Converting To Bromine, Things Not Going As Planned

[plzwork]

Hi, I have a 350 gallon hot tub that I am trying to convert to bromine after using the dichlor/bleach method. I am trying to do everything based on waterbears' bromine for beginners guide. I didn't want to drain the tub so today I let the free chlorine level drop to about 1 ppm before attempting to convert.

The bromine products I have are Solus Quick Shot Bromine Booster to get my bromine reserve and Solus Brominating Plus tablets (ingredients are 98% Bromochloro-5, 5-dimethylhydantoin and 2% other ingredients) that provide 64.9% available bromine and 29% available chlorine with a floater that looks similar to the Pentair 335.

Once the free chlroine level dropped to around 1 ppm I added approximately 1.5 ounces by volume of the Quick Shot Bromine Booster to establish the reserve. I let that circulate and added 6 ounces of 6% Clorox Unscented Bleach to try and activate the bromine. I let that circulate for awhile then went to measure the bromine assuming I should get a pretty high reading and the reading was very low somewhere between 0-1ppm using strips then I used my Taylor K2006 to see if the strips were wrong and I only got a 2.25 ppm reading (converted using 10 ml mark assuming each R0871 drop counts as 1.125 ppm bromine). So I added 4 more ounces of the Clorox and the K2006 gave me 10.125 ppm bromine reading that quickly dropped to 3.375 ppm about an hour later.

So to summarize right now I have added 10 oz of Clorox to activate the 1.5 ounces of bromine reserve I added and am only getting a bromine reading of 3.375 ppm. I haven't added the floater with tablets yet. Have I done anything wrong? Did I add enough reserve? Why isn't the Clorox super-brominating the tub like it should? Does the tub need to be drained and refilled before converting? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

If it helps my other K2006 measurements are:

~130 ppm CH

~70 ppm TA

~7.8 ph

~20 ppm CYA

[gman]

I might be mistaken about this, but when using your Taylor K2006 (chlorine) drop test kit to measure bromine, I thought the conversion rate for each drop of R871 is 1.25 (not 1.125). If I'm correct, then your bromine level will be a bit higher than you indicate. If I'm wrong..."nevermind" (Roseanne Roseannadanna)

gman

[waterbear]

By letting your chlorine level drop you probably allowed something to start growing in your water, creating a high santizer demand. This was your mistake This is why your sanitizer level is dropping fast. To convert a chlorine system to bromine you simply need to add sodium bromide. Once you do that you no longer have chlorine, you have bromine!

I suggest that you put the floater in and shock again (get the bromine reading up to about 20 ppm!) to try and get rid of the sanitizer demand.

Also, once you convert to bromine CYA readings become meaningless.

[plzwork]

Thanks for the replies and sorry for the delay, got caught up in some things. So after my orginal post on Wednesday I added another ounce of the sodium bromide reserve and shocked it again. By Wednesday night I was around 8ppm, then Thursday morning it dropped to around 4ppm so I finally put in the floater on the lowest setting. I didn't check the levels till Friday morning and I was surprised to find out that I was at 0ppm, I proceeded to open the floater to setting 2 and shock the tub with 8 ounces of Clorox then I had to go to work. When I got back 9 hours later the tub had about a 15ppm reading so I took the floater out and left the cover open. 8 hours later the bromine reading was at about 11ppm.

So at this point my questions are:

Is there anything wrong with adding extra bromide reserve (in total I added 2.5 ounces of it for my 350 gallon tub)?

Have I gotten rid of my sanitizer demand?

When should I put the floater back in?

Also I am probably going to convert someone else tub to bromine and they are also doing the dichlor/bleach method, so should their free chlorine level be in a certain range before adding the bromide or is it irrelevant in the conversion process?