jaredthomas27

Hahaha yeah my wife has been calling it my chemistry experiment, thats funny. She knows my OCD makes me dive headfirst into this kind of stuff. Jokes aside, I really appreciate you all's input, help, and plethora of information on this forum!

Thank you for the insight. Yeah im definitely overthinking this. Appreciate all the help and direction!

I totally get it, thanks so much!

Thanks JWM6687, I have read that post and it has proven helpful. Uncorrected TA has been 60 and 70 depending on acid or baking soda additions. You think I should be lower than that?

Water is brand new, filled this weekend after a deep clean. I did the 3 step method from waterbear but am afraid i may have stopped the pH/TA portion a step to soon (pH at 7.9) and then added the borates. Retested just a minute ago and pH was up around 8.2 with corrected TA at 53. Using the acid demand and Taylor table I am adding 1oz (half the recommended 1.9 oz) of muriatic acid and will retest in about an hour. LIkely going to have to add baking soda to increase TA as im afraid it will drop significantly after this acid addition.

Good afternoon all. Have a question I am hoping to get clarification on please. I have 50 ppm of borates in my water via boric acid. Will that slow or stop my ability to lower my pH with muriatic acid? My TA got down to 48 (testing with K2106 drop test) accounting for the borate correction factor in the book and my pH is still hovering around 7.9-8.0 I have bumped my TA up to 88 with baking soda to give myself room to add more acid but I just added .5oz of acid and my pH remained unmoved. Could that be because of the borates? I am measuring pH with a calibrated Apera electric meter my wife uses for work for exact precision. I am running the 3 step Bromine. Thanks in advance!

Thank you Ahhsomeguy! That is very helpful. I went to Family Leisure today to get water tested until the new kit arrives. Turns out CYA was 300+ ppm which is very high thus reducing the efficacy of the Chlorine. Likely due to me trying to over compensate with the Granular56. CYA was something I never knew about until I started reading this forum and researching so I really appreciate the folks in this forum. Depending on Kansas winter weather, hoping to get everything clean and redone here in the next few weeks.

I will definitely be doing all of that. Ordered some Ahhsome earlier today from Amazon. Getting a whole home filter and softener installed next Friday and will be doing the drain, clean (tub and cover) and refill after that. I havent noticed any mold under the water line itself so I am hoping its mostly contained outside of the water but will thoroughly clean anyways. Havent decided on Bromine or Dichlor/Bleach method yet but imagine I will need to add calcium to the water since the new water will be soft. You all have been awesome with information and I really appreciate all the input.

Thank you for all your input @waterbear, I will definitely be ditching the Frog and learning more about dichlor/bleach method to move forward with.

Appreciate all your input!

Thanks for the input dashmer. If I decide to change my sanitation strategy, do you or anyone here recommend a "restart" process to get my tub back to square one? I assume I would need to do the following: 1. Take the cover sleeve off and sanitize/power wash off the mold 2. Clean the mold off the lights and valves with bleach 3. Pull filter and clean 4. Shock water, then drain and fill Do you have any other suggestions in starting over so I dont carry this issue into the future? Thank you!

Maybe this is my issue because I haven't been testing that since the "Frog System" seems to not require it. I will post a picture below of the test strip guide that the system uses. Apparently, according to the frog system, it will maintain 0.5-1.0 ppm of free chlorine and then the free chlorine will increase as needed when this is paired with the mineral float. Does that make any sense at all? This is all according to their manual...Is this system just crap and I need to go back to a more basic/standard(not sure thats the right word) maintenance strategy? NOTE: Why FROG @ease Test Strips? The FROG @ease SmartChlor Cartridge forms a chlorine reserve that will be inaccurately measured as total chlorine on other test strips. Unlike conventional chlorine, the SmartChlor reserve readily shifts to free chlorine as needed, maintaining spa health with a low level of chlorine

These ranges are on the @EASE Frog system test strips Hardness: Between 150-250ppm PH: 7.5 TA: 100ppm Chlorine: Is darker than the "smartchlor out indicator" w/ the Frog System Tub get used by me about 3 times a week and I always add .3 oz of Granular56 when I get out and will shock with 1oz of Granular56 once a month. I generally do a water chem test 3 times a week and I am usually having to add PH increaser to it throughout the week as needed. I do a half drain every 2 months and change/wash filter about once a month. Let me know if I can provide more info! THanks so much!

Hi everyone, hope you're having a great day. Long story short, I am struggling with some kind of mold/mildew outside of the water in my tub (valves, lights, cover, etc). I have had 2 other hot tubs in Kentucky and Colorado and never had this issue (currently in Kansas). I use the @EASE Frog floating ball and have been keeping hardness, alk, chlorine, PH in correct range. I have pulled the cover off the foam of the cover and bleached & power washed it and have scrubbed (with bleach) the lights and valve controls as well just to have the mold come back. I am literally lost here. I am buying a whole house water filter in a couple weeks to maybe help as well. Has anyone had experience with this before? Please ask questions too, I have likely missed some details and I am no professional. Appreciate the help!!