A few q's: High Ph, bather load and bleach/mps

[LydiaRobinvale]

Hey guys so things have been going pretty well since we got our spa in the summer save for that one algae incident we had. I recently drained and refilled the spa with fresh water. I did the dichlor bleach method,  but it seems i cant get the ph to come down now. It comes down briefly with acid to about 7.5 or 7.6 and then quickly shoots right back up to 8+. Whats the deal here? It doesnt aerate that much. I am using bleach though and i know that has a high ph but i dont want to continually use dichlor

My second issue has to do with bather load. Now its starting to get cold here in socal and my landlord wants to start using it more. Up until now he has only used it a handful of times. The problem is its him and the handyman who want to use it at the end of the work day. And they are both very sweaty and dirty. My landlord actually doesnt shower hardly at all, he kind of just uses the spa as a bath (he doesnt bring like soap in or anything). The point is they are both VERY dirty people and i dont know how to oxidize all that bather waste without dumping a load of chlorine in.

He doesnt like chemical smell so if it smells like chlorine hes going to be mad. Should i be using mps and chlorine after they are in there to try and lighten the load on the chlorine? Should i be super chlorinating once a week? Or should i shock with mps? How will this affect my ph? How can i best prevent that chlorine smell from happening when i do this so the landlord doesnt get pissy? 

The TA is at about 100 right now. Before the refill it was around 60. Cya is probably 30. I have a taylor kit and alsl a color pro q 7 and the ph readings on those dont match. Taylor kit says 8+ while the color pro says 7.6. Not sure which one to go with honestly. I do not currently have any borates in the spa.

 

[MPurcell]

I have only worked with small amounts of water, so I don't have any experience with a large spa like yours. However, the same principles should apply no mater the size.

Bleach is very close to neutral pH which means you really won't notice much if any shift in pH when you add bleach. There usually is a trace of Sodium Hydroxide in bleach as a buffer, but it is not enough to make much difference.

I don't know what would be causing your pH to push up. The dichlor, bleach method, which I am also using in my tub, doesn't necessarily do that. In my tub, for instance, pH hangs around 7.5 and if I don't use any aeration at all, it actually drifts down one or two tenths of a point in a week or so. On the forums, they often say every pool and tub behaves differently. If you haven't done so, you might try buffering the pH with borates. Boric acid is not very expensive and the best way to add borates. Other than that, I don't have any suggestions.

When the bather waste goes up, the amount of oxidizer needed to neutralize it goes up. You should add oxidizer after the spa is used. It usually only takes a little time for the bather waste to be neutralized, so if you are using bleach as the oxidizer, and you add the right amount after bathers use the tub in the evening, the chlorine level should be back down to the normal level by the next morning. If the chlorine is high the next morning, you have added too much bleach, and if it is low, you haven't added enough. You can adjust your bleach addition by testing until you know what you need based on the time in the water. If you get this right, there won't be any additional smell.

You can use MPS, but as you may have read, MPS will throw off the chlorine readings of your test kit, so it will make it harder to be sure what you are doing. Also, MPS adds sulfates to the water which can build up if you use it regularly, and that may not be good for the equipment long term. If it were me, I would not use MPS at all, and just use bleach for both chlorine and oxidation.