Freebird222 Posted October 27, 2013 Report Share Posted October 27, 2013 Ok, I've been given a hot tub cal spa 1997, from my inlaws and I have read many postings about starting up but I am looking for the dummies version. What is TA? Is there a step one, type version? I will be filling with water softened well water ( my pool had no issues but some iron I filtered out - never had to adjust ph (perfect) and only added chlorine ever) but heated water and spa care and set up is new world. Walmart sells products- bromine or chlorine? I'm thinking bromine is less work? I am starting from scratch. Link to idiot level instructions?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enigma869 Posted October 27, 2013 Report Share Posted October 27, 2013 I'm as new as you are, but can tell you that TA = Total Alkalinity. I too wish I had a "cheat sheet" of some sort to simply tell me what my chlorine, alkalinity and PH should be. That would make life much easier Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BradS1 Posted October 30, 2013 Report Share Posted October 30, 2013 Ok, I've been given a hot tub cal spa 1997, from my inlaws and I have read many postings about starting up but I am looking for the dummies version. What is TA? Is there a step one, type version? I will be filling with water softened well water ( my pool had no issues but some iron I filtered out - never had to adjust ph (perfect) and only added chlorine ever) but heated water and spa care and set up is new world. Walmart sells products- bromine or chlorine? I'm thinking bromine is less work? I am starting from scratch. Link to idiot level instructions?? You have a lot of reading to do. Since the tub was used by someone else, I would follow Nitro's decontamination guide that's stickied in this forum. TA stands for total alkalinity and has a direct relationship with PH. You need to get this relationship balanced before proceeding with sanitation/other chemicals. Get a good water testing kit first of all. TA should be in the 80-120 range and PH should ideally be 7.4-7.6. TA can be lower if that's what is needed to get the PH in range, but PH will be more volatile when TA < 80, so small changes once down in that ALK range could have large effects. Higher PH can cause scaling while lower can cause corrosion. I use Chlorine and over 50% of hot tub owners do the same. I'm relatively new at taking care of a tub, but I've read so much material in the past 2 weeks that I feel like a new man. If you are going to manage a tub, you have no choice but to read and learn how to operate it, otherwise bad things can happen. I recommend reading and trying to understand everything that user "ChemGeek" writes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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