diggerdan4

So it seems to be improving every night. I still have not sat in tub yet, trying to get a good baseline on the CD, Maybe tomorrow night! Last night I shocked and checked 30 minutes later and got a reading of 11ppm. Tonight I checked and got a reading of 7ppm which is 34% CD. Should I try to be shocking again tonight adding another 3ppm and bring it back up to 10ppm or just let it ride and check again tomorrow to see where it ends up and calc CD from there? If all 5 of my family members are gonna sit in it tomorrow night for 30-45 minutes how many ppm do I want to shoot for when entering the spa?

I have used it 3 times now and this time when I changed the water I used Sea Klear Flush.

I know it seems wierd, but if you google it, bleach baths are being recomended by dermotolgist and the Mayo Clinic. I have never tried it so cant say one way or the other. Not saying the Ozonator is causing skin problems, thinking it may be depleting the Chlorine levels more rapidly causing the higher CD. Its been 24hours now since I shocked to 15ppm so I checked chlorine level and is now at 4.4ppm or 71% CD. Still very High CD but seems to be getting better. Do you think this will keep improving?

I have been recently having some skin problems (Eczema) and hear that taking Bleach baths can actually help eczema, so on January 27th I drained our tub which has been a Bromine Tub. I flushed the tub (which I always do every water change)refilled, balanced and shocked our 550 gal tub with 1.2oz of Di-Chlor. I then let it run for 30 min and took a reading and was zero ppm. At this point I shocked again with another 1oz and after 30 min got a reading of 3ppm. Shocked again with 1oz more and brought up to 14ppm so at this point I let it sit for 16 hours checked and was back down to .5ppm or 96%CD. The next shock I gave it 1.8oz of dichlor which raised it to 14ppm checked 24 hours later and was back to .8ppm or 94%CD. At this point my CYA should be around 35ppm so I quit with the Dichlor. Yesterday I thought I would give it a good dose of MPS (3TBS) waited about 7 hours, then added 7.5oz of bleach (8.25%) and got a reading of 15ppm last night after running the bleach for 30 min. Today when I check it has been sitting for 14 hours so far and was at 7ppm or 47%CD. I will check again tonight at the 24 hour mark, but gonna guess it will be almost depleted again. We have not sat in the tub yet, trying to establish a Baseline first. Our tub is a Caldera Cantabria which does have an ozonator that runs 24/7 along with the recirc. pump. Not sure if I can unhook the ozonator or not or if this is what is causing my problems? I am looking for any advice at this point???? When we bought the tub new a year ago I made sure we flushed with awsome flush and shocked to 30ppm and left over night. We have always been very picky about our tub so would be surprised if its dirty, we have flushed every water change. I did also add 50ppm borates (boric acid) this time around yesterday morning gonna give it a try if I can get the tub up and going. Please let me know any advice you may have for me.

So I have been keeping an eye on bromine level this past week after adding the bromide bank of 30ppm and it seems to stay around 1.5-2.5 ppm with just the bromine bank and the Ozonator, I turned the frog bromine cartridge totally off and after about 24hrs after soak, it climbs back up in the 1.5ppm range we are looking for. Since it is climbing back up in this range do I need to still be shocking with MPS or bleach once a week. It seems like when ever I do so it climbs up in the 10 ppm range, but dont want to quit shocking if needed for sanitary purposes. What about if the frog bromine cartridge is on does this shock in any way or is this just adding to the Bromide bank? Also my PH has dropped a little now around 7.7 now so that is good, but am concerned about TA it seems to be down between 40-50ppm now testing with the Taylor K-2106 kit. Should I be concerned about this low TA? Should I do anything with the CH beings TA is so low it is around 100ppm

Chem Geek, Thanks for your response! So I checked everything tonight and here are the numbers I got using the Taylor K-2106: PH = 7.9 TA = 55 CH = 95 Our tub does have an Ozonator so with out being able to test our bromide bank on water top offs (normally about 2 weeks) should I be adding to the bank? If so your best guess at how much? If not using MPS to shock brimide bank, what would be your product of choice? Given the numbers above what process do I go through to get the TA up to 80 without raising the PH that is already too high? We sat in the tub last night and since we have flushed, super chlorinated, refilled and balanced noticed that a bunch of the rotating jets seem to not be rotating very well. Not sure if this is from the way I have the tub balanced this time or what is going on there, but I think I will remove the sticky ones and soak them in vinegar.

Fot got to mention above that I am on well water if this makes any difference. After Refill today, still having the same old trouble before adding anything to water I tested water I am sitting at TA = 50, PH = 7.6 and CH = 35. to start I added a little Metal and Scale approx 2oz. Then I added 1.2 oz Spa Down which dropped PH to 7.4 and dropped TA down to 30 So tried to get TA back up and added 3oz of baking soda which raised TA to 70 but raised PH up to 8 so now I am raising calcium up to about 110. which will put me at a CSI of .09 I was shooting for a PH of 7.6 TA of 100 and a CH of 110 for a CSI of .01. Would really love to get some advice from the experts here on what they would do with this. Seems like my TA wants to stay low which falls the entire time and brings PH down along with it. Also like I mentioned above I have a fairly heavy bather load so have been topping off (approx 2") every two weeks, Do I need to be adding to my bromine bank each top off? If I decide to add Borax, would I have to add to this every top off also?

So we have had our tub for two months now and last night opened cover and found it to be very cloudy. Two days prior it was perfectly clear! I added 3 TBS of MPS hoping this would clear it up and came out 10 minutes later to check on tub and was over flowing with bubbles! Today there is a bunch of white floating looking stuff and some yellow scum on walls. I figured it was time to use Nitros flush method which I am going to do tomorrow. By the way two weeks ago my TDS = 1000 PPM. My normal routine which I am not sure this is the way it is supposed to be or not has been to check PH and Bromine prior to every soak and TA 2-4 times a week. We have three kids so there are 3-5 of us that sit in the tub approx 5 days a week for 30-60 min each soak. I normally raise to TA to about 85, PH to 7.6, CH to 180 and try to keep bromine at 1-2ppm. We have a 550 Gal Caldera Cantabria tub with Ozinator and inline frog system. I have to add water every two weeks, usually a few inches of water in order to get back above the top sets of jets. Is this normal? We live in Oregon and temps right now are normally 40-50 degrees. During this two week period it is a steady decline for the TA and PH levels. By the time i have to add water which is every two weeks the TA = 60 and PH around 7.2 before water add and TA = 50 and PH = 6.9 after adding the 2" or so of water. So after adding water I add 3.1 oz of TA up or Baking soda which puts TA = 80-85 and PH = 7.6-7.7 and normally about 1.3oz of Calcium Chloride to get the CH level back up in the 180-190 range. I also normally add 1-2 TBS of MPS after each soak. Do this sound like a normal routine? It seems like I am constantly adding a lot of chemical which adds to the TDS. My TA & PH are always on a constant fall which is driving me crazy and the Bromine Levels always seem low which leads to another question, I started with a bromide bank of 30 ppm by adding Bromide Booster.....sodium bromide 99%. So every two weeks when I have to add water, do I need to be adding more sodium bromide to the bank? If so how much do I need to be adding? I really appreciate any advice. It seems like I am stuck in the same routine and am a rookie at this so I really could use some advise. I have learned a ton by reading this forum, but still have a lot to learn. Thank you for any help!

Hey fellas, I am brand new to this forum and also a new hot tub owner. I am having similar problems as the above tread and have since learned a lot about Bromide banks from these forums with all of you chemical wizards, so Thanks you all for that!!!! So I will list off what I started with and where I am now, but before I get started, let me say I knew nothing about flushing the tub before we did fill so the tub was never flushed and was on the Floor for about 3 months. So maybe you can also chirp in as to drain and start over or keep on going. I filled the Tub on Dec. 18, so about three weeks ago. Caldera Cantabria 550 Gallons Ozinator/recirc. pump run 24/7 So before filling this was the results from the water sample I took in from the outside hose spigot: Tot Brom: .24 PH :7.6 TA: 45 CH: 27 Iron: .1 TDS: 50 After this I filled tub and added all chemicals that the dealer suggested, What they did not tell me is anything about a bromide bank which is a seperate that I will deal with on another tread. I took a sample in a about 1.5 weeks later and results were as follows: Tot Brom: .36 PH : 8.1 TA: 46 CH: 182 Iron: .1 TDS: 400 I since have bought a kit if I remember correctly a Taylor 2105 and last night (Jan 8th) got as follows: Tot Brom: .5 PH : 7.8 TA: 70 CH: 200 Iron: .1 TDS: unable to measure So not sure what I should do at this point water is perfectly clear I guess I should elborate a little on the bromine. They gave me wrong chemicals to build a bromine bank (Spa Gruadr Brominating Concentrate which is 82.5% Sodium Di Chloro s-triazinetricone & 14.7% Sodium Bromide which I throw approx. 3 teaspoons in after each use with 3-5 users also shock once a week with MPS. I now have the correct stuff to build a bromide bank along with the inline Frog system built into the tub which has not done much good to this point because I have no bank built up but wanted to wait for comments on balancing before doing so. Sorry about the long post on my first one, but am looking for step by step directions on how to proceed or drain and start over? I should have all the chems I need now and can also by some Mule team 20 borax if needed. Thanks for any help!