420G Spa. Spa Frog System. Struggling With Water Chemistry

[Guest]

The day before Thanksgiving our new 420 Gallon spa arrived. We are quite excited, but I am struggling with getting the water right. It does have an ozonator (but how the hell do you tell if it's working?!?!?). I am using the Spa Frog floater system (bromine).

Startup/Fill:

• Filled tub from the hose
• Heated the tub overnight
• Put in the Spa Frog "jump start" capsules
• I opened the Spa Frog mineral and bromines to 6 and floated them in the tub

After the fill I couldn't get my alkanlinity over about 60 without PH spiking to 7.8 or higher. CH was low so I added the stuff the spa store gave me to bump it up to 160-170 consistently. PH has been staying 7.4-7.6.

Here's where I am struggling:

• FOAM! We have a good amount of foam that I can't seem to knockdown
• What do add - how much of the MPS "shock" do I add, and when? The container (Amerse) says 2 ounces per 300 gallons weekly or after every use. I have a friend with the same tub that never adds it and his water is fine - mine has been a little cloudy.
• I used the tub on Monday of this week and then added a half-dose of the MPS. I was out of town until yesterday and when I got home my water was cloudy, there was a residue at the waterline and it smelled like chemicals. Immediately tested and PH was a little low and bromine was .1. I shocked with MPS and bromine spiked to 9.1 before we had to head out to dinner reservations (i am sure it went over 10ppm)

What do I use:

• ColorQ Test Kit
• Amerse chemicals
• Spa Frog

Am I just not adding enough MPS after each use? My wife and I probably spend 4 nights a week in the tub, 30 minutes at a go. So that's 4 hours of use weekly. Do I really need to add 3 ounces of MPS after each use, or once I get this damn thing stabilized can I do weekly treatments? I thought the Spa Frog was supposed to make life easier...

THANKS!

[Guest]

This morning I got up and checked on the tub. The water is still milky/cloudy and here are my readings using my ColorQ:

• FCL: 1.82
• TCL: 2.22
• BR: 4.4
• PH: 7.7
• ALY: 67
• CH: 162

So obviously the BR spiked last night after the shock and has come down overnight. Here's my question - what do I do now? Do I wait and see how it looks later on, retest and see if the Bromine is all gone or do I re-shock and burn more crud off of it?

Thanks!

[Guest]

I checked the BR level again 90 minutes later at 8:30 AM and it had dropped to 3.8. I am going to continue to test it throughout the day - should I just reshock if it gets down to 1?

EDIT: At 10:45 the Bromine is down to 2.5ppm and water still cloudy. I THINK that the Spa Frog jump-start doesn't set an initial reserve of bromide and that's my issue, so I ordered some sodium bromide from Amazon and that will be here Monday. I guess I will just shock it until then to keep the bromine up.

Does my assessment sound correct??

[chem geek]

A new spa often has greases/oils leftover from manufacturing and in the piping and if it was wet tested and not thoroughly dried it may also have biofilm in the piping. It is recommended to use Ahh-Some to remove such greases and biofilms both for new and used spas.

[Guest]

A new spa often has greases/oils leftover from manufacturing and in the piping and if it was wet tested and not thoroughly dried it may also have biofilm in the piping. It is recommended to use Ahh-Some to remove such greases and biofilms both for new and used spas.

I've been reading several posts about that - are you saying I have to drain this and restart it? I just got off travel for the year and was looking forward to enjoying the tub over my break until January and was hoping I could stabilize it without losing several days...

Is there no way to stabilize this? Can I limp it along a week or two safely, and then purge it in the new year so we can enjoy it over the break?

Thanks for the reply!

[chem geek]

You can limp along removing foam by scooping it out and can also use a scum ball to remove surface oils. Your CH is already a little beyond the 120-150 ppm range that would normally inhibit foaming so you just need to remove the soapy chemicals that float on the water causing foam.

[Guest]

Thanks chem geek. I turned down the air inputs into the jets last night when we used the tub and it helped with the foam. I need to check today on the BR level to see if it's stabilized or not.