Is it bad for hot tub plumbing when you "superchlorinate" for long periods of time? (Spa Marvel says to do it THREE DAYS STRAIGHT)

[Rita Hancock]

Hi Bill. I originally posted this on a different thread, but didn't know if you would see it unless I started a new topic and copied and pasted....

I have a question about how long we need to super-chlorinate in case of Pseudomonas growth, since I got what looks like hot tub folliculitis.

I'm pretty sure it was an infection instead of a reaction to the chemicals, since the free chlorine level was down to almost zero possibly for WEEKS before I got the rash. Being newbies, having had our tub for only about two months, we got the kind of test strips that tested ONLY for "total chlorine" instead of testing for both total and free chlorine. It wasn't until I got the rash that I bought more detailed test strips and saw that the free chlorine was practically zero. 

First, we tried shocking the tub, but that didn't work (even with correct pH), so plan B was to drain the tub and then superchlorinate.

Back to my question about how long to super-chlorinate.......The Spa Marvel website says to add 5Tbs of granular Dichlor per 100 gallons of water and then leave it in the hot tub for 3 days. But, that's a LOT more granular chlorine than others suggest using. Moreover, pretty soon after adding all that chlorine, I noticed that the pH went down a lot. Since an acidic pH is bad for the plumbing, it seems like three days is a long time to superchlorinate. I also read elsewhere that you need to superchlorinate for only 24 hours to kill algae, which seems like the toughest thing to kill. So, I'm considering keeping the chlorine at this high level for maybe only a day and a half instead of three days, to make sure the toughest microorganism (algae) is dead. Beyond that seems like overkill.

Spa Marvel's instructions are to add their CLEANSE agent after 3 days of superchlorinating, and then to leave the cleanser in there for another 24 hours, meaning the super-high chlorine levels would stay in there for four days, at least, before flushing all those chemicals out and refilling. 

What do you guys think about all this? 

[dashmer]

Hello,

Suggest you have a look at the stickies in this forum for one called Decontamination.  If you follow that process you should not have any issues after that as long as you maintain proper sanitizer levels.   You should also incorporate a bio film flush at the same time with ah-some.