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HELP with Water Balance... First Time User of Taylor 2006 Kit


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Thanks in advance for the help from this forum.

Brief Background:
One year owner of a Bullfrog A7 (550 gallons) with Ozone and an inline Frog System (uses combination of Minerals and Chlorine Cartridges).
First year experience has been frustrating trying to balance the water, mostly due to low alkalinity/high PH (fix one and the other goes out of wack... and vice versa)
Tired of trips to test the water at the pool store which felt like a game of roulette with me having no idea what the results would be.

I finally broke down and spent the money on a Taylor 2006 test kit and these are the results of my first test:
Total Alkalinity: 20 (yeah, i know, very low)
Calcium Hardness: 200
Free Chlorine: 1.5 (this may seem low but is correct according to the Frog System (King Technology) which indicates FC should be between .5-2.0 and all is OK as long as Total Chlorine is higher than Free Chlorine).
Total Chlorine: not tested i dumped the sample before realizing i was supposed to continue to use the same sample i used above for Free Chlorine.  I know there is enough TC left in the cartridge as the cartridge is only 2-3 days old (also replaced mineral cartridge at that time as well)

What should be my first course of action?

I'm assuming priority is to increase Alkalinity... and then adjust PH?  However, this is the see-saw act i have been going through for the first year.

I currently have the following products on hand:
Alkalinity Up (100% Sodium Hydrogen Carbonate)
pH Down (93.2% Sodium Bisulfate)
Chlorine-Free Oxidizing Shock (38% Potassium Peroxymonosulfate)
Enhanced Shock (w/ Chlorine: 58.2% Sodium Dichloro-s Triazinetrione)

In addition to getting my water balanced correctly i'm hoping to solve two (i'm assuming) related issues:
1) when taking cover off hot tub the water has a smell too it.  I can't place the smell, but i'd say it's pungent and most similar to rotten eggs, although not as strong.  This dissipates a minute or two after the cover is off
2) when the hot tub is on there always seems to be a lot of foam on the top.  It's not 'mountains' of foam here and there, but a fairly level layer of foam, i'm guessing .5"-1" above the water surface.  (when this dries on the hot tub shell it leaves a greenish/brown (scum??) mark)

Sorry for the long post, but i tried to be thorough and include as much information as possible.

Although i've been a hot tub owner for a year, most of that time i have been lost, so i'm open to any and all suggestions.  I'm hoping with the help of this forum, and my new Taylor kit, i'll start to enjoy spa ownership instead of worrying about it.

Thanks!

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11 hours ago, contactmypics said:

assuming priority is to increase Alkalinity...

Balance ph, let alkalinity fall where it will. Keep air control valves closed when not in use to reduce ph rise from aeration.

Frog@ease chlorine will read a high tc. 

From your description I'd say you have biofilm. Get some ahhsome spa purge and follow the directions. Search "ahhsome" on this forum for tons of info.

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Thanks for the reply and help...

Quote

Balance ph...

Sorry i forgot to include this value above, currently PH is at 7.4, which i thought was good... so leave this alone for now?

 

Quote

let alkalinity fall where it will...

Hmm... first time I have heard to not really worry about alkalnity; is a value of 20 actually OK long term, or is this just not a priority at the moment?

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From your description I'd say you have biofilm.

Which part of my description makes you think biofilm?  Would the presence of biofilm effect pH and/or alkalinity (or is this an unrelated issue?)

One thing i didn't mention is that the water is generally crystal clear... it looks great, it's just i'm not able to get TA and pH values to be in the 'acceptable' range at the same time.

I'm away for a long weekend so can't test water again until Wed.

Thank you for the help so far!

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