Susanj

I’ve read that alkalinity and pH should not change that much and only need to be tested weekly. That’s not true of mine -it can be fine & I can go in alone for a half an hour and the next morning when I test ( with a drop kit) it’s way low. Is there something wrong that this indicates? Maybe it needs a change of water? It’s been 2 months.

Thank you! Water was changed two months ago. I use a drop kit to test.

I think I’ve read that alkalinity and pH should not change that much and only need to be tested weekly. That’s not true of mine -it can be fine & I can go in alone for a half an hour and the next morning when I test, it’s way low. Is there something wrong this indicates?

All of a sudden I’m getting spam emails that say they are coming from Pool and Spa Forum. With different airline names in the subject line and using toms of emojis. Today I counted 96 of them! What can I do to stop this?

Thank you. Connexion sounds good! Why do they keep talking about a dealer? You can just do wit with yourself and a smartphone, right? I called our local dealer (IHT) to get pricing and they don't have it but said they are Beta testing something else that also monitors chemicals.

I don’t really know that. All I know is it’s a 2016 Caldera Vacanza made by Watkins.

We have a hot tub in a vacation rental. Is there some kind of remote device that you can use to monitor it ? For instance, might let us know if the water is too cold.

I forgot to add that the first time it happened, we wondered if it was because the water was too low ( so didn’t activate the flow switch?). But I added water before it then happened again the 2nd time.

Thank you. I don’t think it’s a dirty filter, because in between the two times it happened we changed out the filter.

I’ve never noticed a heat indicator light, but yes, it went back up to the set temperature.

When a heater in a hot tub goes out, my repair guy said it doesn’t sputter -it dies and it trips the circuit. I got up to our hot tub at our vacation rental last week and it was 68°. We thought a guest may have fiddled with it, and put it into economy or sleep mode but once we reset the breaker it was fine . Then this week , when guests showed up, it was cold again, and there had been nobody there in the meantime to fiddle with it. Again , resetting the breaker helped. I’m wondering if this is an indication that our heater is going . It’s seven years old . Our manual says when it’s in one of those economy modes, the heater will still kick on if the temperature gets below 80 , yet ours had been 68°.

I do sometimes check it against the test strips, and in this case it agreed. I use the Frog brand test strips. Not sure that it’s necessary, but they say that a hot tub using the Frog products does not test the same way as a hot tub using Dichlor .” Other test strips may tell you that your free chlorine level is low and your spa has a high total chlorine level which normally means it’s time to shock . This can be confusing because the Frog system uses a chlorine reserve to pull chlorine from when it needs to , over a 2-4 week period, so a high total chlorine is completely normal, and does not require a shock to be used . Frog test strips do not measure free chlorine. Why ? because the free chlorine remains consistently at .5 to 1.0 so there is no need to test.” ( I still do). It creates a reserve that converts to free chlorine when it senses a demand - it is self-regulating . The reserve will start high and slowly deplete over the life of the cartridge as it converts to free chlorine when needed.”

Can someone figure this out for me? The hot tub in our vacation rental had no use for 2 weeks ( place was empty) . When I got here , the Frog chlorine cartridge was empty , yet the reading was very high- 10 ppm.

And I thought it was just a marketing ploy to sell more of their test strips. Why should I use FROG @ease Test Strips with my FROG @ease system? A hot tub using FROG @ease does not test the same way as a hot tub using dichlor FROG @ease uses a unique chlorine, SmartChlor Technology, plus minerals to maintain a consistent low chlorine level and keep your hot tub water Cleaner, Clearer and Softer FROG @ease Test Strips were designed especially with an Out Indicator, a one-color match that designates when the SmartChlor Cartridge is empty. They also measure Total Alkalinity, pH, and Total Hardness levels for proper water balance When the FROG @ease Test Strip is lighter than the Out Indicator color block, located on the test strip bottle, it’s time to replace the SmartChlor Cartridge FROG Test Strips do not measure Free Chlorine Why? Since the Free Chlorine remains consistently at 0.5–1.0 ppm there is no need to test for it SmartChlor creates a reserve that converts to Free Chlorine when it senses the demand, it’s self-regulating. The reserve will start high and slowly deplete over the life of the cartridge as it converts to Free Chlorine when needed – no action required With standard chlorine, like dichlor, you must maintain a Free Chlorine level of 2.0 – 4.0 pm, much higher than FROG @ease, and you need to shock when the Total Chlorine level is higher than the Free Chlorine. With SmartChlor, Total Chlorine will always be higher than Free Chlorine until the Cartridge is empty. Total chlorine is represented by the SmartChlor reserve that is slowly used up over the life of the cartridge. Yes it's expensive but what I like is that with the chlorine they use, there is no CYA added so that's one less thing you have to watch and test for. We usually use non-chlorine shock. You can use Dichlor they say, but if you use it too often , then there's the CYA.

The manufacturer says to replace the mineral cartridge every 3 months OR with each fill. So we do it with each fill.

Why do you replace your chlorine cartridge before it’s empty, keeping the old one in the spa for a bit longer? Because my hot tub is in a vacation rental, we refill about every 4-6 weeks, so yes, replacing the mineral cartridge each time gets expensive. I have been buying through Amazon. Has anyone found a less expensive source?

One question- I use a Taylor test kit but the manufacturer of the Frog system told me that for chlorine , at least, I need to use the Frog @Ease test strips, or I’ll get an inaccurate reading. Is this just a marketing thing to sell more test strips?

My chlorine cartridges only seem to last about 3 weeks, even without much use of the spa. So ya, it gets expensive!

I use this system and yes it’s expensive but it’s pretty trouble free and works well. It’s the only chlorine I’ve ever used -before this I used a bromine floater and it wasn’t doing as good of a job , especially because my hot tub is in a vacation rental. The instructions say to replace the blue mineral cartridge with each refill which is usually 3 to 4 months in a home spa but at ours we refill more often, and so it gets expensive. I am wondering if I can do without the mineral cartridge.

I use Spa Up ( baking soda) and Spa Down. Sometimes I have high pH (8) and low alkalinity (below 40). I would use Spa Up to get Alk higher than I wanted , then use Spa Down which dropped both but dropped pH more than Alk . is that the only way to do it? A few times recently , I balance and then don’t use the spa and check again the next day and the pH has dropped way low- the test color is yellow (7 or lower). I think it may be because we’ve been keeping alkalinity at 40-50. That’s what it seems it wants to be. It was never a problem when we used bromine , but are now using chlorine. And I’ve always read if alkalinity isn’t at correct level, you’ll have trouble maintaining the others.

I didn’t notice an odor ( though my sense of smell may be affected by a current case of Covid!) but it was very sticky. After re-filling, what came up in the filter basket were a few pieces of what I’d expect biofilm to look like- thin irregular patches , brown colored , like a thin sheet that might have peeled off.

This yellow stuff stained the 5 rags I used and bleach didn’t get it out. Nor did Oxy clean. Guess it’s paper towels next time.

When you do a jet clean, is it always yellow gunk that comes out, like it does when I use Ahh-Some? I have cleaned off that yellow stuff at the water line a few times . Was that a sign it needed to be drained? I’ve read about wiping the shell with a cleaner before refilling. Is that really necessary? Seems to me it’d be difficult to clean it off thoroughly before refilling. TIA!

Does anyone here have a saltwater system hot tub or pool? I just came back from a vacation rental in Florida and didn’t get an answer from the host when I asked if that’s what it was . When I licked my lips I could taste salt and I wondered if it was just sweating in the humidity (I’m from Denver), but then we realized it hardly smelled like chlorine at all- just very faintly. It made me think I might want to switch our hot tub over, but is it difficult with a vacation rental when you don’t live in that city to maintain it? ( We’ve had lots of difficulty finding competent service people for a bromine/chlorine system which is much more common). From what I understand, you buy a unit ($600?) and when you add salt to it , it creates chlorine?

We only soak in TSP for 24 hrs monthly.