sundance 880 need advice

[claus]

hi

webjust bought our first hottub ever a sundance 880. we bought it because it was a good floor sample deal and we really liked the pitch that the uv light and ozone system means less chlorine. my wife hates tubs that have so much chlorine that you feel you can barely breathe and relax because all you smell is chlorine. but this is where the good experience with the tub (price) ends. it was delivered with no real instructions and i struggle what to do. sales person said put chlorine after every use, neighbor says if it is just the two of you (it is) use 1-2 tbl per week. 

by now (daughter was here) the water is cloudy. i added chlorine so far, ph reducer (since it went up), anti foam, calcium since water was not hard enough. 

but i struggle to really understand what is needed and would like to add the min rather than randomly dump things. neighbor said for cloudy water shock with 4tbl, sales person said don’t. 

i have well water but it is relatively good attaching latest test from well company.

i am debating if maybe the @ease frog system is good. again i would like the min amount of chemicals needed. i rather replace water more often or filters. 

thanks

claus 

[dashmer]

Hi Claus,

Looking at the results you posted above, your ALK is high and will cause you pH to easily shoot up.  You should bring it down until you pH becomes more stable in the 7.6-7.8.

Your main issue seems to be insufficient sanitizer. As a general rule for a hot (104 deg) hot tub, you need about 7 ppm chlorine per bather hour to "clean up" bather waste.  Personally, I find about 5 ppm per bather hour works for me.  So if there are 2 people in the tub for 30 min, you have one bather hour.  You will need a few ppm more to leave a residual amount of Cl for the next day.   You will learn to adjust the amount you add to hit the ideal residual PPM.

You did not say what kind of chlorine you are using (granules, liquid, etc.) If you are using granules (dichlor), every oz of it will add about 11 ppm of Cl to your tub (assuming it is about 360 gal).  It will also add 10 ppm of cyanuric acid (CYA) (stabilizer). Many hot tub dealers will suggest using granules but you will need to change your water often due to build up of CYA.  Many members on this site, including me, use the dichlor than bleach method to avoid this. You can learn more about it in a sticky on this forum.

Good luck.

[claus]

I did not know that so much chlorine is needed. I thought by buying the spa that can do ozone and uv light to kill bacteria i could use less. It says in all their material that the UV/ozone can use 1/3 of the regulary required chlorine. I guess that was wrong. My wife will not use it if it smells like a majorly chlorinated pool. we should have bought the salt one, made a mistake it seems. 

I really appredciate all the help for sure. 

I use the granulates, this is what they recommended. 

How do I bring down the ALK? The company that sold me the spa said they have never seen ph go up and they sell nothing to lower ALK.

thanks

claus

 

I am attaching a pic of todays test strip. I cleaned the spa yesterday after guests finally left. I added 2TBL chloine, 4TBL of Oxidizer, some calcium and now the water looks better and the test strip does too. But the person I bought this from said to add 2TBL of chlorine again. we have not used it. it smells like chlorine now. do I really need to add this much chlorine every day? we bought it last monday and so far I added 809TBL or chlorine. 

on a side note, the tub holds 450 Gallons. 

Last questions, Sundance mentioned the Frog @ease system. is that a good idea to keep the spa clean but not do so much work? will it increase chlorine even more?

 

[dashmer]

My hot tub never smells like chlorine.  What people think is chlorine smell is actually chloramines, which are chlorine waste products. When you smell these, you have not been using enough chlorine or non chlorine oxidizer to "burn" these off. As I understand it, ozone will help to oxidize waste, but how much I do not know.  Others on the forum might be able to help with that. 

To keep it simple, you are only looking to add enough Cl to the tub to leave you with a residual amount the next time you want to use it.  The health authorities claim this is 3-5 ppm CL.  You can start with the guidelines I gave you and if there is too much left when you test it before you use it, just use less the next time.

FWIW, salt water hot tubs are still chlorine tubs.  They just pull it out of the salt using electricity and some expensive and consumable components.  Many people who have them still need to add additional chlorine or non chlorine shock to compensate for higher bather loads.

Alkalinity, along with pH are brought down with a pH minus product, typically dry acid.  You can also use muriatic acid. The process for doing this is on a sticky in this forum.

If your test strip shows Cl on the top pad and in colors of purple, it would appear you have none, or close to it.

I am not familiar with the frog system but I understand it is a Cl system.

One last thought. You are mixing a lot of different things together making it difficult to get the amounts right.  Chlorine is both a sanitizer and an oxidizer.  I recommend just sticking with just Cl until you learn how to dose it correctly.  Then in the future, you can use a non chlorine oxidizer to cut down on the Cl demand.  I don't use it but you certainly could. 

[claus]

thanks. the person who sold the tub told me to use the various things for water reasons. 

1. she wanted me to use 4TBL of non chlorine oxidizer to "shock" yesterday

2. she wanted me to add a lot of calcium so far because water was not hard enough it is ok now

My biggest challenge is some people say oz, some say tsp or tbl so I am not sure. 

when it is just the wife and myself I feel we will go in maybe once per week maybe twice max. many times not at all. 

thanks for all this feedback.

claus

 

[dashmer]

Keep in mind to that even if you don't use the tub, the Cl will dissipate over time. If you are looking for something that requires less intervention, you might want to consider bromine and use a floating dispenser.

Maybe the frog solution could work as well, not sure.

[waterbear]

48 minutes ago, claus said:

. I thought by buying the spa that can do ozone and uv light to kill bacteria i could use less.

Not really, Chlorine is a fast acting RESIDUAL sanitizer, meaning that it stays in the water. Ozone and UV only kill what is in the reaction chamber and not in the body of the water. Realize that every bather adds feces, urine and sweat (chemically almost identical to urine) into the water along with bacteria and viruses so a fast acting residual sanitizer is needed. Frog@ease, Nature 2, and other "mineral" sanitizers use silver ions from silver nitrate or silver chloride. Silver is NOT a fast acting sanitzer vbut it is residual and does not have action against viruses. It's an excellent algaecide, however (normally algae is not a problem in tubs since they are usually kept covered). `

 

10 hours ago, claus said:

My wife will not use it if it smells like a majorly chlorinated pool.

You are smelling combined chlorine (chloramines) Chlorine has very little smell. The cure for combined chlorine is more chlorine.

11 hours ago, claus said:

How do I bring down the ALK?

Acid lowers both pH and alkalinity. The trick is to bring the pH back up without raising the alkalinity.  It's not very hard but you are going to need to invest in a good test kit and ditch the strips. They are worthless for balancing water and are not precise. Get a Taylor K-2006 test kit (Not the K-2005) from Amazon or another online retailer of pool/spa products (it's worth every penny!), watch the videos on the Taylor Technology website to learn how to use the kit, don't use the Fog system or Nature 2 (Expen$ive and a waste of money, and read these posts:

https://www.poolspaforum.com/forum/index.php?/topic/28846-lowering-total-alkalinity-howto/

https://www.poolspaforum.com/forum/index.php?/topic/52522-some-truths-about-ph-and-ta/

https://www.poolspaforum.com/forum/index.php?/topic/53108-some-truths-on-bleach-dosing/

and finally:

https://www.poolspaforum.com/forum/index.php?/topic/23090-dichlorbleach-method-in-a-nutshell/

The last thread makes it sound harder than it is and when I have the time I will make a new one that is much easier to understand and eliminates some of the unnecessary (IMHO) steps such as checking CD (chlorine demand). hOWEVER, it will give you an overview of starting a tub on dichlor until the CYA reaches about 30 ppm then switching to laundry bleach or liquid pool chlorine (same thing but different strengths) to continue chlorination without adding more CYA until you drain and refill (every 32 to 4 months is recommended no matter what sanitizer you use) and you start over again. Post any further questions and I will be glad to help., A spa is easy to take care of but you do need the proper tools and the right chemicals. Many of the chemicals you need can be found at the grocery store, btw. For example total alkalinity increaser is nothing more than Sodium Hydrogen Carbonate AKA Sodium Bicarbonate AKA Bicarbonate of Soda AKA Baking Soda. pH increaser is Sodium Carbonate AKA Washing Soda (in the laundry aisle) but a much better choice is Sodium Borate Decahydrate AKA Borax (also in the laundry aisle) which will raise pH with minimal effect on TA.

First, you need a good test kit that will give you accurate results with the precision needed to balance the water (for example, the TA test in the Taylor kit has a precision of +/-10 ppm with a 25 ml water sample while the vast majority of strips have a precisoin of +/- 40 ppm or worse.  10 ppm alkalinity can mean the difference between a pH stable spa and one that needs constant attention.

 

 

[waterbear]

No, I don't work for Taylor Technologies nor do I get any kind of kickback. It's just that they make the best test kits at competative porices. LaMotte , Palintest, and Hach are other good companies but their kits are either more expensive or don't test all the needed parameters or both.