Switching To Bromine From Dichlor/bleach Method

[kittkatt62]

Awhile ago,I posted about getting itchy bumps from hot tub.Stopped using stain and scale preventer and bumps went away.Well,now they are back but not very badly.Went to dermatologist and he said it is a chemically induced folliculitis and suggested we switch to a bromine based system as ,he said,bromine is gentler on the skin....I don't know,so we are going to switch to bromine and see what happens.My question is:can I use muriatic acid instead of dry acid in a bromine tub to bring down ph or is muriatic acid not compatible with bromine?Also,I have the taylor k-2006 test kit for chlorine.Can I just buy the taylor k-1517 test for bromine and use the reagents from the k-2006 kit for CH,TA,PH or do I need to buy the entire k-2106 kit?

[Spanky]

can I use muriatic acid instead of dry acid in a bromine tub to bring down ph or is muriatic acid not compatible with bromine?

Muriatic acid is just fine for either Dichlor/Bleach or 3 step Bromine, In fact, I prefer it.

Also,I have the taylor k-2006 test kit for chlorine.Can I just buy the taylor k-1517 test for bromine and use the reagents from the k-2006 kit for CH,TA,PH or do I need to buy the entire k-2106 kit?

You actually don't need to buy anything... Only difference between the K-2006 and the K-2106 is the calibration strength of the reagent.(They are in fact the SAME reagent) Just multiply your result by 2.2.. If you get a reading of 1.5 then multiply by 2.2 to get the Br equivalent (1.5 X 2.2 = 3.3ppm)

[chem geek]

Bromine is not gentler on the skin. The dermatologist is not accounting for the CYA in the water that significantly lowers the active chlorine concentration and you were probably starting with 1-2 ppm FC for your soak so with the CYA it was much lower than in chlorinated tap water. Anyway, let us know how it goes. I suspect it's more from the heat than anything else.

[kittkatt62]

Thanks for the info.Plan on switching it over next weekend after all the stuff arrives,will keep you posted.If it gets worse with bromine,we will just switch back to dichlor/bleach.I also just lowered water temp. to 98,maybe that will help a little too

[kittkatt62]

Update:we are now a week into the change to bromine and not one itchy bump to be found anywhere.We are really loving the bromine, it's easy to use and maintain and i think it is really going to work out much better for us. I have been using the spa every night and haven't had any reaction at all. I even got brave 2 nights in a row and not showered after getting out to see if i would break out and there was nothing the next morning. I do have one last question though, I have a slight drift upwards of my PH every couple of days from a7.4 to 8.0 , is this normal? My TA is sitting at 70 right now. Can I add boric acid to stabilize ph or is that just something that you would use with the dichlor/bleach method

[njmurvin]

That's interesting. Do you have a floater with bromine tabs? My experience with the 3-step bromine has been the pH actually lowers over time due to the acidic nature of the tabs. I have to raise the pH occasionally to offset. My TA is pretty low too (~50 last time I checked).

[chem geek]

Yes you can use boric acid with the bromine system as an additional pH buffer. However I hope it wasn't the boric acid that was causing your bumps during the Dichlor-then-bleach. Of course, a water change can remove the boric acid if you find that it causes any problems for you. Keep us informed and I'm glad this is working for you. You must have some specific chlorine chemical sensitivity. If so, I'd expect that to show up in showers and baths unless you have a whole house filter or perhaps your water district switched to chloramination so use monochloramine (though for some people, that's more irritating).

[kittkatt62]

I am using a floater with bromine tabs and I also thought that ph was supposed to drop over time instead of rising. However, we are on well water, but I don't know if that would have anything to do with that or not....Chem geek, we used to have a pool and I never had problems with chlorine before, but maybe the combination of chlorine and the hotter water temp. is the problem.Anyways, I'm just glad that we got it figured out and I can actually use the spa, it would have been a very expensive unusable toy otherwise.Thank you all for the priceless help I have received on this site and for sharing all the knowledge you all possess.