Pool Hot Tub Water Question

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I have just started reading this forum mostly for my own education since I do not have a stand along hot tub. However, I do have a hot tub which is built in to my pool. The water in this tub is pool water and it circulates through the pool filtration such that the hot tub has a waterfall and dumps into the pool. Thus the water circulates.

The hot tub is not heated unless we are using it and once we are done it cools back down quickly or the hot water is dumped into the pool via the water fall of the pool is running. So my question is if there is anything I should be doing specific to the hot tub outside of what I do to maintain the pool water.

I notice that with hot tub water the warmer water seems to bring in to play a number of factors that I don't deal with in a pool. I would also assume that since my hot tub is never heated for more then about 3-4 hours that this is not long enough to cause me to need to worry about these factors. However, you never want to assume since you know what happens then.

So Any comments on properly maintaining this sort of system would be appreciated.

[poollady]

I have just started reading this forum mostly for my own education since I do not have a stand along hot tub. However, I do have a hot tub which is built in to my pool. The water in this tub is pool water and it circulates through the pool filtration such that the hot tub has a waterfall and dumps into the pool. Thus the water circulates.

The hot tub is not heated unless we are using it and once we are done it cools back down quickly or the hot water is dumped into the pool via the water fall of the pool is running. So my question is if there is anything I should be doing specific to the hot tub outside of what I do to maintain the pool water.

I notice that with hot tub water the warmer water seems to bring in to play a number of factors that I don't deal with in a pool. I would also assume that since my hot tub is never heated for more then about 3-4 hours that this is not long enough to cause me to need to worry about these factors. However, you never want to assume since you know what happens then.

So Any comments on properly maintaining this sort of system would be appreciated.

It would seem that whatever you are using to sanitize the pool would also be working in the spa. You said that when the hot tub water "brings into play a number of factors" a number of factors that you don't deal with in the pool. What do you mean???

If you could be more specific, we can try to help you.

[Rhumbline]

I have just started reading this forum mostly for my own education since I do not have a stand along hot tub. However, I do have a hot tub which is built in to my pool. The water in this tub is pool water and it circulates through the pool filtration such that the hot tub has a waterfall and dumps into the pool. Thus the water circulates.

The hot tub is not heated unless we are using it and once we are done it cools back down quickly or the hot water is dumped into the pool via the water fall of the pool is running. So my question is if there is anything I should be doing specific to the hot tub outside of what I do to maintain the pool water.

I notice that with hot tub water the warmer water seems to bring in to play a number of factors that I don't deal with in a pool. I would also assume that since my hot tub is never heated for more then about 3-4 hours that this is not long enough to cause me to need to worry about these factors. However, you never want to assume since you know what happens then.

So Any comments on properly maintaining this sort of system would be appreciated.

It would seem that whatever you are using to sanitize the pool would also be working in the spa. You said that when the hot tub water "brings into play a number of factors" a number of factors that you don't deal with in the pool. What do you mean???

If you could be more specific, we can try to help you.

What I mean by a number of factors is that it seems that spa's have very different problems from pools due to the fact that the water is heated. This I see that there are a lot of dicussions on this forum about chlorine too high, Ozone questions, Enzyme based product and the like. These are not the same problems and questions that seem to be common in pools. In many discussions I see that the normal things we check in out pools seem to be more complex in a spa since the heat affects the growth of bacteria.

So really what I'm looking for is to understand if there is anything I need to worry about in a spa which I might be missing if I am just treating my pool.

[Whoneedsavacation]

I'm a total newbie myself, but it seems to me if the water is heated as infrequently as you say, if it mixes completely with the pool water in the interim, and the pool water tests and "behaves" OK, you probably don't need to worry. My thinking is that it is the heat that changes things, plus the fact that a spa or hot tub is usually a fully isolated body of water. What you have is a pool that happens to have a bit that occasionally gets heated, but it goes back to the temperature of everything else fairly quickly and it isn't a completely closed system.

Oh experts, am I off base here?

(Or on acid?)

Sorry, pH joke.