Guadian (SWT) vs SpaBalancer vs Chlorine treatment

[bassie123456]

Hi All,

First off, I'm new on this forum. Please let me know if my topic belongs elsewhere. 

I own a spa for like 1,5 year now and I'm looking for the best way to treat my water. At the moment I use Guardian SWT. This is quite effective, but I'm afraid that it is bad for my spa parts. My spa broke 2 times already and both times it seemed like something was eating the material. They told me this could be due to high doses chlorine, but SWT is chlorine free. So it must be either SWT or maybe the hardness of my water (it's quite hard around here). Since my last water renewal I use a prefill filter which filters out the calcium I think, it makes the water softer.

However, I'm considering to use something else then SWT. The reason I chose SWT at first is because it's chlorine free, and with that it does not smell or irritate to eyes which are common side effects of chlorine I think? So looking at chlorine-free alternatives I have found SpaBalancer (Lotus Fresh) which seems to be something like Guardian SWT, but it is very hard for me to tell the differences and the different effect it will have on my water treatment or spa materials. Another famous one (around here anyways) is AquaFinesse which is commonly used in addition to chlorine. 

Can someone advise or share experience on the water treatment? (especially the effect on the spa materials). I don't know what treatment I should use next. Altough I prefer a non-chlorine treatment, if a chlorine treatment comes out as the best option for both my water quality and spa materials then I have no problem switching to chlorine treatment. However, maybe SpaBalancer is the magic answer to my problems. It is hard to find reviews on specific treatments, especially from spa owners who have used a certain treatment for multiple years.

Hope to gain some knowledge here! Thanks a lot in advance!

[arobbert]

Do you have a test kit? Post your test results. This may be related to other issues.

Read this post for more information. 

 

[bassie123456]

Thanks for the reply! I have a PH meter and test strips for TA and chlorine. The test strips are a bit hard to read so I am thinking of ordering a Taylor testkit since I have read about it on this forum. 

The PH keeps drifting up at the moment, I think it is because the TA is too high, but I can't pinpoint a number on the TA because it's just color indication that says it's high. I can't get the TA down using PH minus appearantly (I tried). However, I have read a topic on this forum about bringing TA down so I will try that out.

As for the Dichlor/bleach method: is this method better then for example SWT or SpaBalancer? I started this topic mainly because I am going to renew my water next week and I want to switch to a different spa maintenance method. Maybe I will use Dichlor method then.

One more question: I have read that PH minus that some stores sell is not too good for the equipment, is that true? The most shops here (Netherlands) sell PH minus in liquid form, it is unknown to me what chemicals are used in it. I also found a PH minus granulate based on natrium bisulfate. Is it true that this is bad for the materials of the spa and that I'm better of using Muriatic Acid? I can buy Muriatic Acid here but the advertised application is always like for removing calcium or cement. Also, it comes with different names and concentrations for example 10%, 30% . Is Muriatic Acid really the best solution and why do no pool shops sell this but all sell other chemicals, if the other chemicals are worse for equipment?

Thanks :)!

[MPurcell]

Your bias against chlorine may be from your experience with public pools where water management is often not optimal. The chlorine smell, skin irritation and burning eyes that is sometimes experienced in a public pool is *not* due to the chlorine, it is due to the chloramines that are produced by the oxidation of bather waste, and not in turn oxidized by the sanitizer. Another word used for this is combined chlorine. In a properly managed pool or spa, free chlorine will be maintained in the target range and never allowed to fall below the minimum, but more importantly, combined chlorine will be zero or very close to zero, and certainly below 0.5 ppm. A properly managed chlorine pool or spa should not be unpleasant due to smell or irritation.

In the United States, there are only three approved sanitizers, chlorine, bromine and baquacil. Where are you located? The SWT product you have been using is made in Sweden. Baquacil  is extremely expensive and has met with poor results by many, so that leaves only chlorine and bromine as viable sanitizers. I don't believe a spa will be safe to use without one of these. I personally would never try a mineral system, a silver system, or any other alternative sanitizer. Most of the alternatives will instruct you to use chlorine with them.

From my limited experience and study, I don't believe that high chlorine levels for relatively short periods of time (for instance during a "shock" or "slam") will do any harm to the equipment, and keeping the chlorine at recommended levels will not unduly degrade the equipment. Having the water out of balance is much more likely to be a cause of harm to the equipment. So low pH or high pH combined with high calcium can both cause problems. The calcium saturation index should be between -0.6 and +0.6. Above or below those levels can be problems for the equipment.

I would suggest that you follow the Dichlor/Bleach method that @arobbert linked above.

[bassie123456]

Thanks a lot! This really helps. Indeed my bias with chlorine came from exactly what you described. I will switch to the dichlor/bleach method as of my next water renewal. 

I am located in The Netherlands btw, and around here they advertise a lot with all kind of miracle liquids which are supposed to be revolutinairy for water treatment. SWT, AquaFinesse and SpaBalancer are the main brands around here. 

I am stuck with 3 more questions, hope you can help me out on this:

- Calcium level is important is what I learned. But how can I correct the calcium? Would you recommend something like this? https://www.amazon.com/HotSpring-Vanishing-Calcium-Remover-76029/dp/B004GFQRLG (I already use a prefill filter since a couple of months which also filters out calcium so I'd expect that the calcium levels are OK)

- As for the testkit, which kit is recommended? I read good things about the Taylor testkit. I already have a very accurate digital PH meter, so I don't need any testing stuff for that. Would this kit be recommended to go with? http://www.ebay.com/itm/Taylor-K-2006-Complete-FAS-DPD-Chlorine-Swimming-Pool-Water-Test-Kit-K2006/121728488819 or would this kit suffice too: https://www.taylortechnologies.com/nl/product/test-kits/surecheck-total-balance-alkalinitybromine-chlorine-hi-range-dpdcyahardnessph--K-1005?pageid=19

- I have read that the liquid PH minus that pool stores around here sell are no good for equipment. So I have found a non-liquid solution which is based on natrium bisulfate. Is that good too? Or should I really go get Muriatic Acid. 

[bassie123456]

Hi, I have one more question. Reading through the dichlor method I basically need to get 2 products: dichlor and Clorox 6% Unscented bleach. However, these product are both very american. I cannot find anything like this in The Netherlands. Does anyone know what to use and where to get it in The Netherlands? I can get hth products as it seems which are also selled in the US, however they have chloor sanitizers but I don't know if I can use that because it isn't named dichloor? http://www.hthpools.com/spa/spa-products/sanitize I also can get 'interline' products: http://www.interline-products.com/8726.htm they have chlorine tablets, chlorine granulate, etc. But I don't know if it's dichloor..

[MPurcell]

The Taylor K-2006 test kit is recommended. It contains the FAS-DPD chlorine test which is a titration test. The Taylor K-1005 test kit uses the DPD chlorine test, which uses a drop reagent into a sample of water, then color comparison. FAS-DPD is more accurate than DPD, and can read concentrations above 10 ppm which DPD can not. So if you can get the Taylor K-2006, that would be a very good choice. There are some other alternatives to get FAS-DPD testing in GB and Europe. You could search this forum and the Trouble Free Pool forum as there are several threads about this in the archives. FAS-DPD chlorine test is strongly recommended for managing water quality in a pool or spa.

Calcium level in a spa should probably be above 100 ppm, but levels up to 250 or 300 are not too much. Your test kit will allow you to test for calcium hardness. You should test your fill water to find out where the starting point is. Calcium hardness can be added easily, using calcium chloride, but I would never use a product to remove it. Instead, use a partial or complete water replacement. Low calcium hardness may allow foaming in a spa. Very high calcium hardness can cause calcium deposits, and possible damage to equipment. Familiarize yourself with the Pool Calculator, which has many benefits. One is it calculates the calcium saturation index based on your water parameters.

I don't know what is in the liquid pH minus, but the granular pH minus products all contain sulfates or sulfites, which are not too bad in very small quantities, but as they build up with repeated use, the compounds are not good for the equipment. With a chlorine spa or pool, it is not uncommon to have pH rise and be using muriatic acid or pH down regularly. You can minimize that by having a low total alkalinity. Another help is to add about 50 ppm of borates to the water. Muriatic acid is recommended but since it is an acid, you probably won't be able to have it shipped to you.

You can use dichlor or trichlor to add both chlorine and cyanuric acid (CYA), or you can just buy straight cyanuric acid, usually sold as "stabilizer." Dichlor is Dichloroisocyanuric acid, also known as dichlor or dichloro-s-triazinetrione and is marketed under many names. You could look up the chemical formula and compare to the ingredients of the products you have there. What do people use for laundry bleach there? Liquid laundry bleach and liquid chlorine for pools is basically sodium hypochlorite with a little lye to stabilize it. Over here, laundry bleach is most commonly 8.25% (6% is much less common nowadays) and liquid chlorine is most commonly 12%. But aside from strength, they are the exact same product. So hopefully you can find a source for liquid sodium hypochlorite, as that is the foundation product of the Dichlor then Bleach method. If you can find liquid chlorine, and if you can get stabilizer, then just add the amount of CYA to bring the spa up to 30 ppm and start using the liquid chlorine immediately. In that case, you can skip the dichlor. By the way, dichlor dissolves readily, but stabilizer only dissolves slowly, so you should put the amount you need in a sock and put it in front of a water jet to dissolve.

[arobbert]

For chlorine/bleach look for the active ingredient sodium hypochlorite. It will be a liquid.  It will be between 5.25% and 12.5%. This is often sold as swimming pool liquid shock in the US. You may be better off looking at pool supplies. They are generally the same chemicals.

More expensive powder for options are Lithium Hypochlorite or Calcium Hypochlorite

For Dichlor look for dichloro-s-triazinetrione.

I looked at the products you linked but they don't show the active ingredients. You need to know this information.

[bassie123456]

Thanks a lot to both of you! That's a lot of helpfull information. I will do some more research on the products I can get locally. Also I will order the taylor testkit!

Laundry bleach used around here is 'Glorix' but I cannot find any informatino on the ingredients. I suspect it is on the bottle so I'll hop into a big box store this weekend and make a picture of the ingredients. 

I did some research on the ingredients of the HTH pool products. It's hard to find but by searching for the MSDS sheet I did find some information:

hth Ph minus: 

"The main ingredient is Sodium Bisulfate (Dry Acid) meant to reduce PH and TA"

• Sodium hydrogensulphate : concentration 91.5 %- 94.7 %
• Sodium sulphate concentration:  4.8 %- 8.0%

hth PH plus: Sodium Carbonate (Soda Ash) (100%)

HTH dry chlorine granular:
According to this sheet: http://www.pollardwater.com/pdf/MSDS_Sheets/HTH Granular Chlorine MSDS.pdf the ingredients are:

• 60-80% calcium hypochlorite
• 10-20% sodium chloride
• 0-5% calcium chlorate
• 0-5% calcium chloride
• 0-4% calcium hydroxide
• 0-5% calcium carbonate

HTH briquettes

• Main ingredient calcium hypochlorite (>90 %)
• <3% calcium dihydroxide
• <3% calcium chloride
• < 2% calcium chlorate

I know for sure I can get hands on most of the HTH products over here. According to this information, any recommendations on the products to go with? I tried comparing the chemical formula of Dichloroisocyanuric acid with some of the products above but it's quite complicated for me..

PS If I look on webshops selling HTH products they all say 'This is an anorganic chlorine solution and contains no stabilizer (cynatic acid)'. And also, they say 'using stabilized chlorine' can cause overstabilisation and because of that green water and so they recommend non-stabilized chlorine'. I can get cyanic acid so it's no problem to add stabilizer seperate from a chlorine solutions, however why do all the stores evangelize against this?

Thanks a lot again guys. I am a total newby and this forum and your anwers really helps me boost my knowledge!

[arobbert]

The HTH PH plus and minus look fine.

The HTH dry chlorine is mostly calcium hypochlorite but has many other items you don't need like 10 to 20% salt for example. It would do in a pinch but I would continue your search.

If you can verify Glorix is Sodium Hypochlorite with no scents or "anti Spash" ingredients it should work.

You need cyanuric acid not cyanic acid. It should be made specifically for pools or spas to stabilize chlorine. Adding CYA separately is fine. Increase to about 30 ppm. You should probably add about 5 ppm at a time over a week just to make sure you don't over dose it. It's not a big problem if you can't get this. But you will go through more chlorine and need to test more frequently.

[bassie123456]

Ok, thanks a lot! I will look into the ingredients of Glorix. I found the cyanuric acid on a webshop and they advertise it to use for pools so that's should be fine.

So, the HTH dry chlorine comes with a bunch of extra ingredients, but the briquettes consist of 90+% calcium hypochlorite , so that would be a good option to go with right? (combined with the cyanuric acid)

[bassie123456]

Btw, I did some research on Glorix and it seems to be Natrium Hypochlorite instead of Sodium Hypochlorite. Basically any bleach product I have checked out uses Natrium Hypochlorite.. I have checked like 10 products and it is all Natrium

[arobbert]

When I search for Natrium Hypochlorite on google everything comes up Sodium Hypochlorite. I think it's the same thing.

I also found this in several locations:

www.dictionary.com/browse/natrium
an obsolete name for sodium. Word Origin. C19: New Latin; see natron. natrium in Medicine. natrium na·tri·um (nā'trē-əm)

The translation of natrium from german is sodium in english. 

http://en.bab.la/dictionary/german-english/natrium

 

 

[bassie123456]

You are totally right It's the same thing indeed. Thanks!

So, I think I can get all the things to get started on the dichlor method (assuming the HTH briquettes are OK to use). 

[arobbert]

Great! 

The HTH briquettes don't add CYA so don't use them. If you can't find Dichlor you can skip it. It won't be a big problem. Is the spa indoors or out? Is it covered?

[MPurcell]

Natrium is the Latin word for sodium. The chemical symbol for sodium is Na. So it looks like you can use the Glorix or other laundry bleach as long as there are no scents added and it is not splashless. Natrium hypochlorite = sodium hypochlorite.

You would not want to use Cal hypo (calcium hypochlorite) to add chlorine to your spa even if it was 100% because you would be adding too much calcium to the water in a very short period of time. For each 1 ppm raise in chlorine, you would add 0.7 ppm of calcium.

As I said before, pH minus contains sulfates (or sulfites) which can be a negative for the equipment. If you can obtain muriatic acid, that would be preferable. Many people use pH minus though, and if you plan to change water more frequently, say every 2 or 3 months, then the risk to the equipment is minimal.

You will find that the people at the stores often only have part of the story, or their story is the wrong story, :). Anyway, in a spa using chlorine, you really do need CYA, usually at 30 ppm or max 40 ppm. If you don't have CYA in the water the chlorine is completely unstabilized, and the main reason that bromine is recommended for spas and unstabilized chlorine is not is because temperatures of 37 celsius and above will dissipate unstabilized chlorine very rapidly, especially at high pH. Bromine is much more stable in high temperatures and not sensitive to high pH. But chlorine stabilized at 30 ppm works very well in a spa, and many think it is superior to bromine.

The advice about not using dichlor or trichlor is sensible because many pool and spa owners have not learned enough about what they are doing, so they just keep adding CYA along with the chlorine until the CYA get way too high, even into the hundreds of ppm. The higher the CYA the higher the chlorine demand, so at some point the pool starts having serious problems. See the chlorine / CYA chart for more info. Very often when people hire so called professionals to manage their pool, the pool boy uses dichlor or trichlor continuously until the CYA is too high. About the only way to deal with too much CYA is a partial water replacement. This is not too much of a problem in a spa, but in a pool it can be a real issue.

[bassie123456]

Thanks again guys! @arobbert, it's indoors and it is covered. It's a 5-person spa with 1250 liters volume. That a chlorine solutions does not contain CYA won't be a real problem for me because I can buy this seperately (stabilizer)

@MPurcell Really helpfull again! So, Calcium Hypo is not recommended. I checked some stuff I bought in the past and found a box  of trichlor tablets as it seems. The chemical in it is: trichloroisocyanuric-acid (100%). So this ads chlorine, as well as CYA right? So I could use this at the startup and once the chlorine level is OK switch to bleach (and so on). 

I get your point about the incorrect usage of dichlor of trichlor. However, what if you want to increase your chlorine level, but not your CYA level? Is that what the bleach does? I understand if someone thinks the pool needs more chlorine and they add dichlor, then their CYA level gets too high, and so on. So how can you seperately manage your chlorine vs CYA levels when using dichlor/trichlor solutions?

Thanks again!  Ps. Sorry for all the questions. It's hard to find good info on this in The Netherlands, and many products refered to on this forum are not available in The Netherlands (at least not under the names they are listed here), so it's a bit hard for a newby like me to figure it all out. But I'm slowly putting pieces together thanks to you guys!

[MPurcell]

Yes, bleach (natium hypochlorite / sodium hypochlorite) is your main source of chlorine. In the dichlor then bleach method you add dichlor only until you achieve a CYA level of 30 ppm, then you switch over to bleach. It usually takes about a week or two of dichlor to get to that level. Then you use only bleach until the next drain and fill.

You can use trichlor the with the same effectiveness as dichlor. The ratio is 0.6 ppm of CYA for each 1 ppm of chlorine. In your tub 1250 liters (330 gallons) you will need a total of 2.4 ounces of trichlor which will raise the free chlorine by 50 ppm and CYA by 30 ppm. With trichlor pucks or tabs I guess you would have to crush it and weigh the powder. The 2.4 ounces is by weight and not by volume. Each addition would be a very small amount. I have never tried to crush a trichlor puck so I don't know how effective it will be. I have crushed bromine tablets, and they are hard to get to powder. You wind up with small granules that still take quite some time to dissolve. However, I think bromine tabs are quite a bit harder than trichlor.

[bassie123456]

Alright, this is starting to make sense! I can get trichlor granular (I now only have tabs, but they do sell the exact same product as granular), so I will buy that since it will dissolve way easier. I think I can get all the products and have all the information to get this new way of treatment started. I am going to do some shopping and see if I can get all the stuff needed. So many thanks for your extensive information and help.

 

[bassie123456]

Hi @MPurcell, my spa has an ozon filter / purification system or something like that. Does this impact my treatment / any pitfalls to the treatment when my spa has this?

[MPurcell]

A spa ozonator routes the circulating water through a cell within which ozone is generated. The ozone has two important effects, 1) oxidizes bather waste and 2) uses up free chlorine. The ozone, which is a gas, only works on the water within the cell, so it works effectively in a spa where the full body of water is routed through the cell in a relatively short period of time. When bather waste is present, it is oxidized by the ozone and not returned to the pool, thus reducing chlorine demand. If there is no bather waste to oxidize, then the ozonator creates additional chlorine demand. If there is high use of the spa, then it is good to use the ozonator but if the spa gets infrequent use, then the ozonator just increases chlorine demand. I'll let Richard Falk screen name ChemGeek explain:

Quote

In fact, we see this ozone/chlorine vs. ozone/bather waste effect in residential spas where spas with ozonators that are used every day or two use roughly half as much chlorine as spas without ozonators under the same every day or two usage. However, spas used infrequently, only one a week or so, have roughly twice the chlorine demand (daily chlorine loss) with ozonators compared to spas without ozonators. Obviously, the amounts vary depending on the strength of the ozonator, the precise bather load, and the size of spa, but the principle remains the same.

Some spas allow you to turn off the ozonator.

One other point, ozonators do not tend to last as long as other equipment, and when they fail, the owner of the tub usually never knows it, as there is no indication that the ozonator is not working except chlorine demand.

[bassie123456]

Ok great, makes sense! I get the total process now. It's insane how less I did know after owning a tub for 1,5 year. I was really bad informed when buying the spa, because they haven't said a word about TA, Calcium or even CYA. All these things matter and I get how things affect each other.

I am however afraid of one thing:

• We get friends over quite regularly. So we can sit for like 2 - 3 hours with 4 persons in the spa.
• This would take op a lot of free chlorine
• How can I keep up with the level of free chlorine during and after these kind of soaks, without having to add a huge amount of bleach before the soaks? (because that would smell I assume plus I don't know if it's good for our skin to bathe in such a high level of chlorine)

I am now thinking, what if (during times of heavy soaks like a 3 hour soak with 4 persons) I put a trichlor puck in a dispenser? This would keep my Active Chlorine level OK during soaks (I assume). And yes, it will build up the CYA but if that means I have to change my water a bit earlier then I'm totally fine with it. I read that problems with CYA will start mostly at 100ppm, so from the starting situation of 30ppm, it wouldn't hurt to add some extra CYA during havy bathing loads right? As long as I keep track of the CYA and it doesn't get above 100(?)ppm then it wouldn't cause too much trouble I assume? 

[MPurcell]

Temperature has a major effect on the amount of bather waste. If you are soaking for 3-4 hours then the temp must be a little lower, maybe around 37 or 38? At 40 degrees celsius, people can't generally stay in much longer then half an hour. But at 40 deg one person causes about 6 or 7 ppm of chlorine demand in an hour. Using farenheit, I know I sweat only a little at 99, a bit more at 100, and significantly at 101. Those would be equivalent to 37.2, 37.8 and 38.3. At 37 deg cel the chlorine demand might be as low as 1-2 ppm per person per hour, so four people for four hours could still be as much as maybe 32 ppm chlorine demand. You could easily take the free chlorine down to zero, and it doesn't take very long for bacteria to start growing in water that warm.

If the ozonator is working, it will help as it will be continuously oxidizing bather waste, maybe reducing chlorine demand by as much as half.

You might rather use the HTH cal hypo briquettes in a floater, as you have more wiggle room with calcium content than with CYA content. That strategy could work, I think. If it were me, I would try it. You wouldn't be very happy with a high CYA in a spa. See the chlorine CYA chart. Anything above 60 is not recommended, even for pools. At 80 ppm CYA, you would never let the chlorine get below 6 ppm, target 9-11 ppm, and have to take it up to 31 ppm to shock.

Another strategy is to use non-chlorine shock which is potassium peroxymonosulfate (MPS). Again it is a sulfate, so not recommended for daily use, but you can add it while bathers are in the spa. It is an oxidizer, not a sanitizer, but it will oxidize the bather waste and reduce chlorine loss. The other negative effect is that is will throw off the test for combined chlorine while it is present, but that is minimal.

[bassie123456]

Alright thanks for clearing up about the CYA levels. Thanks so much man. I really appreciate all the information and help. I learned so much, and I think I have no questions left  

PS, my temp is almost never higher then 38 degrees celcius (I sweat way to much then), so I think the hourly chlorine demand would be lower then 6/7 on average.

[bassie123456]

By the way, it seems like the only thing not available around here is Borates. So hopefully it will do fine without. If you have tips on what to look for in a pool store for borates, let me know, maybe we do have it but under a differrent naming..