try weighting down my pvc pipe and get the best of both worlds. If you really want to get ocd , run your jets with filters installed in their normal positions (on the 3rd purge where no new material is released) and force the ahhsome dosed water through the media itself. I have ceramic filters so they can take it. Be careful with other media types im not sure i would risk it. This is very satisfying indeed! Congratulations on your success! You have crossed the threshold, and gained the victory! Oh, and p.s. wear gloves and dose with bleach during the purge for a more complete kill

Oooh yay bromine. Haven't got time now but just read up on chlorine spas with granular dichlor. Then put sodium bromide salts in and maintain just like the chlorine crowd Don't get distracted by floaters or tablets or the texas 2 step method 😀

this is a good opportunity to "over purge" if you will, to help rule out the factor of biofilms. one thing we know -- you got better. So you could still have biofilms in your spa. all automatic dispensing mechanisms cover this up by "over sanitizing" to compensate for the sanitizer consumed by the biofilms themselves. you mentioned a test for biofilms -- they exist but are very expensive and wouldn't change your protocol here anyway. the closest thing to a test for biofilms is the 'sanitizer decay' rate test which looks for decay rates above normal. but in this situation we don't have a "normal" baseline so we can't rely on that test. you could shut down the chlorine generator and see how fast things go to zero, but with Serum in the water tha test is confounded as well. so you're kind in deep water here re: your ability to test for biofilms. what you can/should do is repeated purges . I would also (on each purge) extend the soak time to overnight (spa dosed with ahh-some, chlorine at 50ppm with bleach). I would perform at least two more -- so one purge right away, drain/refill and dose with ahh-some again, but this time put the filters into their normal positions (assuming you get no new release). run the jets for 30-60 min with water dosed with ahh-some and chlorine -- wipe up any residue that you find. your goal is an ahh-some dosed spa, with filters in their normal positions, and releasing no new material. Also here is a trick I found that works -- I would do this on your first purge if you dont get much release -- double up on the ahh-some dose and to control the foam just use an ordinary foam-down type product. this will increase the strength of the Quaternary ammonium Cations in there for even more biofilim releasing goodness. When doing this trick -- only use as much foam down as needed to keep from becoming the region's foam distribution center - some foam is good because thats the surfactants working.

I think the combustible byproduct here is hydrogen gas which, if trapped inside of a filter could create some excitement if a spark was nearby. normally it harmlessly evaporates into the air. I'm not aware that elemental sodium itself is created -- that would truly be a disaster because sodium is highly unstable in water that is absolutely true. Back in the day, high school chemistry pranksters were known to take elemental sodium from the lab (it can be stored in oil), wrap it in some layers of tape or something, and flush it down the toilet.. if the plumbing itself stays in place (instead of blowing it up) you get explosions of water all over the place. anyway now you've got me curious -- if some elemental sodium is created when NaCL is converted to Sodium hypoclorite then I'd like to know, for sure. the primary byproducts of electrolysis here are hypobromous acid itself and sodium hypo, which are both good things. One of the advantages of salt water chlorine generators is that they create a localized high-concentration of chlorine in the cell, that oxidizes chlormaines. but the disadvantage is that you have to swim in salt water. But in any case I'm in favor of simplicity here -- maybe there is some issue with the hydrogen outgassing or the combination of that and salt water? I don't know but I'm with RD here -- as an experiment, lets get your spa back to the simplest possible chemistry, with ordinary dichlor in balanced water. another bonus of doing such a conversion is that you can dose with ahh-some and sneak in another purge. I would still not rule out a biofilm contamination, but your next ahh-some purge should give you some insights there (does it release anything). while we're jumping ahead of ourselves here you have another card to play -- bromine. but lets get you back to straight traditional chlorine first,. no salt in the water just pure unadulterated balanced water with 3--ish ppm chlorine. if you are allergic to the chlorine then add some sodium bromide salts and convert your (still dichlor) spa into bromine.

You could consider bromine. its a bummer that some of us just can't handle the chlorine and then we get into trouble when our skin tells us to keep sanitizer levels low, but the biofilms tell us to keep things high. current state-of-the-art now over at the trouble free pool side is 5ppm free chlorine! thats on account, in part anyway, that biofilms have been shown to survive in the traditional 1-3ppm chlorine levels. so you have a catch 22. and then the mfgs come along hat-in-hand selling elixirs and promising certain victory if you spend more money . some have great success with minerals, so I would encourage you to experiment with silver, anyway, combined with a traditional halogen sanitizer. frankly these are the only things guarenteed/known/tested to kill the pathogens in reasonable amounts of time. the other options which I am currently using in my owns spa is this Hot Tub Serum stuff. its basically a weak formulation of ahh-some without the foam-producing surfactants and some other goodies in there that they won't reveal, but frankly this stuff is the bees knees in my spa right now. it eliminates the problem of "lower" sanitizer levels, because its a companion/maintenance product. So for me I'd investigate either Serum or Silver, with either Chlorine or Bromine. thats a lot of combinations to try, although my personal favorite is bromine and Serum . that and RD's advice to change frequently -- there's really very little virtue in the extended drain cycles. By the way - I'm not a fan of ozone with chlorine because ozone eats chlorine. but its wonderful for bromine because it actually aids in the conversion of bromide salts to bromine.

I experimented with borates awhile back and learned that they are much like switching from a manual transmission to an auto -- you don't really appreciate the automation until you've perfected the manual approach yourself. the other thing I learned is that a pH buffer is just that -- a buffer -- which means it won't cut down on the actual amount of acid you will use to keep pH in control over the long haul -- it just smooths out the process. The other important learning is that using Boric Acid is very different from using Borax the cleaner found at the grocery store. I had good success with the Boric Acid, which I purchased from Duda Diesel think it was, but in the end the benefit just wasn't worth the trouble. btw, using Borax is much trickier because that stuff is net pH positive so you have to start with a relatively low pH. and to think that Silk Balance but ordinary grocery-store borax into a really expensive container and called it "Clean Start"! Since I wrote about that a few years ago they have changed the Clean Start formula to a weak "QUAT" which is rather like "O -yuk" -- an inexpensive chemical that does something, but pales in comparison to ahh-some. So, what all this means -- you'll have to continue to beat down your pH with dry acid. perhaps the boric acid helps for the smaller vessel sizes I don't know - my spa is 500 gallons and I have taken to controlling pH without it. frankly I "switch to bleach" later than 30ppm because di-chlor is net pH "almost neutral but slightly negative" , and I'm using Bromine and Hot Tub Serum which are both immune to the CYA problem as well. Bromine is also a benefit, over chlorine, in the task of controlling pH drift. by the way ,the Hot Tub Serum is the real deal -- I'm getting fantastic results, great water clarity due to its inherent properties, and my water is six months old. Seriously, my water has gone to zero sanitizer and the Serum keeps chanting "death to biofilms!" lol I also find that chasing TA is like a dog chasing its tail. I never target TA and by all means I never raise it -- the impact on pH is just too big, and you end up beating it down anyway with dry acid. For an Acrylic Hot tub you can let the saturation index go negative - -yes thats right, negative. so low CA, and low TA, which is enough to make some heads explode but unless your system manufacturer indicates a warranty issue I wouldn't get wrapped around the axle over a negative SI. My spa mfg, for example, specifies 50 ppm TA minimum so I do follow that.

I usually measure out the amount of dichlor that will produce 30 ish ppm in my spa. Set that aside. When it is used up i switch to bleach. An amusing post script to this is that i cant find bleach today because of the horders so i am using dichlor agsin. However im also using Hot Tub Serum which contains a mild bacteriacide that is immune to the CYA problem. Six months and my water is as clear as first fill and my sanitizer decay rate is crazy good

Without steeling RDs thunder i can say that when the "switch to bleach" method was gaining traction and spa store heads were exploding, one of the early criticisms was upward pH drift. Then came the research into using borates as a pH buffer to help, and many have dialed that in pretty well. Im doing the same as you snaxmuppet....i just use a little more bisulfste . Watch your TA ... let it drop naturally with use of bisulfate but if it gets too low (below 50) you risk a precipitous pH drop through the floor. Youre still using dichlor at first right? Its not good to use straight bleach without 30ppm CYA present....

Yowsa dude its cool to be back here and see information goodness

you're not alone -- others have been in your shoes and its just sad to me that the mfgs have their head in the sand. There was a situation I think it was last fall where some people in N Carolina actually died from legionaries disease, believed to be caused by display hot tubs from showroom floors. While I don't know for sure, my guess is that a dealer drained a showroom demo spa and transported it to the fair. https://www.legionnairesdiseasenews.com/2020/02/hot-tub-display-state-fair-legionnaires/ In any case RD is right -- these things are highly preventable with proper maintenance. What the industry won't recognize is that these bacteria get trapped inside biofilms and can stay in your tub for, well, until you use the ahh-some procedure to get them. I say that because at this moment ahh-some is the only EPA registered spa purge product (that I know of) ,which means it has been verified to do what it says: the label tells the truth and the stuff is safe to use. My protocol is: don't let your water 'go to pot' just because you are going to purge. maintain things carefully as if you were using the tub. RD -- anything special to do with the salt system here? dose with ahh-some. follow label directions although I would suggest dosing with ordinary clorox bleach to at least 20ppm. For you thats approximately 3 cups of liquid grocery store bleach (regular unscented -- stay away from the no splash flavor as well). sounds like you already have some liquid chlorine so I'm sure you can use that in whatever concentration is appropriate -- you'll have to figure that out but your goal is 20-ish ppm. Yes -- take your filter(s) out and put them into the ahh-some dosed vessel, since they are contaminated too. put them on a length of PVC pipe (see my blog) if they don't behave themselves in there. most people forget about the filters -- if you look at part 2 of my blog you will see that filter media also harbor biofilms and they need purging too. Specifically I purged with ahh-some but cleaned my filters in a normal filter cleaning solution (outside the spa). then I put them back into the spa and got more material release. that told me that whatever was in the filters didn't get touched by the de-greaser so it wasn't skin oils -- had to be biofim. run the jets and drain per label directions. I would also mix (in a separate bucket) a clean mixture of ahh-some (tough to mix since its a gel, but doable) and a strong concentration of chlorine. use this to wipe everything down. make sure to wear gloves and a mask because you are dealing with confirmed pathogens in your case I think it would be important to refill, and purge with ahh-some a second time. do this until you get no more release (this takes patience) In my experiments I found that ahh-some released a boat load more material after o-yuk has done what it could. be prepared for more gunk and be prepared for maybe even more than 2 purges -- you have to decide based on what ahh-some releases. I have coached others through as many as 15 (yes fifteen) purge cycles when you are certain that your ahh-some dosed water is releasing no new material, put your filters back into their normal positions. then run the jets and wipe up any new material with a microfiber cloth, rinsing in the ahh-some solution you prepared earlier. your goal is an ahh-some and chlorine dosed spa, releasing no new material with filters in their normal positions. that is the cleanest spa known to man. when you achieve this, then drain, wipe everything down again, and start over with new fill water (note: its possible, depending on how well you spa drains, that you might have to do a partial 2nd drain). Note that small amounts of ahh-some are not harmful and actually a good thing. the reason you don't very much in your water is because of the foam. I think in your case I would seek out a dermatologist. I mean it sounds to me like the common "hot tub rash" which is often pseudomonas but no matter what the cause -- the cure for the hot tube is still the same, but a doctor is going to have to address the medical component 🙂

this is spot on. The reason why , in my opinion of course, you are experiencing this hot tub rash in spite of your careful attention to chemistry is 1. Bacteria such as this live in the presence of chlorine because they are protected by biofilms shipped with your tub 2. O yuk did not get the biofilms responsible for protecting the bad guys even though you used chlorine. Run from o yuk! Use ahhsome. It is EPA registered for this purpose. We may or may not be right about the actual bacteria itself. Presumably a doctor would have known about this possibility. But whatever the bad guy is i think being conservative is best here and you should treat as if you actually do have pseudomonas infection in your water, pipes or what have you. Clearly you don't want this in your lungs (pseudomonas travels via aerosolization) so wear gloves and mask when purging with ahhsome.

Wow finally! Someone who gets it.

Oh No....o yuk is horrible and very weak (read my blog i tested this head to head with ahhsome.). Even the label directions indicate that the company is clueless . They dont know how biofilms work and the spa store probably has a telationship with the distributor . Ahhsome will wipe the floor compared to o yuk. Im sorry but o yuk is an over sold under performing product that just doesn't do it. Here is my test write up: https://boisediesel.com/blog/2018/10/ohyuk I highly encourage you to get some ahhsome asap. Keep us informed here and we will help. Im sorry you are facing this medical problem . Most retailers are clueless.... they only know what the big labels tell them and train them with. Many manufacturers are willfully looking the other way. Watkins is one of them....i know because ive talked to them about this very problem. They refuse to admit that wet testing at the factory followed by storage and transportation delays is a petri dish for bad guys. I would stop using your spa untill you purge with ahhsome. Dont drain....you will dose with ahhsome first

Im afraid that even the decon procedures that many use (essentially 100ppm chlorine) are not bad they just dont actually remove biofilms. In a nutshell its like sending in the marines (high chlorine levels) too soon. You need to soften up the battlefield with b52 carpet bombers (ahhsome purge) so that the marines can move in for a complete kill. The ahhsome label directions show an understanding of this: basically you dose with ahhsome and chlorine at the same time. Ahhsome breaks down the outer layers of the biofilm and releases them while chlorine is there for the kill. Also one thing to note: biofilms have been shown to survive and even grow in 1-3ppm chlorine

Well....let me just suggest one word: biofilms. Cant say for sure but Im not convinced this is a chemical problem . My own hot spring spa was delivered new from the factory contaminated with biofilms. My story is long but the bottom line is that for me the issue was that water maintenance was horrible. In your case its possible that you may need to deep clean your new spa because biofilms are providing safe harbor protection for the actuall bad guys that are hurting you. Do you have a medical diagnosis? Decontamination procedures prescribed by spa stores are generally insufficient because they dont actually kill the bad guys they just attenuate them. What procedure did u follow? I suggest a deep clean purge with a product called 'ahhsome". For the back story on my experience with biofilms and purging please see my hobby photography blog https://boisediesel.com/blog/2016/7/spa-purge

oh no problem -- I think its just terminology thats getting in the way. bromine: a highly toxic element, in the Periodic Table with atomic number 35, that should never enter your spa and you should never touch it. no spa or spa show room will ever have elemental bromine anywhere near a human being 🙂 hypobromous acid: the halogen sanitizer present in a "bromine spa", which is a relative of hypochlorous acid ("chlorine"). its what kills the bad guys sodium bromide: the salt that is used in the chemical reaction to produce hypobromous acid via some oxidizer (like MPS, Chlorine, or Ozone). for purposes of discussion it is best to use the term, "bromine" to refer to the sanitizer that does the work, i.e. hypobromous acid. Spa showrooms are notorious for confusing terms and selling you "bromine" when that could be either of three things: (1) actual sodium bromide salts, (2) brominating granules, or (3) bromine tablets. the last two (granules and tablets) are typically a combination of chlorine and sodium bromide in expensive containers. when you operate a bromine spa you are indeed avoiding "chlorine" for the intended purpose of choosing "bromine" over "chlorine". its just that chlorine is an intermediate step to producing the bromine! when the conversion from bromide salts to bromine is complete, there is no longer any chlorine in the water -- assuming a sufficient bromide bank of course, ALL of the chlorine you add to the water is consumed in the process of making bromine. the only way you will have chlorine in the water is if there is insufficient bromide salts in the water -- in this case the chlorine oxidizer will convert what it can to bromine, and the remainder will still be chlorine. typically, this is only an issue if you are using the 85/15 "bromine granules": when you put your first teaspoon of this stuff in the water, there is not enough bromide to produce a bromine spa. ergo, you have a combination bromine and chlorine spa. after you keep dumping in teaspoons of 85/15, the "15" (sodium bromide) will build up and you'll have a bromine spa after several applications but not before. This formulation is marketed as an easy "1-step" bromine sanitizer but makes some compromises that I pointed out earlier. the magic of bromine, if you will, is that when bromine sanitizer (hypobromous acid) does its work (kills the bad guys) it returns to the water as sodium bromide. so you have this veritable circle of life going on: Bromide-->bromine-->Bromide going on. so if you start out with sufficient bromide salts in the water (a "bromine start-up" product, which is just sodium bromide) then when you add chlorine to your water -- ALL of the chlorine you add will be used to convert bromide to hypobromous acid (the "bromine" sanitizer). Then, when the bromine sanitizer gets used up, it will return to the bromide bank to be used all over again. the conversion from bromide to bromine is not instantaneous but for all practical purposes it is -- you can tell by the fresh bromine smell of your water. The last time I looked into this, if memory serves, the conversion process was on the order of seconds. just keep in mind that you are not adding "bromine" to your water: you pre-treat with a bromide bank and then add chlorine as an oxidizer that converts the bromide salts to bromine sanitizer (hypobromous acid). its true that the above is not a perfect perpetual motion machine with no losses. the bromide bank doesn't stay "the same size" for most part, however, this is a "don't care" because you can just add more bromide salts to the water (or add enough to begin with). The bonus of bromine sanitizer is that when it "used" it does not produce the chloramine byproducts as chlorine sanitizer does --it turns back into bromide salts! yea there are some byproducts, but they aren't as nasty as the the chloramines and are easily addressed with occasional use of MPS as the oxidizer. my understanding is that MPS prolongs the conversion, so that MPS acts as MPS longer in the presence of bromide -- thus giving it a better chance of attacking bromine by products. of course, "shocking" a bromine spa is much like shocking a chlorine spa -- you just end up with a high sanitizer level. Im afraid I'm not following you re: bromine losing "strength". when it kills bad guys, hypobromous acid returns to the combination of some byproducts of oxidation and sodium bromide salts, the latter of which is then reactivated next time you add an oxidizer (such as dichlor or MPS). the lunch isn't entirely free, and its always a good idea to oxidize from time to time with a non-chlorine compound (like MPS) because that will go after the 'some byproducts' piece of the equation. so -- does bromine actually "disappear" after a while? well --- hypobromous acid (the bromine sanitizer) will get converted back to sodium bromide salts, with some imperfect losses. in that sense it "disappears" until it is oxidized again, into hypobromous acid. does bromine "loose strength": well just like its hypochlorous acid cousin, , hypobromous acid (the bromine sanitizer) gets consumed when it attacks bad guys, and thats why sanitizer levels go down. Probably the expression "bromine looses strength" could refer to the fact that the sodium bromide bank can become depleted --- which is why we start with a big one 🙂. as a matter of practicality I have never encountered this problem throughout the useful drain interval of a bromine spa. And in fact is so easy to fix its just not a "thing" in my mind -- its just sodium bromide.