PinkFloydEffect

What makes it "cleaning" defoamer? I have a bottle of regular defoamer on hand already.

I was wondering if it kept the sliding door track clean, because I have noticed the door sticks lately. Every time I lift the cover I have to push the door down then it says down until next use. Otherwise it does not allow enough water in and the skimmer box only fills half way.

Thank you Yes I know, I stated this was when lowering the water level during a change. Good to know yours is present too! It is not noticeable once my water level is back to normal but what is its purpose??

Does anyone know why this stream of water shoots out of the mouth of the filter box? I noticed it after super chlorination, and then lowering the water level. Appears something broke off here, is this normal on a Hot Springs Jetsetter?

The manual says not to exceed 150 on the calcium....will 200 be okay?? I need it higher for balancing reasons.

I am working on balancing my hot tub and I am under the understanding that a saturation index of -0.3 to 0.5 is considered balanced. So I started playing with my calculator wheel using my perimeters. I keep my calcium hardness at 80ppm and my alkalinity low at 80ppm as well. My level of CYA is kept at 30, and my temperature range is 100F-104F. If I understand the SI correctly a rating of 0 is best balanced? Plugging in the data I just provided above, to have a balanced water rating of 0 the perfect pH would have to be 7.9 instead of the 7.4 target the tub manual says. Is this okay or should I double my calcium to 160ppm in order to have a lower pH of 7.4? My tub already likes to run 7.8-8.0 so is fighting it worth it just to have harder water??

I made it easy on myself and went with 80ppm for both calcium and alkalinity, the tub calls for 50-150ppm calcium and I figured the less the better so the water feels great. I hit the CYA cap after only a few days using dichlor though not sure why it is recommended at all.

Thank you, I thought bleach and liquid chlorine have a different pH? Bleach always smells, where chlorine does not...from my understanding this is because bleach has cloramites right out of the bottle (reactions already taking place within the bottle). As in other words there is already combined chlorine within bleach? I would love to just use dichlor but I can not be refilling my tub every month due to high CYA.

Some things in my manual do not make sense to me and I could use some clarification. For starters the manual says to fill my spa with a "clean screen" prefilter but not only did it never come with one but the sales person never informed us of it or used one during initial filling of the spa. Says it removes metals, sounds like a reverse osmosis type of thing. I need to fill my tub tomorrow and I do not have one on hand, but I have some metal neutralizing solution to add...which is what they used upon setup. It says to adjust my alkalinity to 80ppm with the window range of 40-120ppm, however seems everyone on the forums runs their spas on the lower side at 50ppm? The manual covers calcium hardness, alkalinity, pH, sanitation, but fails to mention anything about stabilizer/CYA. I know from my research it should stay around 30ppm and to keep it below 50ppm. Furthermore the manual says if I am going to use chlorine do not use liquid chlorine or it can damage the spa, and to use granulated DICHLOR....which is stabilized chlorine. Says nothing about stopping the use of dichlor after a certain ppm reading of stabilizer/CYA which really surprises me because that is exactly how I got into the situation I am in now....continuous use of dichlor shot the stabilizer/CYA over 300ppm before I realized it was not good to have levels even close to that high. I planned on skipping the dichlor this time all together, using pool stabilizer, then liquid chlorine as my main sanitation method. I just got my Taylor K-2006C kit today so I can really do this right. Am I good to fill? I will be testing my tap calcium hardness with the K-2006 tonight. I think I am ready to do this.

Is it okay to add defoamer when purging a tub? I added an entire bottle of SpaPurge to a 200 gallon tub and it is foaming like crazy several feet off the water surface. Directions say to run for at least 5 minutes but I can only run it for 30 seconds once an hour when the foam dies down. Took 5 hours to run it a total of 2-3min. Finally I had enough and I added some defoamig solution which worked great but now I am wondering if I counteracted the Spa Purge and made it any less effective? Thanks

I am still learning the best I can, and have recently discovered the chlorine free shock method of super oxidizing the water. I do not fully understand it, but am wondering if it can be used with chlorine to make the chlorine more effective OR allow me to use lower concentrations of chlorine. My Hot Springs tub has an ozone generator with bubbles that rise from the floor, so it already has some form of a natural sanitizing system but I still use chlorine. Now I am wondering how related that the ozone method is to the chlorine free oxidizing shock method? Is the concept the same? Can someone break it down and make the relation between the two for me? Thanks

Thank you I did research all afternoon and I do see people using the same pump I use on my reef tank for dosing a baseline of liquid chlorine. I have to ask is it okay to not use dichlor at all when starting a new tub, use liquid chlorine from day 1 and just add stabilizer myself separately? I buy sodium hydrogen carbonate stabilizer in large bags for my pool already. I decided to try using 1" 99% Trichloro slow dissolving tabs in a floating dispenser, dialed down to the lowest setting and I will see if I can use that just for maintaining the baseline chlorine level between uses or when not in use. Then for actually using the tub I will use liquid chlorine, I will get a measurement down for how much to add per person per use, per hour. Eventually I may switch from a baseline Trichloro dispenser to a baseline liquid chlorine dispenser in-line with my heater and ozone generator which both come from the floor of the tub. If I am able to keep my CYA level below 50ppm for 4 months using the Trichloro dispenser dialed way down I may just use that and never convert to a liquid chlorine dispenser.

I would much rather control my CYA/stabilizer independently, and I am having a hard time finding chlorine in a non-stabilized form other than liquid chlorine for shocking. Still trying to dial-in my spa with the way I use it, and finding a method of sanitation that works for me. I chose to go with chlorine, but am having a hard time keeping a stable level of chlorine at all times. I started adding chlorine after I use it, and that is helping keep a few ppm until I use it the following day. The problem is my stabilizer is off the charts @ over 300+ ppm! This is bad, from my understanding it makes the chlorine much less effective at high levels. From my research 30-50ppm CYA is a good level. I know what is happening....I keep adding granulated stabilized chlorine. I keep my spa covered when not in use, and it only gets used at night with no UV penetration. I need to start using non-stabilized chlorine. So I purchased a 1" floating puck/tab dispenser but I can not find non-stabilized puck/tabs now. For me a dispenser makes sense if I keep an eye on it but now it seems like it may not be a good idea seeing how they do not seem to make non-stabilized pucks/tabs. This leaves me with a few options that I can think of, keep searching for a non-stabilized granular chlorine or one with the lowest CYA level, or start using liquid chlorine or bleach. What should I do?