Spa Chemicals-brand Question

[Caren]

Hi. Just wondering if which brand chemicals you use matter. Also does anyone know a website that discounts on chemicals. I jsut got my tub this week and I was started with nature 2 and spa essentials. Is this good? any help will be appreciated.

Thanks

[DGmarie]

Hi. Just wondering if which brand chemicals you use matter. Also does anyone know a website that discounts on chemicals. I jsut got my tub this week and I was started with nature 2 and spa essentials. Is this good? any help will be appreciated.

Thanks

I use spa essentials. It seems most places on sell one brand. In fact, the pc the spa store uses is from a chemicals manufacturer, so it spits out instructions for only one brand.

[waterbear]

The brand really doen't matter. It is the chemical that is in it. If you are using a N2 system then you are either shocking with MPS, non chlorine shock (manufactued by DuPont under the name Oxone and sold to all the companies that then repackage it under their own name) or you are keeping a .5ppm level of residual chlorine in the water. If I am not mistaken N2 is not compatible with bromine. If you using chlorine then there are basically 3 forms you might be using...Liquid sodium hypochlorite (same as laundry bleach but usually 10% instead of 6%...and yes, bleach works just fine!), Calcium Hypochlorite or cal hypo (HTH now only has cal hypo for spas...they have discontinued their dichlor shock), or dichlor, which is a stabilized chlorine. The chemicals are all the same, only the packages and the price differ! If you are using a non stabilzied chlorine then you do need to add some stabilizer (cyanuric acid) to the water if the spa is exposed to the sun. If you use dichlor it might build up to proper levels before you drain and refill in about 3 months (normal spa maintenance) but adding a bit at the start is good insurance to make sure your redisual chlorine is not destroyed by the UV rays of the sun.

Zodiac (manufacturer of Nature2) recommends that even if you shock with MPS to use dichlor to start the spa and that if you don't use MPS then dichlor is the preferred form of chlorine to use.

Hope this helps.

[Brulan1]

The brand really doen't matter. It is the chemical that is in it. If you are using a N2 system then you are either shocking with MPS, non chlorine shock (manufactued by DuPont under the name Oxone and sold to all the companies that then repackage it under their own name) or you are keeping a .5ppm level of residual chlorine in the water. If I am not mistaken N2 is not compatible with bromine. If you using chlorine then there are basically 3 forms you might be using...Liquid sodium hypochlorite (same as laundry bleach but usually 10% instead of 6%...and yes, bleach works just fine!), Calcium Hypochlorite or cal hypo (HTH now only has cal hypo for spas...they have discontinued their dichlor shock), or dichlor, which is a stabilized chlorine. The chemicals are all the same, only the packages and the price differ! If you are using a non stabilzied chlorine then you do need to add some stabilizer (cyanuric acid) to the water if the spa is exposed to the sun. If you use dichlor it might build up to proper levels before you drain and refill in about 3 months (normal spa maintenance) but adding a bit at the start is good insurance to make sure your redisual chlorine is not destroyed by the UV rays of the sun.

Zodiac (manufacturer of Nature2) recommends that even if you shock with MPS to use dichlor to start the spa and that if you don't use MPS then dichlor is the preferred form of chlorine to use.

Hope this helps.

I do not recomend using any stabalizer in a hot tub as it raises the TDS off the chart. In a pool that is a different story.

[waterbear]

I do not recomend using any stabalizer in a hot tub as it raises the TDS off the chart. In a pool that is a different story.

Sorry to be blunt but your knowledge (or lack thereof) of chemistry has been demostrated in several posts. TDS is a bogus measurement except in very special circumstances and with a hot tub is really trivial since hot tubs are drained and refilled every 1-3 months! Zodiac is the one who recommends dichlor for use with the N2 spa system. I have my own feelings about the effectiveness of N2 but I will not go into them here since I DO sell them. Chlorine, in any form, is certainly safer in terms of water sanitation with the N2 in a spa than MPS! IF you want to keep a chlorine residual at the low level that N2 recommends in the USA then you need to have some CYA in the water if the spa is exposed to sunlight or the residual will be gone very quickly and the spa is NOT sanitized. If the spa gets no sun exposure then it isn't necessary but it really won't hurt anything. At the normal dosing level of dichlor not that much CYA builds up in the 1-3 month period between water changes. It is intersting that in Austrailia the use of any coppper/silver product whether an ionizer or a passive device like the N2 requires standard chlorine levels and not reduced levels like in the USA!