Why do I have high Cyanuric acid in Bromine Spa?

[mscdman]

@dllenothis is great stuff!! Thanks!!  How soon after you’ve added the bleach can you retest your see how accurate/on you are?

[dlleno]

oh, with jets on its virtually instantaneous.  seconds.  depends on the circulation and pump system in your spa-- I experimented and found that by the time I put the bleach jug down and took a water sample, the reading was accurate.  

[mscdman]

27 minutes ago, dlleno said:

yea you just treat it like you would a chlorine spa .  you add chlorine after each use, measure frequently to dial things in.  a bromine spa is exactly the same as a chlorine spa except that it has sodium bromide salts in the water.  I'm astonished at how difficult the industry has made bromine spas out to be!  

I just edited my previous post and added a tip there on the use of regular bleach. make ABSOLUTE SURE you get regular bleach and nothing fancy

I’m looking at generic Walmart 7.5% concentration bleach.  IF I’m reading the pool calculator and want to aim for 5ppm bromine (which I assume is ok?) for 215 gallon tub from 0ppm It looks like .75oz bleach would do the trick to get 2.25 free chlorine which according to the math is 5ppm bromine (?).   I have plenty of bromide reserve.  I think I setup for 30ppm at initial fill..

[dlleno]

Have you done an ahh-some purge?  if so, or you plan to, then 30ppm of Bromine is quite sufficient; the interesting challenge with a bromine spa is that you can't just add hydrogen peroxide to lower the chlorine level (thats pretty cool in case you've been in that situation).  so if you dose to 30ppm and you have to wait for it to fall down to 10 or so before you get it.  at 20% decay rate that amounts to five days.  and if you find that your bromine level falls quicker than that, you might still have some bad guys chewing up your bromine!

 

folks with floaters usually cover up this problem by over-brominating. but the manual dosing that many of us espouse here will give you very good insights into your exposure to biofilms

[mscdman]

13 minutes ago, dlleno said:

Have you done an ahh-some purge?  if so, or you plan to, then 30ppm of Bromine is quite sufficient; the interesting challenge with a bromine spa is that you can't just add hydrogen peroxide to lower the chlorine level (thats pretty cool in case you've been in that situation).  so if you dose to 30ppm and you have to wait for it to fall down to 10 or so before you get it.  at 20% decay rate that amounts to five days.  and if you find that your bromine level falls quicker than that, you might still have some bad guys chewing up your bromine!

 

folks with floaters usually cover up this problem by over-brominating. but the manual dosing that many of us espouse here will give you very good insights into your exposure to biofilms

Yes I did an ahhsum purge.  It’s a brand new tub. Did it before the first fill

[mscdman]

19 minutes ago, dlleno said:

Have you done an ahh-some purge?  if so, or you plan to, then 30ppm of Bromine is quite sufficient; the interesting challenge with a bromine spa is that you can't just add hydrogen peroxide to lower the chlorine level (thats pretty cool in case you've been in that situation).  so if you dose to 30ppm and you have to wait for it to fall down to 10 or so before you get it.  at 20% decay rate that amounts to five days.  and if you find that your bromine level falls quicker than that, you might still have some bad guys chewing up your bromine!

 

folks with floaters usually cover up this problem by over-brominating. but the manual dosing that many of us espouse here will give you very good insights into your exposure to biofilms

@dllenowhats a good range for Bromiine PPM?  5?

[dlleno]

2.2 times the recommended FC levels 🙂  

the industry is finally waking up to the fact that biofilms can form in 3ppm FC, so there are folks over at TFP recommending 4-5 free CHLORINE, which would be 11  ppm total bromine. I routinely run mine at 9-10 

[mscdman]

19 minutes ago, dlleno said:

2.2 times the recommended FC levels 🙂  

the industry is finally waking up to the fact that biofilms can form in 3ppm FC, so there are folks over at TFP recommending 4-5 free CHLORINE, which would be 11  ppm total bromine. I routinely run mine at 9-10 

Maybe I’ll shoot for 8PPm bromine or whatver FC is /2.2

[mscdman]

3 hours ago, dlleno said:

Have you done an ahh-some purge?  if so, or you plan to, then 30ppm of Bromine is quite sufficient; the interesting challenge with a bromine spa is that you can't just add hydrogen peroxide to lower the chlorine level (thats pretty cool in case you've been in that situation).  so if you dose to 30ppm and you have to wait for it to fall down to 10 or so before you get it.  at 20% decay rate that amounts to five days.  and if you find that your bromine level falls quicker than that, you might still have some bad guys chewing up your bromine!

 

folks with floaters usually cover up this problem by over-brominating. but the manual dosing that many of us espouse here will give you very good insights into your exposure to biofilms

what are you guys using to measure out very specific Oz measurements for your bleach?

[dlleno]

Plastic kitchen 1/2 or 1/4 measuring cup. 

[mscdman]

@dlleno using this approach of seeding w bromide and then bleach to reactivate after every use should this theoretically keep a consistent bromine level both before and after soak?

what does it mean if when using this approach before your soak it shows very little bromine?   I’ve got too little bleach added?  Not enough bromide salts?

[dlleno]

What is your test method?  If dpd drop wise (e.g.taylor) -- in this case it probably means low sanitizer level cause the bromine test will respond to the presence of chlorine 

[dlleno]

Can u smell the difference between br and cl?  

[mscdman]

2 hours ago, dlleno said:

What is your test method?  If dpd drop wise (e.g.taylor) -- in this case it probably means low sanitizer level cause the bromine test will respond to the presence of chlorine 

And if it’s from a strip result?

[mscdman]

2 hours ago, dlleno said:

Can u smell the difference between br and cl?  

No I don’t think I can.   Why do you ask?

[dlleno]

 Im afraid i can't answer on the strips....i don't trust em sorry i haven't used them

[dlleno]

I can smell the difference..im trying to think of ways you could discern what's really going on 

[mscdman]

I’m trying to see how the following regarding an ozoneator (which I have) depletes the bromide reserve. I’m no scientist but wondering if this could be my issue and if so how the O3 is doing that..

 

”

A 2-step system with an efficient ozonator might be able to achieve the constant bromine level without the use of, or by using less oxidizer (MPS or chlorine) since the ozone is constantly oxidizing the sodium bromide while it is on.

However, the ozone may also deplete the bromide reserve more quickly, leading to the use of more sodium bromide, or a shorter time between necessary drain and refills. Also, ozone can cause bromates to form in your water.”

[RDspaguy]

Ozone is such a strong oxidizer that it will oxidize chlorine and, to a lesser extent, bromine. Since your bromine is created from your bromide reserve, burning it off will result in a lowering bromide reserve as well.

[mscdman]

33 minutes ago, RDspaguy said:

Ozone is such a strong oxidizer that it will oxidize chlorine and, to a lesser extent, bromine. Since your bromine is created from your bromide reserve, burning it off will result in a lowering bromide reserve as well.

Interesting.   So with an ozone system I’ll need to add more sodium bromide to keep up?  

[dlleno]

i have found no practical impact of ozone on the bromide bank when treating per label dirs. I treat once at first fill and voila "set and forget "  --  just sayin...ozone eating bromide salts is a red herring non problem nothingburger!  In fact, ozone in a bromine spa is a beautiful thing.  Highly recommended!

With a clean spa (no biofilms) and a modern corona discharge ozone genny, ive been able to maintain a fraction of a ppm bromine for days (no load of course) cause the ozone is able to oxidize bromide into the good stuff:  sanitizing hybobromous acid

[RDspaguy]

Since your bromide bank is generally more than you strictly need, it is unlikely to be an issue given the frequency of water changes you will be doing anyway. I don't use bromine myself, so have no personal knowledge of how fast it will deplete your bromine, or how fast it will generate bromine from the bromide bank.

Also, ozonators, ozone injection systems, and the controls that run them are not all the same, so pinning down a "normal" is next to impossible. A CD ozonator on a high flow mazzei and a 24/7 operation is going to have a vastly different effect than a UV ozonator on a low flow injector that only runs during filter cycles.

[mscdman]

On 1/17/2021 at 10:01 PM, dlleno said:

i have found no practical impact of ozone on the bromide bank when treating per label dirs. I treat once at first fill and voila "set and forget "  --  just sayin...ozone eating bromide salts is a red herring non problem nothingburger!  In fact, ozone in a bromine spa is a beautiful thing.  Highly recommended!

With a clean spa (no biofilms) and a modern corona discharge ozone genny, ive been able to maintain a fraction of a ppm bromine for days (no load of course) cause the ozone is able to oxidize bromide into the good stuff:  sanitizing hybobromous acid

@dllenoWon’t the ozone constantly raise higher and higher the bromine levels though?  This seems to be a concern...   if you start with a reserve of say 30ppm and don’t use the tub say for a week, isn’t that ozontor raising and raising the bromine levels from bromide?

when using bleach to reactivate the bromine you have some “control”. But it seems like the ozone is a free for all of never ending bromine building until you’ve exacerbated the bromide reserve

[mscdman]

Also - @dllenodoes adding the manual bleach after each use to reactivate bromine also raise the PH?

[dlleno]

12 minutes ago, mscdman said:

@dllenoWon’t the ozone constantly raise higher and higher the bromine levels though?  This seems to be a concern...   if you start with a reserve of say 30ppm and don’t use the tub say for a week, isn’t that ozontor raising and raising the bromine levels from bromide?

The level of hybobromous acid generated by ozone from bromide is so low that most dont even know that it happens.  Even under no load, ozone will just barely "keep up" with natural sanitizer decay in a clean spa.   Mine won't go above 1ppm.  If left alone, 30ppm will naturally decay asymptotically over a few days (meaning it gets close but won't get to zero). Its a great vacation plan!

7 minutes ago, mscdman said:

Also - @dllenodoes adding the manual bleach after each use to reactivate bromine also raise the PH?

Yes sodium hypo is net pH positive.