White Mold Problem After Spill And Fill

[flipflopper]

I got a newer Sundance spa back in March and got it running in May. When I went to look at it at the seller’s house, it had white, snotty looking things in it (I didn’t get in). I brought it home and decontaminated it with Spa Flush and then with superchlorinated water. The spa balanced out nicely after that and I kept my water within these specs:

7.8 Ph (sometimes went to 8.0 and 8.1)

100-120 TA

2-5 Bromine

130-150 Calcium

I would shock with 2-4 teaspoons of MPS after each use. After 1.5 months, the water took on a greenish hue and at the same time I ran out of bromine tabs. I switched over to a bromine/shock combo I had laying around but the green water didn’t get better. So I drained and refilled.

Things were peachy keen for two weeks. I started shocking once a week with MPS. But just recently I noticed the water start to darken a bit. So I added some clarifier and that’s when the bubbling/foaming started. The foam would leave a white, slimy residue along the walls after I turned the jets off. The stuff appears to be white mold as it is a match for the images that turn up on Google Images when I search for white mold. There are little slimy white swirlies in the water.

I added 2 tablespoons of MPS and 6 oz of 8.25% bleach (in 370 gallons) to give it a good shock. The cover is off and the sun will hit the spa water for several hours. The the jets are running and I sprayed down the filters. I will likely repeat this process with a super shock once more and try to degrease and sanitize/decontaminate my filters.

Today I ordered a new spa flush product and filter cleaner that should come later this week or early next. At that point, I'd like to run a proper decontamination cycle (or two or three until I'm not using any bromine over an extended period of time).

I have four questions:

1) How can I avoid this in the future?

2) Can I use the spa in the meantime as long as I super shock it regularly and wait the appropriate amount of time before getting back in?

3) Am I doing things correctly or is something I am doing leaving me open to these problems?*

4) Why was my water getting a greenish hue?

*I am going to keep Ph down around 7.4 in the future).

Thanks!

[chem geek]

Ahh-Some is better than Spa Flush.

You need to maintain disinfectant (e.g. chlorine or bromine) in the spa at all times. Bacteria can double in population every 15-60 minutes.

You need to add enough oxidizer after your soak and still have a disinfectant residual through the time of the start of your next soak.

It sounds like you may have relied on MPS too much and let bromine get to zero. That was the main mistake.

Green usually means copper. Are you using a copper ion product of some sort -- products with "Blue" in the name? -- or using "mineral sticks" that may have copper in them?

[flipflopper]

Okay, I will shock a little bit after every usage. Also, I picked up SeaKlear Spa System Flush this time. Next time, I'll pick up Ahh-Some and give it a try.

[flipflopper]

By the way, the first super shock I did worked magic. The water was much clearer. So I shocked again with Spa Essentials Brominating Concentrate and the water became cyrstal clear. I got in after a few hours and enjoyed the soak. I then shocked with 6 more oz of 8.25% bleach and left it overnight (open for an hour with the jets running and then shut it down). The water was crystal clear again. I'm airing it out for three hours this morning and will shock with Spa Essentials brominating concentrate with a maintenance dose and hope things remain normal.

[Dr. Spa]

"So I added some clarifier and that’s when the bubbling/foaming started."

This typically is caused by something in the water that the clarifier coagulates into large enough particles to then create this problem. Most frequently it's personal hygiene products. i.e. hair conditioner, make-up, body lotion etc.

[flipflopper]

I ended up shocking it quite a bit with bleach and the water was very clean. But the whitish slime/flakes came back. I ended up running SpaKlean through it (all night) and then a couple of hours with a high bleach cycle (23 oz of 8.25% bleach in 370 gallons). I then drained it and filled it back up and did another disinfection cycle with bleach. I also cleaned my filters with a filter cleaner and then gave them a high bleach soaking (I noticed some of the white stuff in the filter pleats). As it drained, I wiped everything down and got almost all the old water out.

To date, things have been good. I'm keeping my bromine levels at about 5 and hoping for the best. We'll see.

[dlleno]

I can confirm that Ahh-Some is vastly superior to SeaKlear (my test results here). I have also confirmed experimentally that a standard decon (50ppm for 1-2 hours) was not as effective as a purge with Ahh-Some in controlling biofilms.

I would highly recommend purging with Ahh-Some, and in your situation maybe even more than once (it took two purges for me). One additional step that many overlook is to purge the filters too. if you don't, they will add contaminants back into the spa, so I throw them into the vessel while it is dosed with Ahh-Some. In fact, after I cleaned my filters with a std filter degreaser, and with my spa dosed with Ahh-Some (for the third time) releasing no new material, I installed my (traditionally cleaned) filters into their normal positions and discovered that Ahh-Some released even more material from the filters themselves. Be careful when you do this -- there is a reason the label directions say to remove the filters when purging - it is because the amount of material released may be so high that the filters will clog up. in my case I knew I had a clean spa and "cleaned" filters so I installed them into their normal positions. I was able to wipe up the released material with a micro fiber cloth.

when you have a spa dosed with Ahh-Some, and with filters in the normal positions, and you see no new material release, THEN you know you have a clean spa. yes I'm a hopeless analytic about this :D

I have a corona discharge ozone generator and I can maintain a non-zero bromine level indefinitely with no bather load -- as long as a spider or bee doesn't get in there lol