High Total/combined/free chlorine

[Rparsons]

Hello all,

I’m new around here but have always looked here for some good information. Seems to be a great collective group. 
 

The trouble I am having is I can’t seem to get my chlorine or PH right. Up until recently my ph was always reading low on my test strips. So I have found a pool store in town to help with the testing of my water for more accurate readings. However after dealing with them I am not too confident they know what they are doing. 
 

Currently(as of today) My spa levels are:

free Chlorine- 5.08ppm

total chlorine- 13.19

combined chlorine- 8.11

ph- 8.1 (which is new normally low)

Total Alkalinity- 99

hardness- 189

looking for advice on how to correct everything. The Spa is a Viking Tradition 390 gallon spa. we refilled the water roughly a month ago. My total chlorine was very low about two weeks ago at which the staff at the store told me to “super chlorinate” by adding dichlor granules. I was instructed to add 14.5 oz and it seems to now be high in every category.  I also wanted to add I use a floating Frog @ease system for chlorine normally  

Thanks in advance for any advice, I look forward to learning what I can and contributing any help I can in this forum.

[dlleno]

Spa stores often have good people operating their test equipment, which is usually supplied by a big label chemical company.  they're not all bad, and the advise you were given is standard stuff, and not really bad -- just incomplete.  the reason why combined and free chlorine are different is because you do need to shock and rid your water of the  byproducts of oxidation that accumulate over time.  dichlor is a sanitizer  but in larger doses is is a "shock" -- if you shock with more chlorine, then that will push free chlorine up (which is what it supposed to do).  your options here are to wait until the FC level drops to safe levels  

in this situation you could consider a non-chlorine shock.  "MPS" is a good one.  my other advise is to learn to test your own water -- get a Taylor "DPD" (the powder) test kit, which is very accurate . frankly you won't be successful until you go through the "rite of passage" here.  read up and get your hands dirty so to speak!  and welcome to the spa scene -- it is very rewarding when you get it right 

I also advocate -- at least when starting out -- for the use of plain ordinary granular "dichlor" as your regular sanitizer.  dose your spa manually until you understand things -- then consider an automatic thingie if you really want.  btw there are are a great many of us operating spas with granular dichlor -- manually dosing after every use, for example.  I'm surprised you haven't been given more details on how to start up a spa, but one thing I will stress very strongly -- PURGE YOUR BRAND NEW SPA with a product called "ahh-some".  my recent post on purging has more details.

trust me -- new spas can and do come contaminated with biofilms (mine did).  and the old-school decon procedures are just not cutting it.  forget those and purge according to the ahh-some label directions.  see my hobby photography blog (separate post) for details.   This does not have to be complicated!  purge baby purge 🙂 

[dlleno]

oh - as for pH -- yea yours is a little high, but read the other recent posts here re:  "balancing" to get some additional insights as to why pH upward drift is a problem, what to do about its.  The spa stores will tell you to target a certain number for TA but they are wrong about that 🙂

[Rparsons]

We have had the tub for about 7 months. It’s been ok only issues I had in the past was consistently low PH. When we did buy the tub we did do a purge. I can’t remember what the product was called. We have drained 2 times and refilled three so far. I do shock the tub on a regular basis with potassium monopersulfate non chlorine shock. Probably weekly and more if it’s used more. When I left the testing place today they told me to add 8oz of Dichlor granules into the tub. I have not done that yet as I wanted to get some other opinions and more insight. I will absolutely be looking into better testing equipment. These strips I feel are not the most reliable. I will check out the Taylor DPD. 

[dlleno]

yea shocking with dichlor is not necessarily a bad idea but it will raise your chlorine levels to where you cant use the spa.  something to think about here is why is it that your chlorine is all wacked out, when you are already draining regularly and you've already been shocking weekly with MPS.  but lets think this through a bit:  8 ounces of dichlor!  holy smokes that is one Cup!  that is serious decon territory, not "shock" treatment -- its enough to raise chlorine into the 100ppm territory.  

I am NOT an advocate for this type of approach.  if you need that kind of shock then you need to purge.  I would re-think your approach and get some "ahh-some" instead. 

[Rparsons]

If 8oz seems a lot they told me two weeks ago to use 14.5oz of Granules. I waited two days before I got back in. My guess is that is why it is still high, and also why Inwas reluctant to follow their instructions again. Think I will get some purge and try that. Even if I have to drain and refill again I’m happy to do so not that I actually want to do it. We don’t even use the tub that often maybe 3 sessions a week for 15-20 minutes each session. Now with all the quarantine going on I have some extra time to learn as much as I can about Spa Chemistry. 

[dlleno]

ok if you you put in 14.5 oz (good catch I didn't see that before) and it only took TWO DAYS to get back down to safe levels, then you have some seriously bad biofilms going on.  nothing you want to get close to is capable of consuming  even 100 ppm of chlorine in two days.  

be prepared for gunk.  serious amounts of it, compared to how long you have had the spa, I mean.  read my blog post on this subject--- short story is go on Amazon and get the stuff called "ahh-some" and follow the label directions. its a gel.  in my experience thats the only way to tackle what I think is going on in your tub, unless I'm seriously missing something.   My other advise is purge more than once -- seriously.  I have personally coached folks through as much as 15 purges to get things clean -- this takes patience but its the only solution to get your spa back on track.

the old school decon process attempts to attenuate biofilms with huge levels of chlorine. unfortunately, the biofilms are resistant to this, and the only way to get them is to break them loose so that a sane amount of chlorine (like 20ppm) can move in for the kill.  So when you purge with ahh-some, be sure to get some ordinary bleach (if you can find it.  if not use dichlor) and put in enough to achieve 20ppm. so a half cup in your case would get you to ~50ppm which is fine. in your case because your water is pretty wacked at the moment.    you need that much chlorine on the first purge in order to kill the bad guys that ahh-some has released.  wear gloves.  

on subsequent purges you can fill again and dose to 20ppm chlorine during the ahh-some release process.  

[Rparsons]

I’ll happily do a purge. But I have no funk or anything in my water. It’s as clear as can be. Nothing looks out of the ordinary. I don’t see any films or anything gross going on. 

[Rparsons]

I also appreciate you taking the time to offer some help and assistance. 

[dlleno]

Keep us informed!   Take some photos of your vessel walls when ahhsome does its work lets see what it releases! 

[RDspaguy]

5 hours ago, dlleno said:

8 ounces of dichlor!  holy smokes that is one Cup!  that is serious decon territory, not "shock" treatment

I don't use that much in a month, and my 7 year old son treats it like his personal waterpark.

 

5 hours ago, Rparsons said:

14.5oz of Granules

Is there any grass left in your yard? Please tell me you left your cover open? 

 

5 hours ago, dlleno said:

the biofilms are resistant to this, and the only way to get them is to break them loose

Certain bacteria excrete a mucus layer that protects them from the chemicals.

In your initial post you mentioned you use the spa frog, and also that they said your chlorine was very low. Since very low chlorine is the purpose of the spa frog, I am curious exactly what the reading was that prompted them to advise 14.5oz dichlor. Was that on a printout? Check the gallons listed, did they get a typo?

[Rparsons]

I used to battle consistently low PH not Chlorine. After a water test the hot tub store instructed me to use the 14.5oz of Dichlor as a chlorine shock to super chlorinate shock. So I did. I left the cover open all da as well as the jets running most of the day. I flushed NEVER used that much chlorine in the whole time I’ve owned the tub and thought it strange myself. That’s why when they told my to put in another 8oz I came here instead of following directions. I am new to all this but felt that what they instructed was over kill. Only thing I’ve done since my initial post were I listed the test results is add a little calcium and lower the ph along with some MPS shock. I have not added any more chlorine. I also let the tub run for a long time with the cover open. Hoping the water can be saved but if not I can purge, drain, and refilled and start over. I really want to get all this right. 

[dlleno]

"Certain bacteria excrete a mucus layer that protects them from the chemicals."

Yea, the old school method was to try attenuate biofilms with crazy high chlorine levels.  The only way to get them is to break down that outer fatty layer with something else.   What ahhsome does is soften up the bad guys and break them loose so that they end up on your vessel walls.  By itself ahhsome will do some killing and is EPA registered to do so but you have to have chlorine present for the complete kill.   20ppm of free chlorine  is sufficient

[RDspaguy]

Good to know. I am old, and therefore old-school, and that is the unreliable method I was taught. But when I started, chlorine (or bromine) and acid were about all you had to work with anyway.

[dlleno]

I'm an old guy that learned new tricks lol .  I say the above carefully because some very good folks on this forum have posted decon procedures and I dont want to take away anything from their work . but in recent  years especially I've performed a boat load of experiments (testing purge products) and for residential purposes I just don't see any point in exposing your equipment to 100+ppm chlorine, when that procedure can now be replaced by a more effective one.  this is relatively new to the spa industry and many spa stores (including my own local store) still have their heads in the sand and won't acknowledge how biofilms work

Here is the beachhead article of my work that started a number of years back

 

[Rparsons]

Well I got some Ahh-some and purged drained and refilled. So let’s hope it all helps. Surprising there was very little biofilm after the purge. Going to try and manually handle the Chlorine from here on out.