darkmyst

I’ll know for absolute sure when my stuff arrives, but high bromine should be a non-issue at this point. I’ve let it sit for quite some time without generating and letting it dissipate The color clearly indicates 7.8 at this point as well. So assuming the bromine is within range or lower, and I want to try to lower it to 7.6, how would it be advised that I do this?

Hi waterbear, thanks again for your help. I've got the extra stuff on the way still, but I've let the water, bromine, etc settle down these past few days and the pH appears to have settled at 7.8. Although within range, do you have any advice on how that could be lowered to perhaps 7.6 if I wanted to lock it a bit lower to give myself more time for upward drifting? Thanks!

Hi, To clarify again, I turned off the bromine generator last night and it’s reading 0 this morning and does not have a bromine smell anymore.

I turned off the bromine generator last night and tested again this morning, it’s now reading 0. I also ran out of DPD powder, so I’ll have to wait to get that. The red color of the pH indicator with the Taylor test isn’t easily identifiable so I’m going to swing by the pool store to have their equipment read it. I’ll update when I have news.

Update: Bromine eventually started generating. It's at night now, and I just got home, but it looks like after the Gentle Spa was added to approximately 50ppm borates, and after 30 minutes of jets, the pH appears to be around 7.8. I'm not sure if I should make further efforts to lower this to closer to 7.6 or 7.4? If yes, do I secure it with additional borates by lowering to 7.0 or so and adding more? Or am I being too picky and let it rest at 7.8? I will check it again in the morning, I only have an inside light to hold it against. Bromine is high. Apparently when it started working, it started working really well - probably as a result of the increased effectiveness due to the lower pH. So, I'm going to let the tub sit and release bromine. Ideas to help reduce bromine would be great. There's a bit of foam, very loose and bubbly like what you'd see in a regular tub with bubbles. It's not a lot, but enough to be slightly annoying. This existed before the high bromine too. I don't use any soaps in the spa while cleaning it, so I'm wondering if this may be residual foam from the Ahh-Some or something, but I did make sure to drain the tub to the bottom... and my pump gets it down to about 1/4 or a 1/2 inch, so there wasn't much left in the tub water itself... I'm hoping this eventually goes away.

Seems like I'm just not getting any luck recently. I'm now getting no indication of bromine after adding the sodium bromide even though the generator says it's generating bromine. Doing some troubleshooting on this front and will report back further....

Ok, an update: I finally got my borate test strips in. Even the LoMotte brand is kind of hard to read. Anyway, I added the borate, and it looks like it's around 50. The pH actually seemed to drift down slightly (granted, the water has been sitting for a couple of days since my last test). Either way, in my case that's good news. Ultimately with borates the pH seemed to drift around 7.6 - *after* aeration. I then added in the sodium bromide. The salt generator hasn't done anything yet. I re-tested with jets off and it was the same. However, after introducing aeration it climbed back up, the color looks like at least an 8 (kit only goes that high) and a drop of acid demand as of now brings it down to around 7.7. TA is firm at 50. I will try and drop a bit of muriatic acid in and see if it holds steady after introducing aeration again. I'm also going to double check my borates again when the water settles down a bit.

Hi @waterbear Thank you again for all of your help. Today I drained and refilled the spa. I have not added sodium bromide yet. I just filled the tub, got the water to temperature and started adjusting the pH and TA. The TA is sitting at roughly 50, but so far the pH is wanting to stay at or drift around 8.0 after aeration. CH is low, around 140 or so. I'm wondering if the borates will help? So here's my next round of questions: 1. Should I continue to lower my TA to resolve this, or is there any type of danger or concern with going much lower than 50? 2. Should I add borates prior to introducing sodium bromide and bromine and balancing again, or after? 3. When I add the borates, will there be any benefit to doing it when I get the pH to around 7.0 or 7.2 and prior to introducing aeration? Or will it not matter so I may as well do it after I get the pH to settle around 7.7 - 7.8 after introducing aeration? 4. Gentle Spa suggests adding additional product over time. Will this also increase borates over time and therefore should be avoided, or do borates slowly lower over time?

Hi @waterbear I think the water discomfort may have been due to some of the chemicals still possibly fully taking in effect, e.g. I jumped the gun to test too soon. It seems ok now. I'm pretty confident that how I'm using the Taylor kit is on point, it's just a matter of getting things balanced and learning this process first-hand. I use the Taylor 2106 FAS-DFD kit. At this point I was able to get the TA to 50 and the pH to around 7.4 before the jets. When I turned on the jets, the pH jumped to 8.0. Acid demand with one drop showed it would go to 7.8, so I am confident it's not any higher than 8. Regarding borates, I want to clarify that I'm doing this testing on my spa prior to doing my drain/purge, because I want to wrap my head around this prior to working with fresh water and what I hope is a pristine and accurately balanced fresh start. I've ordered Borate test strips, so I'm unsure how many are in the current water. But, once I get those delivered and perform the refill it was my hope to use my stash of ProTeam Gentle Spa or SpaPure Simply Soft to bring up that level to 50ppm. When I test for total bromine I use the 25ml mark so that one drop equals .50 ppm. This is registering at around 3.5 ppm. I *think* I've already answered all of the questions. As I'm getting more comfortable with this and closer to the numbers I should be seeing, I'm hoping that a fresh drain and fill and proper borates will give me better preciseness. So I have a few additional questions: 1. I've read conflicting articles that suggest products like ProTeam Gentle Spa or SpaPure Simply Soft have an outrageously high pH. Is this accurate, and if so, how should I account for that? 2. Is Metal Magic safe to use with my spa configuration? At what point should I be using it? 3. What's the proper order of operations for a drain and refill of my spa? These are the steps I'm considering and may need to be re-ordered, I'm also not sure when I should expect pH or TA to change with any of these steps and need to re-adjust, or when I should turn on the jets to test the pH after aeration is introduced: 1. Use Ahh-Some in current water, multiple rounds until grime is dramatically reduced. Drain water, clean surface of spa. 2. Refill spa. 3. Balance TA to 50, lower pH to ~7.0 or ~7.2 (?), goal to ultimately bring it to 7.6 - 7.8 with aeration. 4. Add metal magic and phosphate remover. 5. Add borates (Gentle Spa or Simply Soft), get to 50ppm. 6. Add sodium bromide, bring up to ~3ppm. 7. Re-check pH due to bromine being introduced, tweak if required. 8. Anything else?

So I went ahead and got the TA down to 50, and the pH was down to about 7.0-7.2. I started the jets, and ran them for about 15 minutes. The pH quickly jumped to 7.8 This still seems like a dramatic jump for 15 minutes of jets. In the past, the pH has never really settled back down or lowered after the jets came on, so I only anticipate further quick rise from here. Often times when we're in the spa, we're in for an hour, sometimes even more. Additionally, as I was dipping my hands into the water to get my samples, the water seemed to irritate the hand and arm I used quite a bit. A highly annoying amount, actually. I'm going to let the spa sit overnight and check on it in the morning, but I'd love further thoughts and feedback.

Hi @waterbear. Today, for my first test with your advice, I got the TA of the spa down to 70, and the pH to 7.4; so the higher ranges of what you suggested. I ran the jets for about 15-20 mins, waited about 10 minutes after the jets stopped and tested again. My Taylor kit only goes up to 8.0 on the pH indicator but it looks like the pH is sitting at 7.8 at a minimum; possibly 8.0; it looks pretty close to both. For such a short duration of having the jets on, it still skyrocketed very quickly. I will test again after letting it sit for awhile longer, but I'd love your thoughts about next steps. My guess is taking the TA even lower, but given that I'm still seeing large jumps in pH with such a short duration of jets, I'm unsure if it will help? Do you suggest getting closer to the lower end of 50TA and 7.0pH or so before trying the jets?

This is just all very surprising to me, because even the in.clear salt water system, which is designed specifically for hot tubs, calls for a 100-120 TA in their own manual. My spa manufacturer recommends numbers in a similar range. And every retailer and every manual I've read suggests to set TA first and pH second. If this information is accurate, then I feel like just about every spa manual, salt generator manual, and water chemistry website would need to update their guidance. I also worry that with such a low TA, my pH would literally be all over the place and that I'd have to check it almost daily. Certainly after each use, and in many cases we're in the hot tub late into the night. So this is just a bit mind-blowing considering it goes against everything I've read just about everywhere. But I suppose it could make sense, considering nothing seems to be working out with everything that's suggested on all of the websites and manuals. What specific advice would you have for me for a drain/refill scenario, and in what order? I've just got some Ahh-Some that I'll be using prior to a final fill to start fresh, some anti-metal chemicals, sodium bromide, gentle spa, muriatic acid, and plenty of traditional dry pH down/up chemicals.

My bromine levels are not anywhere close to 10, I keep it between 3-5ppm. So I guess the phenol red theory is out. Won't a TA of 50-70 cause the water to be incredibly corrosive and dangerous to the equipment? Such a low TA goes against every source for this spa, from the manufacturer and manual to the in.clear documentation (which suggests 100 to 120). What do you recommend using to lower TA by such a dramatic amount? Muriatic acid or dry acid? Do you recommend doing this directly in the spa or diluting it first? (For muriatic acid, I use Acid Magic) FYI - in the testing I've done previously, the pH rises to levels beyond the chart pretty much immediately once the jets turn on. Are you thinking if I bring it to 50-70 that it'll get to the proper level after some aeration occurs? I do have a 24/7 circulation pump in the spa -- will that impact things? I can give this a shot but I suspect it'll shoot up again.. I've tried adding a bunch of pH down over time to bring both the alkalinity and pH down in the past but I believe it just shot right back up. I have no idea where my pH will stand after getting my TA between 50-70 though - I guess I can try and see what happens. If I saw my TA at 50-70 I would've flipped out and adjusted it back up due to fear of corrosion from ultra-low TA. Regarding borates - I believe products like ProTeam Gentle Spa or SpaPure Simply Soft are considered borates, correct? I usually add a bottle of that. I've tried using pH balance products but they haven't seemed to help but if my TA needs to be that low then I wouldn't have used it at the right time. But I thought I was advised against using those as well. Thank you!

So, an update. I just read an article here: https://www.askalanaquestion.com/bromine_for_pools.htm that suggests that the red phenol used to measure pH can have an interaction with bromine, so my Taylor test kit may be off. This whole thing was new to me. However, even strips show a deep red. So I took my water to a pool shop down the street that has a fancy water testing machine. TA and calcium hardness were great (130 and 124, respectively) but pH was measured at 8.6. However, he also told me his machine can only read as high as 8.6-8.7. So, we're putting in 4 tablespoons of pH down and we'll see what it reads tomorrow. I suspect it will still be pretty sky high. I am still open to input from folks who might be able to share experiences or thoughts around this, though! I have a feeling I'll just wind up going in more circles with this.

@CanadianSpaTech I can get the pH to stay lower until until I turn on the jets, although it does creep up even when they're off. The moment the jets turn on, the pH rises dramatically and stays there. I use a Taylor test kit to measure the results and I have test strips as well. The cell gets cleaned about once a year. It looks good. The bromine generation is on point. I used to use a stain and scale remover but was advised by my spa manufacturer that I should not be with the bromine salt generator. I believe they mentioned something about it having an opposite effect on the bromine generation. That said, they've had turnover lately and I've received some bad advice from them in the past, hence why I'm looking for answers elsewhere. Whenever I purge my tub (3 times a year usually) I use Ahh-Some and I believe that helps combat scaling. I am not sure how effective a scale and stain remover would be considering my persistently high pH level. My water source is city/tap water. I do not fill it with softened water. I generally balance my TA between 90-120 ppm. Thanks again for your help!

Hello! I could use some advice for a situation that I've had for awhile and have experimented quite a bit with, with no luck. I have a 550 gallon spa that uses gecko's in.clear bromine salt generator system and a 24h circulation pump. I *love* the bromide salt generator system and its ability to automatically generate a clean spa. And at this point I know all of the spa settings for my usage/season to get my spa to an ideal bromine ppm. However, I have a constant struggle with the pH. My normal routine is to purge the spa, put in the sodium bromide, get it up to temperature, and adjust the spa, starting with TA. At some point I put in ProTeam's Gentle Spa, or SpaPure's comparable product, to help create more gentle water. So the problem I'm facing is that the pH constantly rises - quickly. In the past I've used an assortment of products to try and adjust things to perfection, from baking soda to your typical ph down products to muriatic acid. Nothing maintains the level. I reached a point where I'd just get the TA within range and just accepted a very high pH. As I prepare my spa for winter, I'll be doing a proper cleaning/purge and drain, and as I look to do this maintenance for the season I'm curious if anyone has any suggestions around this. IN PARTICULAR, I'm looking for folks who own or have significant experience with a system that uses a sodium bromide salt generator system (if you do and share this experience, please tell me!). I've started to wonder if this type of system just naturally has a higher pH. Thanks to everyone in advance!