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Chemical Alternatives


jimma4191

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Help! New to the site and hot tubs. In fact it's not even set up yet. Hopefully tomorrow. All the chemicals talk has my head spinning. And it's like talking another language. I'm confident I'll get through the learning curve. My concerns come from going in hut tubs on vacations I always have a reaction on my hands. some sort of weird hand eczema. Leave it to me. Research has turned up this post. (We saw similar things in our family (history of eczema) when we started with bromine as well. I'm not familiar with lithium hypochlorite but we found that when we switched to dichlor and add it to the water AFTER we get out of the tub then things got much better. The problem with bromine was that there was always sanitizer in the water that we were reacting too. By using dichlor at night then by the next day when we go in the tub again there's pretty much no chlorine left in the water. This has made a huge difference for us. I'm not sure how you are using the lithium stuff but if it's a constant feed of sanitizer then you migh want to consider trying dichlor and only dose after you get out. 2 tsp of dichlor after each use and shock once a week with dichlor as well. If it's a bit cloudy and we have people coming over I'll give it a shot of MPS and it usually clears it up quick enough and it doesn't put the chlorine levels through the roof and we can still go in later in the day. Only other thing I need to do is raise the ph and alk every couple of weeks as they tend to drop. Also give it shot of Defender every week or two as well. That's my routine in a nutshell...) Please let me know if you think this might work for me and please feel free to elaborate. Or another system if you think there is something else. A no brainer system could work well for me. We bought a used 2010 Hot Springs Vanguard. The tub has been empty for about 3 weeks. Is Nitros decontamination guide still the way to go? Some of the purge products I've read about take a week. His takes just a couple days.

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Just note that for the Dichlor-then-bleach method you should lower the TA to 50 ppm (via aeration and acid addition) and that the use of 50 ppm Borates (usually via boric acid addition) is not optional. We didn't go back and change that part of the writeup.

Also note that the Dichlor-then-bleach method (or even the Dichlor-only method) works best when you use the tub every day or two, especially if you have an ozonator. The reason is that the chlorine does not last long so adding chlorine after each soak is easy but if you don't soak frequently then you would need to add chlorine in between soaks which some people find to be too much work. Ozone reacts with chlorine so increases the chlorine demand in between soaks. On the plus side, ozone oxidizes bather waste so has you use less chlorine after a soak so it's best when you have a high bather load such as soaking every day or two.

You can certainly try this method and if it doesn't work for you then you can easily switch to using bromine or some other method such as Nature2 with MPS.

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Thanks Wizard. I am now thinking Waterbears 3 step Bromine system looks pretty easy. And I got a bunch of Brominating tabs with the purchase. Just ordered the Taylor K-2106 test kit. New filters. The electrician may be by this afternoon. I'm shooting from the hip. I'm glad you guys are here. The guy at the store said "don't talk to those guys on line". I'm gonna follow your instructions the best I can. Thanks,

Jim

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Thanks Wizard. I am now thinking Waterbears 3 step Bromine system looks pretty easy. And I got a bunch of Brominating tabs with the purchase. Just ordered the Taylor K-2106 test kit. New filters. The electrician may be by this afternoon. I'm shooting from the hip. I'm glad you guys are here. The guy at the store said "don't talk to those guys on line". I'm gonna follow your instructions the best I can. Thanks, Jim

 

Yeah, "don't talk to those guys online", because he wants to sell you his products, most of which you don't need.

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