3 Step Bromine- Major Snag. Advise Please

[christine123]

i am hoping someone can shed some light on my issue

i reseached this board immensely before embarking on a bromine system for our new spa.

i followed everything according to the 3 step plan including the test kit, etc etc.

i added a liquid bromine according to my spa size of 400 gal. ( i had to purchase this at home depot as i could not source sodium bromide at my local spa retailers.) i added 6 oz of liquid bromine and then 8 oz of 6% bleach

my bromine read via my test kit was NIL. ???

did i do something wrong? i was unable to do my chemicals with the heater off.

in my desperation i added 4 pucks of bromine tablets to my floater and added it thinking that at least something in there will sanitize even a little till i get this figured out.

any advice on what i should do now would be greatly appreciated.

thanks!!!!

[waterbear]

Please post your test results, the products that you used, and the ingredients in those products if listed on the label. Even if you had not bromide bank in the water the bleach should have registered since it is chloirne. Perhaps tere is something growing in the pipes from when the spa was water tested and it needs to be decontamininated (not uncommon in new spas).

[christine123]

thank you!

i balanced the water fine for TA, Ph, etc. i used baking soda, ph decreaser, and calcium chloride

for sanitizer i added 6 oz of Spa Pure 35% liquid sodium bromide and 8 oz of safeway brand 6% bleach i purchased yesterday. this was based on info i read for a 400 gallon tub. after adding, i used my taylor test kit to measure bromine. its the one with the powder dipper. 2 dippers worth did not turn the water pink, nor did 2 more dippers worth. i didnt want to waste the powder. i then used a test strip and of course it said zero as well.

i put 4 bromine pucks in a floater and thats in there now as it was very late when all of this happened and i was worried about the high temp and zero sanitizer.

i hope i have answered your questions.

thanks in advance.

[christine123]

just to clarify. the instructions tell me to add 2 dippers of dpd powder and if pink colour disappears add 2 more until its pink. i did not get any pink after 2 doses of dpd powder. this morning there is a slight green tinge to the water. thank you!

i am tempted to add some granular chlorine but i still have my bromine pucks in the floater and dont want to do anything wrong.

[Spanky]

Did you fill the tub from a well??

It's possible you may have copper and/or iron in the water. We're all here to help just give us the complete picture of what was done and what was added.

[christine123]

thank you, no we are on municipal water. i spent quite a bit of time reading all of the stickies etc on here in my attempt to educate myself as much as possible while also looking after 2 small children lol

i got to thinking that this may be an issue with my bleach so i added some stabilized chlorine granules and now my bromine is reading at 7.5 ppm i have left the cover off with the jet going.

i will retest in about an hour and see where i am at.

to get my TA to 100 i added 6 oz volume of baking soda. i added 30 g of ph down to get my ph to about 7.8. i added 180 ml by volume of cal-plus brand sodium chloride. thats all good.

for my bromine bank i put in 6 oz liquid s.bromide and 8 oz 6% bleach which gave me nil bromine. 4 bromine pucks in the floater.

thanks very much for helping me out! it seemed so easy! we did a TERRIBLE job with our last hot tub so i am trying to do my best. i called my local hot tub retailer who has been in biz for 30+ years and he didnt know what i was talking about .

i will cross my fingers that it will be ok now that i added the dichlor.

thanks for the advice. huge learning curve here!

[christine123]

i couldnt wait as this is making me rather anxious.

my test results are as follows:

7.5 ppm bromide

ph 7.4

TA 80

CH 90 ( i will need to increase this)

thanks!

[waterbear]

nothing to be anxious about. Your numbers are not bad. I suspect the reason that you could not get a bromine reading is because something was 'growing' in the water. The green cast makes me suspect an algae bloom. If you keep shocking (adding chlorine) until you get a bromine reading that is holding you will solve the problem and it seems like you already started doing that.

The opther possibility is that your bleach is old. If there is no bromide bank in the water and you just added bleach you should still get a reading on the FAS-DPD test unless hte bleach is very weak or something is in the water that is consuming the sanitizer.

[christine123]

thank you!

i was considering adding another 6 oz of sodium bromide to increase the bromine bank but i wasnt sure if thats a good idea or not? i was looking through the forum to see if you should only add the sodium bromide on a new fill vs. a tub that already has floater/bleach. i have 4 pucks of bromine in the floater. i will purchase better quality sodium bromide from amazon for my next fill and a name brand bleach.

in the mean time i will continue to shock until the bromine level holds. supposedly there is an ozonator in the tub so i was hoping to not have to shock with bleach every time we use it but through trial and error we will see.

one more question? thanks is adding dichlor to shock just more expensive than liquid bleach or is there another reason plain old bleach is better for shocking? or should i alternate shocking with MPS and dichlor?

thanks so much for the help!!!!!

[waterbear]

bleach is inexpensive and basically pH neutral on use. Dichor costs more and is net acidic on use so you need to pay a bit more attention to TA and pH. You should not need to be shocking after each use, the floater should have your bromine level back to where it belongs by the next day. Give it a chance to work.