Search the Community

Hi ive had my hot tub for 8 months now and i have completely brought this issue upon myself. I havent used the hot tub for the last 2 months but left it running. So a week ago i decided it was time to get back in it. I noticed small yellow flakes at the bottom of the tub, nothing floating, no sort of mold or foam just the deposits on the bottom. Ive contacted a few places to see if they had any idea what it was and i was told biofilm. I am now £120 into cleaning products and 4 days in to scrubbing the hot tub everynight after work. The last product i used was ahh-some it foamed up right away and the foam started to slightly yellow around the edges. I followed the guidance and wiped and wiped constantly then fully drained down cleaned every single area i can get to and ive even used a brush rod to clean the lines from the pump. Ive just filled up again and ran the jets and im still seeing the same small deposits in the water. Im at my whits end please could someone advise on what i am doing wrong or if it is infact biofilm, thankyou.

I’m looking for hope and guidance. We got a new spa, having never owned one before, and had trouble keeping the water clean from the start. Within two days of a fresh fill and one time sitting in it it started to get cloudy then smelled like a pond. Through out the next month we tried everything we learned about, but nothing helped for very long. Special shocks, different levels of sanitizer, mineral sticks, enzymes, clarifies, etc. So after three refills in a month we learned about biofilm, ahh-some and started purging the water. We have performed 8 full flushes, 3 including an overnight soak after the president of ahh-some recommended it. After recommendations from here and elsewhere we have done half doses hours after the initial full dose and then flush it. We have done regular agitation of running the jets 4 or 5 times throughout the day ......cleaning the disgusting yellow/green scum EVERYTIME thoroughly and skimming the foam afterwards because so much scum is within it. It does not feel like it’s getting better. After one of the runs it turned more green, so we thought we were on our way.....but no. The next refilled had lots of yellow too. It seems the half doses are more green then the initial runs. Am I doing something wrong? Will this end? I can’t imagine using this thing until it comes clean, but it seems like that isn’t happening. We have very very soft water here, so I’m not sure if that matters. I’m not balancing the water before hand because the president of ahh-some said I didn’t need to. I have been heating it to 90 or 95 after testing cold water, that seemed like it got less out. However the president said that was unnecessary. I’m using chlorine in every new fill, but maybe not enough? I’m not actually testing the level, should that matter? It takes SO much work to drain it completely and clean it completely to just have to keep doing it. And having a toddler to watch at home makes it very hard to do all this work, especially now that it’s dark so late in the morning and early at night. Any advice would be appreciated. This is such a nightmare. I have tons of photos, but I can’t imagine it’s helpful. Just evidence for when we address this with Sundance legally. PLEASE HELP! Thank you for any advice!

We bought an AquaTerra hot tub at Costco about two years ago. We keep it meticulously clean and maintained. A couple of months ago we noticed a sticky film on every underwater surface, and when we got out our skin was VERY sticky. We drained and cleaned it repeatedly with no improvement. Finally, we called the manufacturer who recommended running a dozen or so bottles of Hydrogen Peroxide through the water for a couple of days, followed by Ahh-some. We are now on our fourth treatment of Ahh-some, draining and scrubbing between each, and nasty, sticky gunk is still pouring into the tub. This gunk does not wipe away with a rag. We are having to use a scrub brush, bleach and a lot of elbow grease. Even used the power washer - and the stickiness is still there! What else can we possibly do?!

Okay - long story, will try bullet points to get my point across. Looking for some direction and I always re-find my way here I have a Jacuzzi J345 tub that is 4 years old this October. I use the dichlor / bleach method. I do a clean and fill twice a year - Spring after it warms up and Fall right before it stays below 40. I always use SeaKlear Spa Flush, dump the tub, refill - add dichlor to 20ppm, dump again, refill and balance. I always use ProTeam Gentle Spa to add 50ppm of Borates at the end and re-balance again. The tub, since my last clean fill in April or May has only been used 2-3 times total. We keep up on the chemicals and check the levels every three days. Over the last two months, the water has had a musty smell that "sticks" to your skin if you dip your arm in taking a water sample. It has gone to a FC of 0 for a day or two at most maybe two or three times - but with nobody using the tub at all. The lid is not hardly opened at all except to check the water. Here was my plan that has cause me a minor stroke: i emptied the tub on Monday (9/5) and did not use any SeaKlear. My intention was to just refill and re-balance and change the filter to get rid of the smell. When I started to refill the tub by the sticking the hose into left filter hole with the grid, yellow colored water came out of the port for 10-15 seconds in to the bottom of the tub after a few seconds of the water running - not solid, but murky, like a chicken soup color yellow. The bottom of the tub water was noticeably yellow colored after it filled for a bit. I stopped the fill - dropped the pump back in and pumped it out. I then decided to fill the tub all the way up, didn't see anymore yellow, and added SeaKlear Spa Flush. Brown / Black / Dark Red scum lines around the tub immediately. Kept wiping them off with a paper towel so I didn't put it back into the water and it would come back. I ran high jets with air on. When it dried slightly around the tub it was a black / dark brown sludge - reminded me of tar. I let the tub set all night and ran it a few time here and there before bed. Went to work Tuesday and let the tub set - it cycles every 6 or 8 hours and was planning on emptying it Tuesday night. A family emergency came up and I could not empty it that night. I had my wife check it and no scum line, but the water was cloudy blue from the SeaKlear and if you reach your hand into the tub, below the water line, the was a film on the inside of the tub on everything. Not like sandpaper, but rough. It wiped off with minimal elbow grease - but was on everything below the water line. So it sat until Wednesday night where I could flush and wipe it down to remove the film. I added some more SeaKlear prior to dumping it and and some bleach - no effect on the film - so i used a microfiber towel and wiped away. Started to refill the tub and after about 5 inches of water in the bottom of the tub, my water has a noticeable green tint. I pump it out - do it again - about 3 times. Finally let it fill up all way and still has a green hue to it. Added 5 oz of 8.5% bleach to it and cycled it - nothing. PH was at 7.0 so i added PH + and took it to 7.8. Still green. Added 8 oz of SeaKlear and brown / red scum started to appear in the foam. My wife commented that it looked like someone threw up in the tub and it was just floating there. So I cycled it two times, added about 100ppm of bleach and cycled it for 30 minutes and the drained it. Refilled it and you can see little specks of red and black settled on the seats an bottom of the tub - could not get a good read on if it was still tinted green. With the outside lights on and the tubs lights on - it did appear to, so I will look tonight. I also add 10ppm dichlor to the tub and cycled it and left it for the night. My plan, if the water is clear, was to dump it one more time, do a clean fill and balance. My minor stroke is, what happened? Am I safe to use the tub? If the water isn't clear - what is going on? I'm an engineer and I keep records everytime I open the tub and what was added, etc. The FC to 0 a couple of times was due to business trips and burning through the bleach faster, My CYA was also about 60 a couple of months ago which will hurt my longevity of the bleach - but can I get a helping hand please? Any and all help is appreciated - and needed! I'm afraid I ruined my tub -

Hello! This is my first post here, so first off thank you to everyone who has contributed and made this forum a great place to learn from unbiased (not the salesperson at Leslie's) about my new hot tub. I'm having a water chemistry and decontamination problem that I'm hoping for help with. My tub: Divine DL 1040 from Costco 440 gallons Usine 3-step bromine as detailed on this site. The backstory: I forgot to maintain my water balance and sanitizer levels for about a month back in May/June, so of course it was nasty when I finally opened it up. I superchlorinated overnight, drained and rinsed the tub and shop-vacced as much water as possible out of the lines (there are 120-something jets and 4 pumps in the tub so I didn't get it all, of course). I chose not to refill it at that time since I live in CA and we have the drought and all so I left it covered for the entire summer with periodic openings of the cover to let in fresh air. The problem: I refilled the tub last weekend and shocked it up to 20 ppm FC, but it was down to 0 ppm after 2 days and I noticed what I later determined to be white water mold after running the jets. Here's how I've tried to treat it: superchlorinated to probably 100 ppm FC, ran the jets for an hour, let it sit for 3 days. neutralized down to 10 or so ppm FC treated with Ahh-some and let sit overnight with the filters floating around in the ahh-some water as prescribed by the manufacturer drained the tub and scrubbed the gunk off with lysol wipes and bleach cleaner then rinsed with a hose refilled the tub, balanced the water, but the sanitizer demand was high and the white water mold came back. superchlorinated to probably 75-100 ppm FC again, ran the jets for an hour, let sit overnight treated with Ahh-some again and got way more gunk and a ton of foam that didn't come out the first time (note: I didn't neutralize the sanitizer this time) soaked the filters in filter cleaner overnight separate from the ahh-some treated tub this time ran the jets all day with the tub putting out mountains of foam and dripping gunk on the sides of the tub and the surrounding plants and lawn drained, scrubbed the heck out of it with ahh-some water, rinsed and refilled. rinsed and replaced the filters and balanced the water, I can see no evidence of the WWM so far but... now the same amount of concentrated bleach that had been elevating the FC by 2.5 ppm is only raising it by about .4 ppm and as soon as I added the bleach and turned on the jets I got a mountain of soap foam (much different in appearance than the foam from the ahh-some superchlorination treatment, these new bubbles are large and have a soapy appearance and feel to them) Update: i used some foam down product so I could get a look at the water and sure enough there seems to be a bunch of WWM floating around (in super small bits). Does this mean that it is still alive and reproducing or is the tub just clearing out the dead stuff from the pipes? Does anyone have ideas about what is going on with my tub or what I should do now? Thanks!