New hot tub owner, a few questions after 1st month of ownership

[YPCC2012]

Hi,

We purchased and received our first hot tub just over a month ago and so far, my wife and I have been using it almost every day (avg 45 mins). Water chemistry wise everything seems to be going well except for high PH the first week which is now under control. I've been doing a lot of reading on here and learned quite a bit and ordered my taylor K2106, but I have a few questions that I am either not sure or perhaps just need a bit of clarification.

I don't have specific #'s to provide at the moment, but every time i've had it tested it's always been in the proper ranges. I tend to have to add a few scoops of baking soda every week to get the TA and PH back up as they are always slowly trending down. I tried to raise my TA up a bit more to see if it would help stabilize, we'll see if it helps, but not to worried about that.

#'s are usually around the following:

TA around 50

PH usually low to mid 7's

Calcium around 200

Borates between 50 and 60

Add Enzymes (Spa Perfect) every 5 days or so if we use it daily.

1. The product line were using is Mursatt https://www.mursatt.com/spawatercare, based on the products our dealer provided us, I believe we are essentially using the 3 step Bromine, but without an initial Sodium Bromide reserve, but instead slowly building it up using the floater with Bromine tablets. Our oxidizer is Brome+ which I believe is Dichlor and we use that after every soak. Initially I found that my bromine reading were always 0 except for when testing shortly after adding Dichlor. Now I always have a reading between 2-5ppm when I test it the next day before we use it. Just curious if that's because I wasn't adding enough or because I did not have a reserve of Sodium Bromide and was running a chlorine spa? Mursatt does offer pure Sodium Bromide, so in a month from now when I refill I will buy some and establish a reserve right away.

2. Shocking, I am bit confused on this subject, most people do a weekly shock on top of oxidizing after every use. I asked our dealer and they said that we don't need to do any "shocking" and I've also read on a few threads that it might not be necessary. I guess I am not sure how to determine if its necessary if that we oxidize after every use which is almost daily. I always have a reading on the test strips the next day before use and that we run a floater with bromine tablets and our Tub has a ozonator which runs 19 hours a day. I did do a "shock" once after 2 weeks to see if it would help with the foaming that we've been experiencing. However when doing that using Dichlor, I found that we had to wait a few days to get the bromine back down to acceptable levels. I tried off gassing and running the jets a few times and that worked to help get the bromine levels down.

3. Filter cleaning, Dealer says I should rinse it weekly, but only need to use filter cleaner when I change the water, that seems to go against what I read in the manual and read online, curious what most people do. Today when I went to rinse out the filter, I noticed that the water in the filter housing was pretty dirty and scummy. Not sure if I should be doing anything about that a side from rinsing the filter more often, the water in the tub has always been nice and clean\clear. I am going to try and remember to rinse it out more often.

4. Foaming, I think that one is probably due to our suits which we now don't wash and if we do I make sure to run an extra rinse cycle. However I think its probably mainly due to my daughters hair, she has super thick long hair and we use a lot of shampoo and conditioner to help untangle. She did use the tub a few times when we got it and her hair was always in the water. Now I make sure to get my wife to attach them in a bun or something now so they don't get wet. Only thing I've found to help with the foam so far is manually scooping it out. I am looking forward to re-filling the tub in a month or so and see if I can get it under control. Adding more enzymes or doing the "shock" with Dichlor didn't help.

5. CYA, I read a massive thread on CYA and Dichlor, however if I understand correctly, this does not apply in a bromine spa correct? Having a high CYA will not affect the Dichlor's ability to activate the Bromide reserve?

I think that's all for now, any info would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Yves

[RDspaguy]

2 hours ago, YPCC2012 said:

because I did not have a reserve

Yep.

2 hours ago, YPCC2012 said:

Tub has a ozonator which runs 19 hours a day.

Ozone is a strong oxidizer, but only acts on the small amount of water moving through the pipe, so can take a long time to effectively shock bromide into bromine. If you have a good bromine reading the next day without shocking after use then you don't really need to shock after use. Maybe once a week would do.

2 hours ago, YPCC2012 said:

run a floater with bromine tablets

Bromine tablets are mostly chlorine there to oxidize the bromide into bromine continuously. Shocking after each use is the (preferred) alternative to a floater.

Also, the idea of using bromine tablets to establish a reserve is foolish in my opinion. It will spend more time as a chlorine spa than a bromine one, and ozone oxidizes chlorine out of the water, whereas it oxidizes bromide into bromine. So expect chlorine to drop, and bromine to rise the more bromide you build up. Trying to get consistency out of that double sliding scale is going to be problematic. At least I would think so. I have never personally tried...

2 hours ago, YPCC2012 said:

Filter cleaning

In a nutshell, it's up to you. The more oil, conditioner, fabric softener, scale, debris, and such that you run through it, the more often you have to use cleaner to remove it. There is no set timeframe that applies in all situations. 

2 hours ago, YPCC2012 said:

a high CYA will not affect the Dichlor's ability to activate the Bromide reserve?

I have wondered that myself. They say bromine cannot be stabilized so doesn't suffer from overstabilization, but it still gets shocked with chlorine which is subject to overstabilization. I think that's a question for @waterbear.

[YPCC2012]

10 hours ago, RDspaguy said:

Ozone is a strong oxidizer, but only acts on the small amount of water moving through the pipe, so can take a long time to effectively shock bromide into bromine. If you have a good bromine reading the next day without shocking after use then you don't really need to shock after use. Maybe once a week would do.

ok, so just to confirm, shocking and oxidizing are essentially the same thing? I was under the impression that you always had to oxidize after every use, but know that I know that it may not be necessary, I'll see what happens the day after without adding any after a soak. I have a feeling that the ozone alone won't be enough. Perhaps I could open up the floater a lot more, but the bromine tablets are apparently the most expensive product, so I might still be better off using a bit of Dichlor after each use. I am starting to wonder if my spa is actually bromine at all considering that the only product that contains Bromide are the tablets. Wouldn't it make more sense to use an oxidizer that contained a bit of Sodium Bromide to help establish\maintain the reserve instead of using Dichlor? I suppose that wouldn't apply if I had actually added pure Sodium Bromide when I initially filled my spa.

11 hours ago, RDspaguy said:

Bromine tablets are mostly chlorine there to oxidize the bromide into bromine continuously. Shocking after each use is the (preferred) alternative to a floater.

Also, the idea of using bromine tablets to establish a reserve is foolish in my opinion. It will spend more time as a chlorine spa than a bromine one, and ozone oxidizes chlorine out of the water, whereas it oxidizes bromide into bromine. So expect chlorine to drop, and bromine to rise the more bromide you build up. Trying to get consistency out of that double sliding scale is going to be problematic. At least I would think so. I have never personally tried...

I thought the idea of the floater was simply to help maintain the bromide reserve and provide an additional constant sanitation. That's the way I have been using mine, its only open enough to expose 1 tablet at the moment. I did open it up several inches the first week when I had trouble getting bromine readings on the test strips.

Thanks for the info.

Yves

 

[RDspaguy]

Yes, when you shock you are oxidizing. Shock, as a verb, is the process of oxidizing organic contaminants, including chloramines or bromamines, to eliminate them from the water. As a noun, it is the oxidizing chemical used to do so (usually chlorine or mps, but sometimes peroxide).

Tablets, as used in your floater, are only about 15% bromine, the rest is chlorine, there to slowly feed into the water and oxidize bromide into bromine and so maintain the bromine level (which your ozone does partly as well). Remember that bromine becomes bromide (and bromamine) once it combines with an organic contaminant, and (mostly) gets shocked back into bromine. Without shocking, you will not have bromine in the spa for very long before it is all bromide again. So you must either use a floater or add the oxidizer manually as needed, which is usually after each use.

 

[YPCC2012]

Thanks for your help, I really appreciate it.

[waterbear]

On 11/11/2020 at 9:53 PM, RDspaguy said:

On 11/11/2020 at 7:44 PM, YPCC2012 said:

a high CYA will not affect the Dichlor's ability to activate the Bromide reserve?

I have wondered that myself. They say bromine cannot be stabilized so doesn't suffer from overstabilization, but it still gets shocked with chlorine which is subject to overstabilization. I think that's a question for @waterbear.

IF the CYA is high enough it is possible that there is not enough ACTIVE free chlorine to oxidize the bromide ions into bromine sanitizer. IF the CYA is high the FC stays bound to the Cyanuric acid and you need to use much more but it is better to use and UNSTABILIZED chlorine source such as sodium hypochlorite AKA liquid chlorine laundry bleach (without fragrance, thickeners, or other additives) or liquid pool chlorine (same as bleach but normally twice as concentrated with a slightly shorter shelf life). You can also use calcium hypochlorite AKA cal hypo which is normally sold as a pool shock in 1q lb bags, as long as it does not contain any other additives, algaecides, 4 in one fomulations, etc. It should onlys ay calcium hypochlorite and inert ingredients on the label. Be aware that it WILL raise your calcium hardness. You can also use lithium hypoclorite, also sold as a pool shock in 1 lb bags. It does not have any side effects (same as liquid chlorine) BUT is is very expen$ive and often difficult to find.