Cleaning - Superchlorinate And Biocleaning

[Bill 3]

I am a first time spa owner and have a new-to-me sundance spa. Approx 400 gal. I am using bromine and following the 3 day system. I wanted to start with a clean tub and asked the local dealer what to do with a used tub. I was told to add about 4 gal of vinegar to the tub and run it for at least a day or longer maybe even a week, drain and I'm good. I'm pretty sure I wasted my time.

I am learning about this and am fairly happy with my bromine, PH, and TA levels. And like I said, I am following the 3 day Leisure Time program.

After soaking and dried off I can smell bromine and what seems like a musty smell on my skin. I expect the bromine, but musty no. I would like to do a deep cleaning and wondering what the best practice is.

I would like to superchlorinate (to chemically cleanse) and bioclean (using Swirl Away, Spa Purge, or Spa Flush). Which should I do first and can I use the same water for both or should it be changed for each procedure? I would think that I should bioclean first and then superchlorinate.

Thanks for the advice,

Bill

[JerimiahR]

I am a first time spa owner and have a new-to-me sundance spa. Approx 400 gal. I am using bromine and following the 3 day system. I wanted to start with a clean tub and asked the local dealer what to do with a used tub. I was told to add about 4 gal of vinegar to the tub and run it for at least a day or longer maybe even a week, drain and I'm good. I'm pretty sure I wasted my time.

I am learning about this and am fairly happy with my bromine, PH, and TA levels. And like I said, I am following the 3 day Leisure Time program.

After soaking and dried off I can smell bromine and what seems like a musty smell on my skin. I expect the bromine, but musty no. I would like to do a deep cleaning and wondering what the best practice is.

I would like to superchlorinate (to chemically cleanse) and bioclean (using Swirl Away, Spa Purge, or Spa Flush). Which should I do first and can I use the same water for both or should it be changed for each procedure? I would think that I should bioclean first and then superchlorinate.

Thanks for the advise,

Bill

Here's what we have our customers do in a situation like this:

To remove bacterial growth in a spa:

1. Drain spa completely.

2. Refill with fresh water.

3. Remove cartridge filter and soak in a chlorine and water solution of 2 teaspoons Chlorinating concentrate to 10 gallons of water. Soak filter for 2-3 hours. Rinse well.

4. Shock the spa with 4 times the normal superchlorination amount of Chlorinating Concentrate.

5. With cover ½ off, run jets for 2-3 hours.

6. Wipe down the underside of the cover with the chlorine and water solution to kill any bacteria there.

7. Pour about half a bottle (one bottle treats 800 gallons) of Spa System Flush into your hot tub. Run all the jets for 30 minutes to flush out the plumbing.

8. Drain spa again and wipe down interior if needed, refill with fresh water. Follow directions for “Starting your spa with each fresh fill” from your original water test.

The purpose of the above instructions, is to destroy any living organic compounds in your spa or spa water. We particularly use it for "watermold" problems. If spas are left empty, with water in the plumbing during warmer months, mold can grow in there. Also, if a spa is not properly sanitized during the life of the water in it, this same mold can form in the plumbing where you don't see it. This can produce a musty type smell, and customers often see "floaties" that look like dead skin flakes or paint chips. Though these flakes are usually soft, slimy, or have a consistency like wet tissue paper.

Under Step 4: "normal superchlorination amount" means the dose of Chlorine you'd add weekly. In a 400 gallon spa, that should be somewhere around 2 Tablespoons (that's what I recommend). So I'd dose the spa with 8 TBS total for this process.

You may also opt to use Bromine instead of Chlorine for this process. If your spa is second hand, and you have not already purchased a new filter, I'd suggest considering replacing the existing filter. One, I just don't like using old filters from others. Two, should you have bacteria or mold spores present in the spa they can embed themselves in the filter and are more difficult to sanitize therein. Sometimes it's safest just to replace the filter and not have to worry about if it's clean or sanitized enough.

[Hillbilly Hot Tub]

Quite often the cover is what is producing the musty smell, pay particular attention to this. The water gets inside the cover, even into the inner plastic. Are you in a warm climate where you can take the cores out of the cover and clean both sides, plus check for holes on the inner plastic?

[Bill 3]

Jerimiah,

Thanks for the reply. I am using a new filter and I am using Bromine. If I understand correctly, you are saying that I need to drain the tub before doing any sanitizing? Also I would superchlorinate before biocleaning, but I can do this in the same water? It may be incorrect, but I plan on using dichlor (or possibly even bleach -clorox) for my superchlorinating.

What would it do to the tub if I superclorinate with the bromine currently in there? And then bioclean all with the water currently have in there?

Thanks again,

Bill

[Bill 3]

Hillbilly Hot Tub,

I think you have something here. I had wiped down the inside of the cover when I got it (only about a year old). There was black (mold, mildew) on it. I thought this would be enough. After educating myself better here, I decided to dig deaper. On Monday I took the cover off and took it into the garage where I could pull the foam. The plastic is in good shape. I wiped the plastic and also turned the cover inside out and cleaned with a heavy bleach solution (there was mold in the seams), rinsed and put back together. Put the cover back on and shocked the tub. Took a soak last night and I believe my musty smell is gone. Yea!

I still want to superchlorinate and bioclean on my next water change for good measure if nothing else.

Thank you,

Bill

[JerimiahR]

Jerimiah,

Thanks for the reply. I am using a new filter and I am using Bromine. If I understand correctly, you are saying that I need to drain the tub before doing any sanitizing? Also I would superchlorinate before biocleaning, but I can do this in the same water? It may be incorrect, but I plan on using dichlor (or possibly even bleach -clorox) for my superchlorinating.

What would it do to the tub if I superclorinate with the bromine currently in there? And then bioclean all with the water currently have in there?

Thanks again,

Bill

We usually recommend to folks to do exactly as our instructions showed. Which does mean draining the spa, refilling, then sanitizing it. The idea here, assuming you have a mold/bacterial type infection in the spa, is to get rid of the tainted water. Once refilled, you're now dealing with water that is nearly sanitary anyhow. This way all your Chlorine / Bromine can directly attack any mold growths which are living in the plumbing and equipment areas, without having to attack the water borne contaminants first.

For us, this is a more sure way of ensuring the spa is truly sanitized completely. The Spa System Flush is then added prior to the last flush. This stuff is just awesome. If you've had your spa for any length of time (or someone else has) your water will probably get the dirtiest you've ever seen once you add the Spa System Flush. It does a VERY good job of breaking loose any build up (oil, mold, etc) within the plumbing system of the hot tub.

Once you've drained again, you can rinse it out briefly and get it filled up again. Then you'll have a pristine clean spa for soaking in.

Kudos to Hillbilly Hot Tub, although our instructions tell you to wipe down the under side of the cover, I didn't specifically mention that. He's right though. As water slowly absorbs into the foam core of the cover, you can begin finding a musty smell (let alone a heavy cover).

[Bill 3]

We usually recommend to folks to do exactly as our instructions showed. Which does mean draining the spa, refilling, then sanitizing it. The idea here, assuming you have a mold/bacterial type infection in the spa, is to get rid of the tainted water. Once refilled, you're now dealing with water that is nearly sanitary anyhow. This way all your Chlorine / Bromine can directly attack any mold growths which are living in the plumbing and equipment areas, without having to attack the water borne contaminants first.

For us, this is a more sure way of ensuring the spa is truly sanitized completely. The Spa System Flush is then added prior to the last flush. This stuff is just awesome. If you've had your spa for any length of time (or someone else has) your water will probably get the dirtiest you've ever seen once you add the Spa System Flush. It does a VERY good job of breaking loose any build up (oil, mold, etc) within the plumbing system of the hot tub.

Once you've drained again, you can rinse it out briefly and get it filled up again. Then you'll have a pristine clean spa for soaking in.

Kudos to Hillbilly Hot Tub, although our instructions tell you to wipe down the under side of the cover, I didn't specifically mention that. He's right though. As water slowly absorbs into the foam core of the cover, you can begin finding a musty smell (let alone a heavy cover).

Thank you again for the advice. I wasn't sure which cleaner to use, I will give the Spa System flush a try. Not sure if I am looking forward to seeing all the gunk or not. Sure will be nice to know that the tub is clean though, even in the pipes.

Bill

[port 13]

i am about to try a superchlorinate/biocleaning attempt myself, and am also wondering which order to do these two steps. I am concerned that doing it as outlined about would cause the extra FC to "kill" the enzymes in the biocleaning product. Also, these steps do not discuss warming the water, but my biocleaning product says to raise temp to 95 degrees prior to using the product. any thoughts?

thanks.

[Rita Hancock]

Hi Bill. I have a question about how long we need to super-chlorinate in case of Pseudomonas growth, since I got what looks like hot tub folliculitis.

I'm pretty sure it was an infection instead of a reaction to the chemicals, since the free chlorine level was down to almost zero possibly for WEEKS before I got the rash. Being newbies, having had our tub for only about two months, we got the kind of test strips that tested ONLY for "total chlorine" instead of testing for both total and free chlorine. It wasn't until I got the rash that I bought more detailed test strips and saw that the free chlorine was practically zero. 

First, we tried shocking the tub, but that didn't work (even with correct pH), so plan B was to drain the tub and then superchlorinate.

Back to my question about how long to super-chlorinate.......The Spa Marvel website says to add 5Tbs of granular Dichlor per 100 gallons of water and then leave it in the hot tub for 3 days. But, that's a LOT more granular chlorine than others suggest using. Moreover, pretty soon after adding all that chlorine, I noticed that the pH went down a lot. Since an acidic pH is bad for the plumbing, it seems like three days is a long time to superchlorinate. I also read elsewhere that you need to superchlorinate for only 24 hours to kill algae, which seems like the toughest thing to kill. So, I'm considering keeping the chlorine at this high level for maybe only a day and a half instead of three days, to make sure the toughest microorganism (algae) is dead. Beyond that seems like overkill.

Spa Marvel's instructions are to add their CLEANSE agent after 3 days of superchlorinating, and then to leave the cleanser in there for another 24 hours, meaning the super-high chlorine levels would stay in there for four days, at least, before flushing all those chemicals out and refilling. 

What do you guys think about all this? 

Thanks