Frog Spa Newbie

[Hot Tub Lover]

Last year, I bought a house with a hot tub. The old owner had a bromine floater, so I just bought tablets and used it exclusively, plus a few tablespoons of baking soda once or twice a week to balance alkalinity. That was all I ever did.

But my wife complained about the bromine smell and refused to go in.

This year, I bought a Spa Frog floater to minimize the bromine. I'm limited to a floater since it's an old spa and doesn't have a strong pump. It does have a low pump when heating, but there is no option to have higher speed pumps run during the day. When the jets are on, water is sucked into the filter compartment, and water is filtered that way. The spa is from 1983, and is in remarkably good condition. If it ain't broke, don't fix it...

MY QUESTION:

On the Spa Frog instructions:

"Balance the water's pH and total alkalinity and shock the spa to establish a chorine or bromine residual of 1.0 - 2.0 ppm."

Question 1)

I'm a newbie. Last year, I never "shocked". I used bromine tablets in the floater exclusively. Does this "shock" simply mean buying some bromine or chlorine shock, which is probably a power or liquid, and throwing it in the tub to get the level between 1 and 2? Like a few tablespoons? And that's it for the chlorine or bromine "shock"?

To "balance the water's pH and total alkalinity", is that what I did last year, simply tossing in baking soda once or twice a week? That's what the old owner did, since he said our water is acidic. I used the test strips last year.

A salesman at the pool store said to bring in a water sample and he would sell me the stuff to balance. He said once it was balanced, it would stay balanced until I drained.

Is that necessary, or is he just trying to sell spa chemicals? I want as few chemicals in the water as possible. If I can get by with baking soda, it's cheaper and not as toxic, so I prefer that.

Question 2)

Do I do the chorine or bromine and alkalinity adjusting BEFORE or AFTER Spa Frog goes in?

[mjllewellyn]

Question 1, - Shocking is typically used if you have a heavy bather load in the tub. Like a lot of body oils etc from people, you shock it to help clean that up faster rather than waiting for the floater to get the job done. If using Bromine, you probably have the pucks in the floater. You can also buy a granulated bromine also, I would throw half a cap full into the water if there was a few of us in it.

Using the test strips is fine to balance the PH, but I disagree with it staying balanced until being drained... Those levels do move around and have to be monitored, the PH and Alkalinity are closely related to each other...

I would adjust the water chemistry before putting anything else into it.

[waterbear]

I would suggest reading Bromine for Beginners in the hot tub water chemistry section of the forum and do bromine PROPERLY, which you were not doing, and forget about the spa frog!

[hjames710]

Depending on the spa, you might me able to add an ozonator. My tub has an ozonator, and all I do Is add some Dry-Chlor after I get out, typically, my tub doesn't smell like chlorine when I get in it.