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Help! We're About Ready To Drown Ourselves!


Ploofl

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Hi everyone, my husband and I bought a used 330 gallon tiger river. We LOVE it but we're having serious water chemistry issues. Right now the water is clear but the chlorine demand is enormous. And we can't get the PH above 7.2 no matter what we do! Our routine is to test the water everyday, the chlorine is ALWAYS around 1 or absolutely zero. We add a .5 oz or more chlorine before we use the spa and more after we use it depending on the bather load. We also use at least .5 oz of PH up every day. It seems like no matter what we do we NEVER register any chlorine except immediately after the chlorine is added but it's gone within a few hours whether or not anyone is using the tub. And now, to top it off my husband has a rash that kind of looks like what the pictures of hot tub rash look like! UGH. We called a local spa dealer but they say this sounds like normal chemistry. Is it normal to go through almost 3/4 a container of PH up in a couple of weeks with no change in the PH? Ditto for chlorine. Shouldn't it register a little chlorine? Thanks so much. -Lynn

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Hi everyone, my husband and I bought a used 330 gallon tiger river. We LOVE it but we're having serious water chemistry issues. Right now the water is clear but the chlorine demand is enormous. And we can't get the PH above 7.2 no matter what we do! Our routine is to test the water everyday, the chlorine is ALWAYS around 1 or absolutely zero. We add a .5 oz or more chlorine before we use the spa and more after we use it depending on the bather load. We also use at least .5 oz of PH up every day. It seems like no matter what we do we NEVER register any chlorine except immediately after the chlorine is added but it's gone within a few hours whether or not anyone is using the tub. And now, to top it off my husband has a rash that kind of looks like what the pictures of hot tub rash look like! UGH. We called a local spa dealer but they say this sounds like normal chemistry. Is it normal to go through almost 3/4 a container of PH up in a couple of weeks with no change in the PH? Ditto for chlorine. Shouldn't it register a little chlorine? Thanks so much. -Lynn

7.2 isn't so bad, get yourself some baking soda to help drive up your PH. You never mentioned what your TA (total alkalitity) was? But I am going to guess it is low also and once you get it up with the baking soda your PH will stabilize. As far as your chlorine demand I think you may be a bit to worried about it. Hot water dissapates chlorine very quickly and as long as your adding after your soak to kill the nastys you should be fine. How dirty are you when you soak?

Your husbands thing, see a doctor to know for sure if it's anything other than a reaction to the hot water, chlorine, low PH.

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I would also consider shocking it since the Total Combined Chlorine might be a lot more than the Free Chlorine and making it less effective. Does it have a heavy chlorine smell since that is one indicator of a high combined chlorine level.

Another thing you failed to mention is what type of chlorine are you using? If you are using Dichlor granules, then you may have a high CYA (chlorine stabilizer) level which makes the chlorine much less effective if too high. It shouldn't be over about 20-30ppm for CYA. When was the last time the filter(s) were cleaned? If they are really dirty the chlorine could use getting used up just fighting off what is on the filters.

And last but not least, since this is a used spa, how long was it sitting unused? Did you do a decontamination before using it? If water was left in the pipes for a while the biomass build up could be eating up all the chlorine.

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If you go to the water chemistry section of the forum, there is a lot of information that will help you, but as PFC5 said, we need more info. Also, what are you using to check the water, if they are test strips, what is the expiration date on them.

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If you go to the water chemistry section of the forum, there is a lot of information that will help you, but as PFC5 said, we need more info. Also, what are you using to check the water, if they are test strips, what is the expiration date on them.

Hi, thanks so much for your replies. To answer your questions...we're not really dirty when we use the spa although I do use body lotion. We don't shower before we soak...too cold in Maine! We use dichlor granules and we're pretty confused about CYA. How do you test that? We use a drip test for PH and chlorine and leisure time test strips to double check the PH and chlorine, they also test alkalinity and calcium hardness. They are new. The alkalinity looks ok with the test strip. We did not de-contaminate before we filled the tub although given what we know now we regret that. We are trying to wait until early spring to change the water, we'll decontaminate then for sure. We filled it originally on Dec. 18. We've cleaned the used filter and have a new one that install this weekend.

Our levels after 12-24 hours are....

Free chlorine 0-1

Alkalinity 80

pH 7.2

CH a little less than 250

Everything seems to be on the low end. Maybe we are worrying too much? It just bugs us that we can't raise the pH or Chlorine for any length of time. The water is very clear but super foamy with the jets on. On the weekend we add Renew one day then Defender and Enzyme the next day. (They are LT products)

I will visit the water chemistry portion of this site, I didn't realize it existed. I'd appreciate any and all suggestions! Thanks.

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If you go to the water chemistry section of the forum, there is a lot of information that will help you, but as PFC5 said, we need more info. Also, what are you using to check the water, if they are test strips, what is the expiration date on them.

Hi, thanks so much for your replies. To answer your questions...we're not really dirty when we use the spa although I do use body lotion. We don't shower before we soak...too cold in Maine! We use dichlor granules and we're pretty confused about CYA. How do you test that? We use a drip test for PH and chlorine and leisure time test strips to double check the PH and chlorine, they also test alkalinity and calcium hardness. They are new. The alkalinity looks ok with the test strip. We did not de-contaminate before we filled the tub although given what we know now we regret that. We are trying to wait until early spring to change the water, we'll decontaminate then for sure. We filled it originally on Dec. 18. We've cleaned the used filter and have a new one that install this weekend.

Our levels after 12-24 hours are....

Free chlorine 0-1

Alkalinity 80

pH 7.2

CH a little less than 250

Everything seems to be on the low end. Maybe we are worrying too much? It just bugs us that we can't raise the pH or Chlorine for any length of time. The water is very clear but super foamy with the jets on. On the weekend we add Renew one day then Defender and Enzyme the next day. (They are LT products)

I will visit the water chemistry portion of this site, I didn't realize it existed. I'd appreciate any and all suggestions! Thanks.

First, the readings you are getting sound ok to me. All of the other replies make perfect sense and are worth checking into.

Secondly, does your tiger river spa happen to have an ozone system in it? if it does and the ozone generator is actually working then this would explain your low chlorine readings because one of the benefits of ozone water treatment is that it will remove chlorine from the water. You will know if the spa is outfitted with one by the constant bubbling coming from the drain cover in the footwell. I have had customers trying to maintain a chlorine residual and use up 2 pounds of dichlor in less than a month before asking why. Good luck.

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If you go to the water chemistry section of the forum, there is a lot of information that will help you, but as PFC5 said, we need more info. Also, what are you using to check the water, if they are test strips, what is the expiration date on them.

Hi, thanks so much for your replies. To answer your questions...we're not really dirty when we use the spa although I do use body lotion. We don't shower before we soak...too cold in Maine! We use dichlor granules and we're pretty confused about CYA. How do you test that? We use a drip test for PH and chlorine and leisure time test strips to double check the PH and chlorine, they also test alkalinity and calcium hardness. They are new. The alkalinity looks ok with the test strip. We did not de-contaminate before we filled the tub although given what we know now we regret that. We are trying to wait until early spring to change the water, we'll decontaminate then for sure. We filled it originally on Dec. 18. We've cleaned the used filter and have a new one that install this weekend.

Our levels after 12-24 hours are....

Free chlorine 0-1

Alkalinity 80

pH 7.2

CH a little less than 250

Everything seems to be on the low end. Maybe we are worrying too much? It just bugs us that we can't raise the pH or Chlorine for any length of time. The water is very clear but super foamy with the jets on. On the weekend we add Renew one day then Defender and Enzyme the next day. (They are LT products)

I will visit the water chemistry portion of this site, I didn't realize it existed. I'd appreciate any and all suggestions! Thanks.

I don't think your levels are that bad either. My last house, before this one, right out of the tap the water was 6.8-7.0 PH with a TA of 60-70. The first think I would add is 4OZ.s of baking soda this would get the levels to 110 TA and 7.4 PH, and a tbls of dichlor. Then every time I soaked I would add a couple tsp of dichlor. This would bring the chlorine level to about 2-3 PPM plenty to kill the nastys. In a couple days it was time to soak, guess what? No chlorine reading 0 PPM on a test strip(but with the taylor re-agent test kit it came in at .3-.5 PPM)In my opinion this was perfect I went in after a shower and added upon my retreat 2 tsp or 1 TBLS depending on how long I was going to go between soaks. 2-3 days went by and viola! 0 PPM and no smell, time to soak. After a month or so the dichlor has a tendency to drive down TA and that in turn drives down PH. Another couple OZS of baking soda and good to go. Sounds like your water is doing the same thing. Everyones water is different but it's important that you don't stress over it or micro manage it. It will come to you and once it does you will see how easy it is. IMO skip the defender and enzyme there just muddling it up. This system requires you to change the water every 3-5 months depending on usage. Dichlor drives up CYA (cyanuric acid) IMO this is why PH goes down (low PH, high acid) Baking soda will help this. It will also drive up your TA which should hover around 100-120 Don't panic if it gets a bit high, it will go down.

Don't forget to run your chlorine up to 8-10 PPM after about 6-8 soaks depending on how dirty your soakers are. And loose the body lotion before your soak. Do it after it will help your skin. After a few years you will know where your water is without testing because you do it so much.

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I disagree with the 3-5 month water change if using dichlor. Dichlor only systems have to be changed every month or two depending on spa use or the CYA will build up, which makes the chlorine not effective unless you add much more of it, which will also add more CYA and so on. If you have added a lot of dichlor over the past month and a half, you will have issues because the lower doses of chlorine will not keep up any more because the CYA is high.

I would also suggest you get a taylor test kit, in this kit you can test for CYA also. The test strips are not accurate for CYA at all, at least what I have seen.

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I disagree with the 3-5 month water change if using dichlor. Dichlor only systems have to be changed every month or two depending on spa use or the CYA will build up, which makes the chlorine not effective unless you add much more of it, which will also add more CYA and so on. If you have added a lot of dichlor over the past month and a half, you will have issues because the lower doses of chlorine will not keep up any more because the CYA is high.

I would also suggest you get a taylor test kit, in this kit you can test for CYA also. The test strips are not accurate for CYA at all, at least what I have seen.

All the years I never had a problem with CYA While my levels did go up over time (between changes) It was never an issue. I may have upped the chlorine a bit as the months went by but honestly CYA never ever was an issue. Matter of fact over the years the discussion about it is all that ever changed. My water was always perfect. Many, many people use a dichlor only sanitation regimine and never have any problems, and they go 3-5 months between water changes. I'm not saying that CYA isn't an issue, I am saying that it may not be the doomsday pill most make it out to be.

After a while most get a feel for their water and know when it's time to change. For me it was 3-4 times a year maybe 5 if I had a party.

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We can agree to disagree I guess, In my CPO class, and in several discussions on forums in classes ect. This issue has been brought up.

Here is one link that may help, not only does it effect how much chlorine you need, it can askew other testing.

http://poolspanews.com/2008/052/pdf/Acid_watch.pdf

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Personally I use the Dichlor until my CYA gets up to about 30-50 and then quit using it and use straight Clorox Bleach. I do have the Taylor test kit and it seems to be working fine. When we are using the tub almost daily, I add about 3.5 oz of bleach a day. I also shock mine about once every 8-10 days. I have been changing the water every 3 months before I switched to this method. I hope to go about 4-5 months now before I change it. Right after I change the water, it's very hard to keep the chlorine level up, so I just keep adding the Dichlor regularly until it starts holding the level up or my CYA hits 30-50 and then switch to bleach.

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Dichlor-only is the most common sanitation method used in spas, but how long the water lasts depends on the bather load and whether an ozonator is used. The standard Water Replacement Interval (WRI) formula for spas is (1/3)x(Spa Size in U.S. Gallons)/(Number of Bathers) where the soak time is presumably around 20 minutes. For a typical 350 gallon spa with one person soaking for 20 minutes every day, this comes to 117 days or almost 4 months. The shorter times come into play when there are more people using the spa or the soak times are longer. If you have 2 people soaking for 30 minutes every day, then this is only 39 days or a little over one month. This isn't the time when the water becomes horrid, but when it roughly starts to turn (is slightly dull) such that replacing the water has a noticeable improvement.

Having an ozonator makes up for the higher CYA reducing chlorine's effectiveness and slower oxidation since the ozone can continue to oxidize bather waste so the water tends to last longer when you have an ozonator. However, if you don't increase the FC level as the CYA level rises, the disinfection rate goes down and increases the risk of disease. There was a small increase in hot tub itch/rash/lung incidents towards the latter part of the time for heavier spa use starting after about one month and especially after two months (probably at around 200 ppm CYA or so after two months for one person 30 minutes every day).

Many people reporting on this forum that switched from Dichlor-only to Dichlor-then-bleach have said that they can go much longer between water changes and that when they do the difference between water quality is barely noticeable meaning that the quality at the end of the period wasn't dull. Roughly speaking, the Dichlor-then-bleach users can go about twice as long compared to Dichlor-only users. Again, this is without an ozonator. With an ozonator, the difference is probably far less noticeable at least in terms of visual water quality (though not with disinfection).

There is also the rough rule-of-thumb for oxidizer requirements as a function of bather load. With no ozonator, every person-hour of soaking requires around 3-1/2 teaspoons of Dichlor or 5 fluid ounces of 6% bleach or 7 teaspoons of non-chlorine shock (43% MPS). With an ozonator, these amounts are roughly cut in half if the spa is used regularly, but if the spa is used infrequently then chlorine usage goes up as ozone reacts with chlorine to from chloride and chlorate.

Roger, do you have an ozonator? What is the size of your spa in gallons? What is the spa usage in terms of how many people for how long for how many times per week? What is the rate of chlorine you find you need to add given this bather load? Are you using any other oxidizers (such as MPS) in addition to Dichlor? The answers will give us another data point to see if it's consistent with what others have been seeing.

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Dichlor-only is the most common sanitation method used in spas, but how long the water lasts depends on the bather load and whether an ozonator is used. The standard Water Replacement Interval (WRI) formula for spas is (1/3)x(Spa Size in U.S. Gallons)/(Number of Bathers) where the soak time is presumably around 20 minutes. For a typical 350 gallon spa with one person soaking for 20 minutes every day, this comes to 117 days or almost 4 months. The shorter times come into play when there are more people using the spa or the soak times are longer. If you have 2 people soaking for 30 minutes every day, then this is only 39 days or a little over one month. This isn't the time when the water becomes horrid, but when it roughly starts to turn (is slightly dull) such that replacing the water has a noticeable improvement.

Having an ozonator makes up for the higher CYA reducing chlorine's effectiveness and slower oxidation since the ozone can continue to oxidize bather waste so the water tends to last longer when you have an ozonator. However, if you don't increase the FC level as the CYA level rises, the disinfection rate goes down and increases the risk of disease. There was a small increase in hot tub itch/rash/lung incidents towards the latter part of the time for heavier spa use starting after about one month and especially after two months (probably at around 200 ppm CYA or so after two months for one person 30 minutes every day).

Many people reporting on this forum that switched from Dichlor-only to Dichlor-then-bleach have said that they can go much longer between water changes and that when they do the difference between water quality is barely noticeable meaning that the quality at the end of the period wasn't dull. Roughly speaking, the Dichlor-then-bleach users can go about twice as long compared to Dichlor-only users. Again, this is without an ozonator. With an ozonator, the difference is probably far less noticeable at least in terms of visual water quality (though not with disinfection).

There is also the rough rule-of-thumb for oxidizer requirements as a function of bather load. With no ozonator, every person-hour of soaking requires around 3-1/2 teaspoons of Dichlor or 5 fluid ounces of 6% bleach or 7 teaspoons of non-chlorine shock (43% MPS). With an ozonator, these amounts are roughly cut in half if the spa is used regularly, but if the spa is used infrequently then chlorine usage goes up as ozone reacts with chlorine to from chloride and chlorate.

Roger, do you have an ozonator? What is the size of your spa in gallons? What is the spa usage in terms of how many people for how long for how many times per week? What is the rate of chlorine you find you need to add given this bather load? Are you using any other oxidizers (such as MPS) in addition to Dichlor? The answers will give us another data point to see if it's consistent with what others have been seeing.

To be honest about 5-6 years ago when the talk of CYA became more prevelent on these forums and in news letters I did take a closer look at it in my tub and I did add Ions (N2) and started using MPS for some of the shocks. The entire time I did have a functional O3 generator and this combination is what I stuck with. I never liked the thought of using bleach as I never could get a clear picture of what the other 80% or more was in bleach. In other words the label says 10-20% chlorine and 80-90% something?? And besides dichlor was working great. I do however understand what your saying about dull water. And it seemed that no matter what method I used (I tryed bleach also and a combination of bleach and dichlor) it seemed after 3-4 months I had dull water anyway. Closely regulation dichlor seemed so easy. Dichlor 20 bucks for 6 lbs. Baking soda 2 bucks for 3 lbs last 8-10 months. So cheap so easy. And CYA just never became a problem.

I by no means am saying that this is perfect or for everyone but it sure was easy and effective for me. And the OP's sympoms seem so close to what I experienced.

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Thanks for the info. FYI -- 6% bleach has the following by weight:

6% Sodium Hypochlorite (i.e. chlorine)

4.7% Sodium Chloride (i.e. salt)

0.0623% Sodium Hydroxide (i.e. lye; for Clorox Regular; off-brand Ultra bleaches have around 0.25%)

89.2% Water

Clorox Regular also has a very, very small amount of sodium polyacrylate.

Both bleach and chlorinating liquid are made in the same way. Chlorine gas is produced by electrolysis of brine (very salty water) and is added to a water solution of sodium hydroxide (lye). The following reaction then occurs (I show compounds rather than ions):

Cl2 + 2NaOH ---> NaOCl + NaCl + H2O

Chlorine Gas + Sodium Hydroxide (lye) ---> Sodium Hypochlorite (chlorine) + Sodium Chloride (salt) + Water

In the above process, they stop short of using up all the lye so that some "excess lye" is leftover to keep the pH slightly higher which helps to preserve the chlorine longer.

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Personally I use the Dichlor until my CYA gets up to about 30-50 and then quit using it and use straight Clorox Bleach. I do have the Taylor test kit and it seems to be working fine. When we are using the tub almost daily, I add about 3.5 oz of bleach a day. I also shock mine about once every 8-10 days. I have been changing the water every 3 months before I switched to this method. I hope to go about 4-5 months now before I change it. Right after I change the water, it's very hard to keep the chlorine level up, so I just keep adding the Dichlor regularly until it starts holding the level up or my CYA hits 30-50 and then switch to bleach.

+1 I'm not going to get in over my head on a subject (chemical science) I don't know. But this is working for me too. 2 to 4 oz of bleach a day dependent upon use. I will say on the once a week or every other week I remember to MPS shock, I do put a generic defoamer in as well, in addition to an oz of dichlor instead of the bleach (and clean the filter.) However, after the 5th month it was a bit messy ... messy being the techical term (but nothing a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser didn't fix.) So I'm thinking 4 months is a good change time for me with the dichlor then bleach method. Not that some people won't go longer. It took a few tries, but it's basically a no brainer at this point. I hate that I say that now because I struggled the first few months.

DK117

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Thanks for the info. FYI -- 6% bleach has the following by weight:

6% Sodium Hypochlorite (i.e. chlorine)

4.7% Sodium Chloride (i.e. salt)

0.0623% Sodium Hydroxide (i.e. lye; for Clorox Regular; off-brand Ultra bleaches have around 0.25%)

89.2% Water

Clorox Regular also has a very, very small amount of sodium polyacrylate.

Both bleach and chlorinating liquid are made in the same way. Chlorine gas is produced by electrolysis of brine (very salty water) and is added to a water solution of sodium hydroxide (lye). The following reaction then occurs (I show compounds rather than ions):

Cl2 + 2NaOH ---> NaOCl + NaCl + H2O

Chlorine Gas + Sodium Hydroxide (lye) ---> Sodium Hypochlorite (chlorine) + Sodium Chloride (salt) + Water

In the above process, they stop short of using up all the lye so that some "excess lye" is leftover to keep the pH slightly higher which helps to preserve the chlorine longer.

Did anyone else hear the ZOOooOM as something went right over my head?

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