Bernie

You have to have a good sanitizer or run your ozone generator 24 hours a day. I tried a lot of things and got a lot of hot tub rash. Apple cider vinegar does a good job on handling the red itchy skin. The solution I came up with was Iodine. if you need heavy concentrations of it I just free it up with hydrogen peroxide and then add it to my hot tub. One thing you do not want is chlorine fluorine or bromine - iodine compounds so start fresh and prefilter you water (shower filters are cheap with an extra trip to the hardware store to connect it.). Of course if you have well water you probably do not have to do this. see: https://www.poolspaforum.com/forum/index.php?/topic/50813-best-alternative-to-chlorine-and-bromine-sanitizer-is-not-recognized-by-the-epa/

The benefits are described in the link in my first post.

i do not know anything about your spa but one ozone generator company was only recommending 6 hours a day and a sanitizer. I am sure you can turn the pump on and off manually but that might be too much trouble.

This is great news! However you are running your pump and ozonator 24/7/365. So you do have the added electricity expense and the expense of changing pumps and ozone generators. You might want to try Potasium Iodide and Broic acid. Then you can run you pumps when you need it and to filter the water. Plus you would get the heath benefits of a spa that helps your body detoxify bromine, chlorine, fluorine. I have been told there are health benefits to ozone so you might loose those but if you start the pump and ozone generator long enough before you get in so you can smell the ozone you will not loose that either. It is also a good idea as it make sure there is enough free iodine to sanitize the spa. This would be a huge change for you but I hope you try it anyway. best-alternative-to-chlorine-and-bromine-sanitizer-is-not-recognized-by-the-epa

Potassium Iodide. This is the same stuff that is added to table salt. Iodine is a halogen and so are chlorine and bromine. Iodine is the only one that is an essential nutrient (your body actually needs it!) and is very effective. There were a number of pool studies done in the 50s that compared iodine very favorably to chlorine. Also it has a much higher evaporation temperature so you hardly have to add any. One study, Effectiveness of Iodine for the Disinfection of Swimming Pool Water found less .1 ppm free iodine was effective. However they were using chlorine to create the free iodine. You should be using ozone which will not create chloride-iodide compounds. So your levels might have to be a little higher but probably not. You only need to add enough potassium iodide to turn the water slightly green. Brown is way more than you need. You can not use it for a public pool or spa currently, because it is not a recognized sanitizer by the EPA. (too friendly to the environment - not good for the chlorine industry) It is best to start with water with all halogens filtered out. You can get inexpensive shower filters that will filter chlorine and fluorine. If you don't you will have toxic iodide-chloride or iodide fluoride compounds that you do not want. If you want to sanitizer your hot tub right away first add it to hydrogen peroxide. The hydorgen peroxide will fiz and turn brown. Then add the brown liquid to your hot tub. You hot-tub will not only be relaxing but energizing. There is also less working balancing the PH! Here is a testimonial from one user who also added boric acid: After balancing the chemistry, I gave the KI [Potassium iodide] a whirl to 2ppm. WOW. After 3 weeks: it's literally night and day. I'm never going back to chlorine or bromine again. I even tried that baqua [junk] awhile ago, which was terrible, and ended up with chlorine again. Before I found the KI[Potassium iodide], I learned about the addition of boric acid, I thought that was terrific (after I switched back to chlorine). The change to KI is even better than the boric acid). I can't even put it into words. Skin is clear (and soft now, weird!), no redness to my eyes, no dry, itchy skin. And here's the weird thing: for years, I would wake up after 5 hours (if I was in the spa after 7pm), with my heart pounding (with Cl [Clorine] or Br [Bromine]), and wouldn't really be able to sleep much again. I got tired later in the day on those days, heart still pounding, like my body is detoxing something (I don't know, just learned to deal with it). With the iodine, the same thing happened, but diminished after about a week, and now I sleep about 100x better. I thought I slept great before (except for spa nights), but now I have loads of energy from 6am to 10pm. I have also received a few comments like "what the heck are you taking?" I have lots of energy now, I'm just in a darn good mood all the time. It started after about 1 week, and I waited for this euphoria to dissipate (like the borate addition did), but thus far it hasn't. And the best thing to mention is some SERIOUS morning wood, which is about the best benefit I can think of (again, no problems beforehand either, but I didn't know what I was missing apparently). It's like I'm 18 again (I'm 34 now). After 7 weeks: I am still using the iodine now, and haven't even had to add any more to the water, since my ozone generator is regenerating it, and it's cut down on maintenance and costs by about 90% (except for installing the $350 ozonator). I've had to use some potassium monopersulfate [elearnaid recommends hydrogen peroxide] to help with shocking, since the ozone generator can't produce enough ozone to shock the pool. Overall, I'd give it a HUGE thumbs up. Probably the best thing I've ever done for myself! My skin quality has improved, my sclera (whites of the eyes) are actually white again (all day long), and a new symptom: my digestion is back to levels when I was 18yrs old (meaning, I can pound down any food now and not have any bloating or sluggish bowels). In the past 6-8 years my metabolism has been slowing down, little by little. I really believed this myth, but found out it's just perchlorate and fluorine slowly poisoning the body. KI fixed that right up! I suspect the boric acid is incredibly important as well. There's significant evidence that boric acid is responsible for clearing fluoride from the hydroxyl binding sites on our enzymes and for destroying the trifluoromethyl groups that are formed (that poison our DNA methylation so we can't heal and regenerate). Without the boric acid, the fluorine and perchlorate cannot be cleared, and we just pee out the iodine. So they are both necessary. It's obvious that boric acid is being absorbed by my body, as each test I do at the pool shop the borates are dropping little by little. My initial test was 55ppm FYI. I don't even need any coffee to drag my butt out of bed anymore anymore. I'm just really excited for the iodine, as you can tell (which is why I spend the time to sign up and write all this). The Cl- and Br- had none of these effects at all (and I won't ever use them again). I will conclude with everyone who has sat in my hot tub with the iodine has loved it, including a couple kids that have extensive experience with swimming (and their parents noted the complete lack of red eyes and itchy skin to following day as well). I talked to their father at work the next day and he couldn't believe how much better they all felt after that. His kids were giddy and full of energy all day (he actually said way too much energy). I reminded him that when we were kids, this is what we did! We bounced off the walls until mom told us to go outside and cause ruckus out there. It's amazing how much our generations are changing and how incredibly sick our kids are becoming. Here's proof. It's pretty sad. I suspect boric acid and iodine are needed to clear the toxins out. Chalres Hakala at Hakala labs has indicated that we need around 30ppm boric acid just to flush out the metal oxides coming at us everyday. Here's his product if you don't want to add it to your hot tub: https://www.hakalalabs.com/borotabs.html Needless to say, my friend has his entire family taking iodine now. From what I've seen it also improves the mood in everybody almost immediately (maybe due to the body actually making the energy it needs?).

Use iodine. In particular Potassium Iodide. This is the same stuff that is added to table salt. Iodine is a halogen. the only one that is an essential nutrient and a very effective. There were a number of pool studies done in the 50s that compared iodine very favorably to chlorine. Also it has a much higher evaporation temperature so you hardly have to add any. One study, Effectiveness of Iodine for the Disinfection of Swimming Pool Water found less .1 ppm free iodine was effective. However they were using chlorine to create the free iodine. You should be using ozone which will not create chloride-iodide compounds. So your levels might have to be a little higher but probably not. You only need enough free iodine to turn the water slightly green. Brown is way more than you need. You can not use it for a public pool currently because it is not a recognized sanitizer by the EPA. (too friendly to the environment - not good for the chlorine industry) It is best to start with water with all halogens filtered out. You can get inexpensive shower filters that will filter chlorine and fluorine. If you don't you will have toxic iodide-chloride or iodide flouride compounds that you do not want. You can tell if you have effectively filtered out the chlorine and fluorine because when you drop the potassium iodide into the water it will dissolve clear and not break down. This assumes you are not running the ozone generator. If it is breaking down you will see little circles of brown. You hot-tub will not only be relaxing but energizing!