newtubuser413

Thanks for the advice. The filter is the right one, I have a few of these and the previous one worked well, and when I screwed it on, I wasn't jamming/forcing it or anything.

Never had an issue with it before, but somehow the filter this time is stuck. I don't have a lot of space for leverage here to be able to use any type of wrench, unless there is a strap wrench that can be done from the top. Would really appreciate any ideas.

This isn't even my thread, but just want to say really appreciate your attentiveness to answering other people's questions @waterbear

How did you get away with not draining it for two years? So same water for two years???

Have you tried an enzyme cleaner like ahhsome? Regular sanitizers may not get rid of biofilm that may be stuck in the pipes/tubes. I'd follow the decontamination steps to the letter when draining and refilling to see if that helps.

Always dropping knowledge, thanks @waterbear!

I keep my hot tub covered all the time unless I'm using it, since it is sitting outside and I don't want debris or whatever else to get into it if I'm not using. Would having it on slow down the oxidization of combined chlorine since it dissipates into gas? As in, if I shock it and I leave it covered for a few days, would the limited air in the hot tub gets saturated with the gas to slow down the chlorine oxidization process, leading to more biofilm and slower sanitation process?

@waterbear Thank you, will try

Hi @waterbear, one thing came to me is your other response below on my old post on temperature...especially the last sentence. I don't use Nature2 but it occurred to me that I turn the temp down on Sunday night to 80...it takes about 2-3 days to get from 100 down to 80. Only circulation is the "filter cycle" runs twice a day, once per 30 minutes the other time for 1.5 hours (2 hours a day total) during those three days. It just came to me that this may be the cause? Since it takes 2-3 days to cool down, biofilm may have more time to grow? My tub uses friction heating so if I keep temp lower, it wouldn't circulate...only until it needs to maintain temperature would it turn on. I wonder if I kept it at a higher temperature or if I lower the temp slowly, it would circulate more often. I've since then adjusted the duration of the filter cycle to 1.5 hours each (total of three hours a day). Thoughts on this?

@waterbear Thank you for the thoughtful reply. Most of the three months I've been using test strips only until I decontaminated the tub 3.5 weeks ago. Below is a quick timeline: Dec: Got tub, filled it. Used it only on the weekends (friday, sat, and maybe sunday). I don't use it during the week because of work, so kept temperature at 80 during the week then bump it up to 103-4 thursday night for friday night and weekend usage. After sunday, I would turn it down to 80 again. Jan to end of Feb: Same usage. Kept chlorine and ph balanced...but used only aquachek test strips. Not testing anything else. Frequent use of Dichlor and MPS only. March: Started having rash. Itchy dry spots. After a couple of days into the week, stopped itching and near end of week it would start to disappear. Weekend comes, used tub...rash came back. It could be a number of things...did a lot of research on bleach method, biofilm, balance with TA, CYA, hardness...these are things I didn't really adjust too much 3/20: Nitro decontamination. Got ahh-some (see my post history) and purged. Got Taylor K-2006 kit. All test from now going forward is using this kit per instructions. Tested everything. Balanced water to the letter. Used Bleach method and light on dichlor. Got CYA up to 20-30 and all bleach after. 3/27: First use after decon. Don't seem to get rash. Used it twice that weekend. Nothing noticeable. 4/3: Used it Friday and Sat. After Friday seems dry itching came back a little but not sure. Sat used again...sunday morning rash came back. Been on top of checking most things. Please see attached tracking log. All tests are from Taylor K-2006 kit. I only use MPS once a week now. If Chlorine is not a cause, the hot tub itch seems like a possibility...could my recent decontamination/purge not get rid of it??? Hate to do it again, but should I purge again? Let me know if you want to know anything else.

@nightmara I have similar issues...owned tub for 3 months no issues...then I started getting a rash. Granted I didn't have a kit and was using test strips only. I decontaminated according to Nitro's instructions, and this time went fully test kit and bleach method (20-30 CYA) as instructed...after a few times still got rash. The only thing I'm guessing now is maybe instead of biofilm I'm allergic to the high chlorine content (I'm erroring on the high side of for chlorine since I was convinced it was biofilm). My chlorine demand is very reasonable at 20-30% over 24 houts. I'm going to try again in a couple weeks as I let my rash die down and I'm going to keep my water extremely balanced. I'm going to make sure my FC is no higher than a 4. If I still get a rash after EVERYTHING is balanced...I dunno what to do next.

Thanks. I ended up lowering it again with sodium bisulfate after reading some more...looks like PH is really the number I need to pay attention to and TA is there to stabilize. My PH now is at 7.4 and my TA is around 75. Thanks for answering!

Tested my tub. PH = 7.8, TA = 65, FC = 4.5, CH = 100. According to Nitro's water maintenance, TA is low and CH is low-ish. I will raise CH tomorrow (bought calcium chloride coming tomorrow). I added two tablespoons of baking soda but I know it will raise PH as well as TA. I'd imagine PH will be at least 8.0 next time I test. For future reference, how do I ONLY raise TA without PH since my PH seems to be at a good level?

@waterbear What I got from Target today

@Ahhsomeguy @RDspaguy Yes, I did remove the filter and left floating in there. What you see is what happened, in that the crud stuck to the filter (floating, not installed). I deviated from the instructions in that I left it overnight (per Nitro Decontamination process) instead of 15-30 minutes, which is probably why the amount of crud got stuck to the filter that you see in the picture. My question is, why even have the filter in there anyway? Why not just take it out and set it somewhere during this purge process.