Hello Fellow Onzen Users

[SteelerPete]

I've had the hot tub 4 months now and for the last month we've had very low sanitizer levels and cloudy water. We aren't heavy users and the rest of the levels are in check. The Onzen is at level 4 and I've yet to see the little cloud of converted sanitizer come out of the chamber with the little bubble. So how is your systems working? I did a half tub dump and the water clouded again after a long tub last night, but when first got the tub we could have long tubs with no effects. Any advice would be appreciated!!

Pete

[cpumodem]

Pete,

Do you have a test strip that can test the PPM of Sodim Chloride ( salt ) in your water?

Also to check for the little cloud of water go through the advaced setting again and once the system resets you should see that cloud in a minute or 2.

Chuck

[Tom]

Onzen Salt Startup Chart 2.1 was released to dealers 2008/12/04. This chart replaces all previous material. Please print it and retain a copy with your Onzen Owner Manual. This chart will also be included in the Christmas 08 issue of Arctic Splash. Subscribe here.

The less salt there is in the water, the easier it will be to maintain consistent water balance. The more salt that is in the water, the faster Onzen will make sanitizer and the harder it will be to control your levels.

Salt levels need to be above 2000 ppm for Onzen to work; 2000 ppm to 2500 ppm is recommended. High saline levels (over 3000 ppm) are wasteful, make it hard to maintain water balance, and will cause your system to make too much sanitizer (which could cause damage over time to some of your tubs parts such as stainless steel jet escutcheons).

Many dealers offer a 10 pack of salt test strips to test your salt levels.

If you have not already received one, request Onzen Notes from tom at goarctic dot com. In your request, please include your hot tub serial number for our records. Thanks in advance!

[SteelerPete]

Hi Tom, thanks for the info I had my water tested about a month ago and the salt level was around 9 on the test strips. Since then I've done the half tub dump and the salt level is at 7 so should I do another half tub dump to bring the levels down even more? I will send you the info you requested so you can send my the info pack. Thanks again,

Pete

[Nigel]

Tom,

Now i am really confused.

I refilled my tub about 4 weeks ago with the previous suggested amount, 1.5kg of salt for my fill.

Once my spa was fixed i maintained what i thought was good levels until now.

I took a sample to the store, they said my salt was high, they told me to drain aboout 12" of water (depth) and refill to dilute.

Since i have done this and added the 'down' as they reccomemded i am now getting no bromine reading what so ever!

What i am confused about is that i used approx 1.5kg of salt and now it's reccommended i use 2.6kg, but i 1.5kg my salt was high.

Nigel

[Tom]

What i am confused about is that i used approx 1.5kg of salt and now it's recommended i use 2.6kg, but [at] 1.5kg my salt was high.

From what I've been hearing, local water conditions vary widely. My advice is to go with what works for your water. You requested a copy of the Onzen notes; they contain information I've collected from other users and from our R&D Dept.

My apologies for the confusion. We do want satisfied customers and I will continue to work with any who experience difficulties.

[kru76]

Hi Tom,

Would too much salt be a reason for the pH to be taking off? We're having trouble with high pH - completely dumped the tub last week to start from scratch. Already I'm drifting to a pH of 8.

Any help would be appreciated.

thanks,

Lisa

[Jacqui]

Onzen Salt Startup Chart 2.1 was released to dealers 2008/12/04. This chart replaces all previous material. Please print it and retain a copy with your Onzen Owner Manual. This chart will also be included in the Christmas 08 issue of Arctic Splash. Subscribe here.

The less salt there is in the water, the easier it will be to maintain consistent water balance. The more salt that is in the water, the faster Onzen will make sanitizer and the harder it will be to control your levels.

Salt levels need to be above 2000 ppm for Onzen to work; 2000 ppm to 2500 ppm is recommended. High saline levels (over 3000 ppm) are wasteful, make it hard to maintain water balance, and will cause your system to make too much sanitizer (which could cause damage over time to some of your tubs parts such as stainless steel jet escutcheons).

Many dealers offer a 10 pack of salt test strips to test your salt levels.

If you have not already received one, request Onzen Notes from tom at goarctic dot com. In your request, please include your hot tub serial number for our records. Thanks in advance!

Thanks Tom for all your info, I have learned more in this forum than anywhere else, my phone calls are not returned from Apollo generally!

I am glad to hear about lowering the salt, everything has run high for me, unless I had guests, then it was good for a day or two then right back up...too high! I have drained the tub half way and not added any salt this time and turned the onzen down and turned down the frequency to 2 times a day at only 1 hour. I have another question..my sub menu now appears to be right on top! I hit the filtration button once and I get FD and then on the second hit get FF! We had a power failure and I don't know how to get it back to a sub menu...is this a problem? Also, my onzen is no longer small bubbles, but big ones!! With the salt strips, is between 5 & 6 where it should be now? I have an Arctic Glacier Onzen, which I love if I could just stabilize it!!!

[larrys1]

We started having trouble keeping bromine levels at the proper level so I purchased some salt test strips ($10 w/ free shipping on Ebay)and a handheld TDS (Total Dissolved Solids) meter ($15 w/ free shipping on Ebay). Salt level came out to 3200 ppm, which was a little high. TDS showed around 3800 ppm. After doing a bunch of internet research on TDS especially reading about the Genesis Bromine Generator, I found that a level of 3500 ppm TDS is time to change the water. Here's what I learned. When we first got our tub, Arctic said to put in 8 to 10 lbs of salt. I put in 8 and didn't think it was producing enough sanitizer so I through in the remaining 2 lbs. Now Arctic recommends 5.7 to 8.1 for our Summit. Genesis says 1 lb of salt for every 100 gallons. So I completely drained the tub and only put in 5 lbs. The sanitizer levels came up perfectly and things are working better than ever! So I recommend testing not only your salt level but your TDS also. Mine is now at 2500 ppm. The rule of thumb is if EVERYTHING else is perfect, check your TDS.

[tabb7118]

We had a new Yukon delivered in August. I followed all the directions, but couldn't get any sanitizer readings on test strips. I talked to the dealership (big mistake) and got a lot of useless information that caused more delays. Finally, just to get some use out of the tub, we used chlorine (again, as suggested by the dealership).

Finally after contacting the factory and the local company (Apollo) headquarters, a serviceman came out and found that the Onzen system had never worked on our unit because of a faulty something (electrode?). They didn't have one, so they had to order it. Months passed and I finally called to see what the deal was. They said they had it and an appointment was arranged a couple of weeks ago.

Since we had to start over...I went back to the dealer last week for salt and supplies. The dealer got the bag of salt but didn't tell me that a new "Start up salt requirement" had been issued 3 months ago. (By the way, the dealer offered to "give me a break" on the new bag of salt...nice, huh? I suggested that since the salt system hadn't ever worked, and the free introductory bag was now used, maybe the "break" should be a new bag at no charge.)

So, I followed the suggested amount on the bag. Within a day, we were getting minimal readings, so we used the tub and everything seemed OK. When we came back a week later, all the readings (PH, Alkalinity, and Sanitizer) were off the chart on the test strip. The ORP meter readings were in the 700 range.

So I put in some PH and alkaline reducers and turned down the Onzen generator about halfway. Then I came in the house and discovered this forum.

I guess my game plan now is to get some salt test strips and find out what my salt situation is. If it's over 3000, I should probably start over with less salt. (Maybe the dealer will offer me a "break" on another bag of salt that I need because they didn't give me the new chart when I got the last one.)

I'm guessing that I should restore the dial on the Onzen to almost max...where the repair guy left it?

I will say that for all the hype about the Onzen system, it's basically been an annoying pain for us so far.

Any suggestions or ideas are welcome. I wish I'd known about this forum months ago!!! This is a great resource.

[Roger]

Any suggestions or ideas are welcome. I wish I'd known about this forum months ago!!! This is a great resource.

Go online to RHtubs dot com and buy a 25 dollar 6 LB tub of dichlor and use a couple teaspoos after each use. Should last about a year.

[Dust]

Hi Tom,

Would too much salt be a reason for the pH to be taking off? We're having trouble with high pH - completely dumped the tub last week to start from scratch. Already I'm drifting to a pH of 8.

Any help would be appreciated.

thanks,

Lisa

Hey Lisa. In a salt generator system, your ph will always increase. The form of sanitizer generated from water has a higher ph. In a normal add your own chlorine system, you end up getting acidic byproducts when the chlorine leaves the water (creating something somewhat net-neutral ph, or so says chem geek) but in a closed salt generation system we don't seem to get that effect, so our ph always rises.

You will need to buy and use (all the time) some ph down (or equivelent product, some sort of dry acid from your spa store). You will find that with very high salt levels, your TA (total alkalinity) will be lower, and your ph will rise faster, as you are creating more of the sanatizer and byproducts.

When TA is lower, pH can increase more quickly (and is decreased with less adjust down), so it can spiral out of control quickly in an over salted, over sanitized system. With a TA of 100, your water can still easily go from 7.2 to 7.8 in a week with Onzen (or other total salt generation systems). My guess is that this is more pronounced with chlorine, but bromine could be the same.

FYI, when your water hits 7.8, assuming you have ~400 gallon spa from arctic, once cap full of arctic's Adjust Down will bring you back to around 7.2 (again, assuming fairly balanced water). Or at least, that has been my experiance.

Keep in mind that if you need to raise your TA (remeber, lowering your salt with a partial water change if it is high, will in a few days, help your TA come back up to a better level) that you will also be increasing your pH even more. Don't add an Alkalinity increaser and a ph decreaser at the same time, as they'll just react with each other and not do their jobs. Make sure one completly mixed in before ever using the other.

Also, if you do need to muck with TA, remeber it is as easy as adding a chemical to bring up, it can be a silly pain to lower... so don't ever over-do your TA if you can help it.

Finaly, remeber that having the pumps / jets / air on will all change your ph to some extent... sometimes a bunch, sometimes not much at all (again, depends on how balanced your water is). Keep this in mind when you are testing for ph.

[Dust]

Any suggestions or ideas are welcome. I wish I'd known about this forum months ago!!! This is a great resource.

Hey Tabb

Onzen is actually a pretty awesome system, and while it is "low maintenance", it has proven pretty intensive to get a handle on. Also, its sometimes like steering a big old boat... it wants to do its own thing and you kind of have to "go with it" sometimes, because if you try to fight it to hard in a different direction, you just end up finding out next week that you overcompensated

Also, there is a TON of great info on this site (and specificaly, specific ways to really keep a tight chlorine based spa invented by some of the most highly respected users here) that just doesn't apply / can't be used quite the same for us onzen users because our spas have "their own way" of doing things.

First thing you should do tommorow is to go buy salt test strips from your store, and know exactly what your salt is at all times. The reason for this is that if your salt is off, NOTHING else in your spa will work correctly. Luckily, salt concentration does not change, ever, in your tub, unless you are adding water or removing water (salt doesn't even evaporate when the rest of your water does). So even when you top up your tub every week or two (as your water level will evaporate a couple inches every now and again) once you have refilled your tub to the same level it was when you first measured your salt, it will be exactly the same, even months later.

You want 2300ppm salt. Get to that level, and you will be a much happier owner. NEVER go below 2000, or above 2500, because then you will be a sad owner

If your salt is too high, don't waste anymore money on chemicals or more salt... just dump a little water, and then refill with clean new water. You will dump the salt in solution from your tub, and replace with saltless water, so your overall salt concentration will go down.

If you have 400 gallon tub, and your salt is 2800ppm, and you want to get down to 2300ppm, you need to dump 400 - ((2300/2800) * 400) = ~71 gallons of water and replace with fresh water. It can be hard to eyeball gallons of water in your spa, so just do a bit at a time until you're happy. A second pack of salt test strips is still much cheaper than wasting another bucket of salt

The dial on your onzen should always be max (that dial shows you how hard your onzen should work when its working). Use your control panel to control WHEN you'd like your onzen to work (i.e. how often). Your manual or your dealer should be able to show you if you're not sure. Depending on your spa brain (usualy region dependant) the settings can be slightly different (north america vs europe).

Hopefuly some of this helped out Good luck with your tub!

[Dust]

Hey Tom, those numbers on the December 2008 chart still seem way off...

On my summit, off Edmonton water, with a prefilter, your chart indicates that 3kg of water should give me, give or take, 2500ppm salt.

So, we measured out and weighed with a food scale, 7 x 400g cups of (2.8kg... less than my target 3kg, but I wanted to error on the side of caution... easier to add more salt than to remove it )

And low and behold, when I measured the next day I had ~3700ppm salt. Thats roughly 1320ppm per kg of salt. Given those numbers, the entry for the summit should be something closer to

2000PPM - 1.5kg

3000PPM - 2.2kg

I know you made the comment earlier about different people having different water, but I find it interesting that using Edmonton water (which is where I would guess you guys are calculating your numbers) we would have such a large discrepancy.

FYI - the tub is actually filled higher that you would typically expect (we keep the pillows out, and only bring them in when we use the tub because of this)... so we even had more water than was typical, and our salt readings were this high.

[Tom]

Hey Tom, those numbers on the December 2008 chart still seem way off...

Thank you for your comment. I have passed this on to our R&D department.

[tabb7118]

Any suggestions or ideas are welcome. I wish I'd known about this forum months ago!!! This is a great resource.

Hey Tabb

Onzen is actually a pretty awesome system, and while it is "low maintenance", it has proven pretty intensive to get a handle on. Also, its sometimes like steering a big old boat... it wants to do its own thing and you kind of have to "go with it" sometimes, because if you try to fight it to hard in a different direction, you just end up finding out next week that you overcompensated

Also, there is a TON of great info on this site (and specificaly, specific ways to really keep a tight chlorine based spa invented by some of the most highly respected users here) that just doesn't apply / can't be used quite the same for us onzen users because our spas have "their own way" of doing things.

First thing you should do tommorow is to go buy salt test strips from your store, and know exactly what your salt is at all times. The reason for this is that if your salt is off, NOTHING else in your spa will work correctly. Luckily, salt concentration does not change, ever, in your tub, unless you are adding water or removing water (salt doesn't even evaporate when the rest of your water does). So even when you top up your tub every week or two (as your water level will evaporate a couple inches every now and again) once you have refilled your tub to the same level it was when you first measured your salt, it will be exactly the same, even months later.

You want 2300ppm salt. Get to that level, and you will be a much happier owner. NEVER go below 2000, or above 2500, because then you will be a sad owner

If your salt is too high, don't waste anymore money on chemicals or more salt... just dump a little water, and then refill with clean new water. You will dump the salt in solution from your tub, and replace with saltless water, so your overall salt concentration will go down.

If you have 400 gallon tub, and your salt is 2800ppm, and you want to get down to 2300ppm, you need to dump 400 - ((2300/2800) * 400) = ~71 gallons of water and replace with fresh water. It can be hard to eyeball gallons of water in your spa, so just do a bit at a time until you're happy. A second pack of salt test strips is still much cheaper than wasting another bucket of salt

The dial on your onzen should always be max (that dial shows you how hard your onzen should work when its working). Use your control panel to control WHEN you'd like your onzen to work (i.e. how often). Your manual or your dealer should be able to show you if you're not sure. Depending on your spa brain (usualy region dependant) the settings can be slightly different (north america vs europe).

Hopefuly some of this helped out Good luck with your tub!

[tabb7118]

Hey, Dust...thanks for the good information...I haven't had a chance to use any of it yet since we've been out of town. I came back to the cabin today and the display was flashing. The water was off the chart in all categories and there was a crusty formation at the bottom of the headrests...the bottoms were corroding awayand the headrests are now useless. There was also a lot of whitish corrosion on the filter. I am emptying the tub right now, but I am concerned about damage to the internal components, so I suppose I'm going to have to start getting formal with the company and the dealership. This thing was supposed to be a source of joy...not aggravation. Note to Tom at Arctic Spas...if you're reading this, i need help and advice. Can you put the dealer Apollo in touch with this problem and see if we can get this tub on the straight and narrow?

Any suggestions or ideas are welcome. I wish I'd known about this forum months ago!!! This is a great resource.

Hey Tabb

Onzen is actually a pretty awesome system, and while it is "low maintenance", it has proven pretty intensive to get a handle on. Also, its sometimes like steering a big old boat... it wants to do its own thing and you kind of have to "go with it" sometimes, because if you try to fight it to hard in a different direction, you just end up finding out next week that you overcompensated

Also, there is a TON of great info on this site (and specificaly, specific ways to really keep a tight chlorine based spa invented by some of the most highly respected users here) that just doesn't apply / can't be used quite the same for us onzen users because our spas have "their own way" of doing things.

First thing you should do tommorow is to go buy salt test strips from your store, and know exactly what your salt is at all times. The reason for this is that if your salt is off, NOTHING else in your spa will work correctly. Luckily, salt concentration does not change, ever, in your tub, unless you are adding water or removing water (salt doesn't even evaporate when the rest of your water does). So even when you top up your tub every week or two (as your water level will evaporate a couple inches every now and again) once you have refilled your tub to the same level it was when you first measured your salt, it will be exactly the same, even months later.

You want 2300ppm salt. Get to that level, and you will be a much happier owner. NEVER go below 2000, or above 2500, because then you will be a sad owner

If your salt is too high, don't waste anymore money on chemicals or more salt... just dump a little water, and then refill with clean new water. You will dump the salt in solution from your tub, and replace with saltless water, so your overall salt concentration will go down.

If you have 400 gallon tub, and your salt is 2800ppm, and you want to get down to 2300ppm, you need to dump 400 - ((2300/2800) * 400) = ~71 gallons of water and replace with fresh water. It can be hard to eyeball gallons of water in your spa, so just do a bit at a time until you're happy. A second pack of salt test strips is still much cheaper than wasting another bucket of salt

The dial on your onzen should always be max (that dial shows you how hard your onzen should work when its working). Use your control panel to control WHEN you'd like your onzen to work (i.e. how often). Your manual or your dealer should be able to show you if you're not sure. Depending on your spa brain (usualy region dependant) the settings can be slightly different (north america vs europe).

Hopefuly some of this helped out Good luck with your tub!

[Tom]

Note to Tom at Arctic Spas...if you're reading this, i need help and advice.

I have responded in a PM asking you to contact me.

[quarry]

I am still a newbie here but I have seen in many of the replies above that salt levels should ideally be 2000+, however I have a frontier (8 months old and still learning). Original onzen system electrodes replaced as not working due to some sort of substance gunking them up (looked like insulation foam to me) any way the other day the chlorine level was low and there was a slimy feel to the inside of the tub and a pong from the water. I have turned the onzen up to max now and it seems to be getting better very slowly. My main concern is the salt levels, the piece of equipment given to me in my starter pack for measuring salt levels shoots up to 1000 straight away and that is the limit, i cannot monitor past this level with it. Is the item any use to me except to monitor low levels? and will turning onzen to max sort out the chlorine levels? PH and alk are ok. or am I doing something wrong, i use 2.5 kg of salt on new tub of water. How do you know if complete water change is required? any help gratefully received