I took delivery of my Hot Springs Vanguard with the freshwater salt system about 2 months ago. The system has pretty much worked perfectly out of the box...was maintaining a residual chlorine level of ~5 or 6 PPM after the first day and other than minor adjustments and the occasional boost or manual chlorination for heavy use, it's taken almost zero maintenance. I started at the recommended salt output level of 6, went down to 4 after a week or so since it seemed to be making chlorine faster than I used it, then bumped back to 6 after a few weeks to keep up with our usage. I have shocked with dichlor maybe twice and MPS (on separate occasions) maybe twice.
My question is whether I need to regularly shock the tub (either using chlorine or MPS) with the freshwater salt system. The owner's manual and filter compartment lid both reference shocking on a regular basis, but I think both of those assume the freshwater salt system is not used. In the salt system manual, it doesn't reference shocking at all as part of ongoing maintenance once the system is started. I'm wondering if there is a need and, if so, the reason why shocking is if the freshwater salt system is maintaining 3-5ppm of chlorine all the time and my combined chlorine (I have a Taylor 2006 test kit) is basically nonexistent. I don't want to be missing something, but everything is humming along nicely, I'd rather not add more chemicals than necessary.
