Paper mold in hot tub

[Sam]

Ahh-some works significantly better than swirl away.  Swirl away is virtually worthless in this application, imo.

[jons]

Second check of tub water and free chlorine is holding at 10ppm and the ph is low.  2 cups hit the spot!  I'll check twice a day and adjust as needed.  The Ahh-Some is ordered.  Thanks to all the help I'm feeling confident that I can finally win this war.

[jons]

I'm in the middle of my second drain and clean using Ahh-Some.  I failed to get it to completely dissolve during the first treatment.  For the most part it just seemed like it smeared along the water line.  During the second attempt I helped it dissolve and so far I've seen much better results.  I've got quit a bit of gunk along the water line this time.  My question is should this still be normal?  In the preceding weekends I've used 1 bottle of Spa Purge and 4 bottles of Swirl Away.  If I keep repeating this process will I eventually not see any gunk along the water line? 

[Vinny]

If you didn't get a lot of gunk out previously then yes it's normal. I cleaned my tub 3x with ahhsome and I waz getting a lot of stuff out the first 2 times. I want to say that my tub may have been equivalent to yours and I was shocked to see what was coming out on the second try and I left it o ernight on the second time to gi e the stuff a lot of time to eat away the gunk. Hopefully you are usng high concentrations of bleach as well to help kill the stuff as it peels away  from the pipes and stuff

[Quickbeam]

I agree with Vinny, and also want to re-state that you should be lowering your PH and using bleach along with the Ahh-Some.

[jons]

Just finished the 3rd attempt with the Ahh-Some.  I tried it without bringing the tub up to temperature and dissolved the Ahh-Some in hot water before pouring it in.  It foamed like crazy this time.  I have been lowering the PH and adding bleach however I didn't do either during this last attempt.  Due to time constraints I only did a 30 minute cycle.   After draining the tub I didn't notice any gunk at the water line.  I pulled the 3 highest jets and snaked them with my airline hooked to the garden hose.  I still got some paper mold    Not much but it's still there.   

My plan of attack is to fill the tub and allow it to come up to temperature.  Then I'll lower the PH and once it's good I'll put the Ahh-Some and bleach in and allow it to run all night.  Does it affect the Ahh-Some if you dissolve it in hot water before adding it to the tub?  Is the gel form really important or is it just something they did to set it apart from other products? 

I've got my tub programmed to constantly run the jets however it'll only do this on low.  You can only run the pump on high for 15 minutes at a time, then it kicks back to low.  Is that going to be a problem?

Again, I can't thank you enough for all of your help. 

     

[Vinny]

Just finished the 3rd attempt with the Ahh-Some.  I tried it without bringing the tub up to temperature and dissolved the Ahh-Some in hot water before pouring it in.  It foamed like crazy this time.  I have been lowering the PH and adding bleach however I didn't do either during this last attempt.  Due to time constraints I only did a 30 minute cycle.   After draining the tub I didn't notice any gunk at the water line.  I pulled the 3 highest jets and snaked them with my airline hooked to the garden hose.  I still got some paper mold    Not much but it's still there.   

My plan of attack is to fill the tub and allow it to come up to temperature.  Then I'll lower the PH and once it's good I'll put the Ahh-Some and bleach in and allow it to run all night.  Does it affect the Ahh-Some if you dissolve it in hot water before adding it to the tub?  Is the gel form really important or is it just something they did to set it apart from other products? 

I've got my tub programmed to constantly run the jets however it'll only do this on low.  You can only run the pump on high for 15 minutes at a time, then it kicks back to low.  Is that going to be a problem?

Again, I can't thank you enough for all of your help. 

   

Foaming = good!

I don't think it matters that you used hot water to dissolve the gel - you need to get that stuff in the water and whatever way you can do it - GREAT! Since you didn't get foam the first 2 times you may not have the full effect of it; I had about 2 feet of foam coming off the tub all three times, the last time it wasn't nearly as discolored as the first 2. Don't let the tub sit too long without any form of chlorine since you are dealing with an existing problem ... I think you are at the brink of killing this stuff and you don't want a setback for any reason. Unfortunately if you didn't see anything with the first cleaning you may not have actually cleaned anything (sorry to be the barer of bad news); I had all this blackish crap in the foam and on the sides of my spa during the first 2 cleanings and much less on the 3rd  - you're dealing with something different but there should have been stuff clinging to your shell after running the ahh-some.

[jons]

I did get some foam and some gunk the first two times however something was different the 3rd time and I had so much foam it was overflowing out the tub.  I thought I'd see a bunch of gunk but I didn't see much at all?  Am I wasting time snaking the jets out with the airline hooked to my garden hose?  This is an idea that I came up with one day, not sure if anybody else is trying it or not.  It seems to help break up the paper mold however it is a time consuming process and not through enough to completely knock out the paper mold.  It's also impossible to get to every inch of the pluming, at least in my tub.

Do you think it would hurt to leave the Ahh-Some/bleach/low PH in for two days?  I wish I had done this Saturday night. 

[Vinny]

I would probably use dichlor because you are leaving the chlorine in the tub for a while, bleach is cheaper but will be more corrosive and the stabilizer isn't going to build up too high if you had to add 10 PPM chlorine every day but if for some reason you don't get to do it on Tuesday and have been adding chlorine at the rate of 10 PPM then use bleach once the total amount of chlorine added hits 30 PPM. I see no problem with leaving the ahhsome in the tub, just be aware that anything the gets on your shell may be a pain to get off if it dries up ... I talk from experience! 

As far as doing it on Saturday, life has a way of getting in the way of things we want to do.

[jons]

Did you leave your cover off during the overnight treatment?

[Vinny]

I think I did but if you find you are getting a lot of foam with the jets on low (I was using the circulation pump - no foam) then don't leave the cover on because cleanup will be a bear. Remember to leave the cover open for a while when you add chemicals so the water can off gas and not affect the cover. If for some reason you do leave your cover off make sure you put the filters back into the tub if you removed them so that nothing gets sucked into the pumps. And I forgot to mention - whenever you can do the next (and hopefully the last) drain of the ahhsome - hit the tub hard again with bleach, run the pumps for an hour or so and then drain, refill, run pumps, drain and refill.

I forgot to answer the question about the hose - I wouldn't bother. I would leave it because as you said you're not getting everywhere. I would suggest that unless you are still getting a lot of garbage coming out that you may be ok. I would certainly use the tub unless you find it objectionable; I'll let you be the judge since you have been fighting this for a while. Once you get to about 30 PPM total chlorine used on the new fill, switch to bleach to chlorinate the tub and every so often when you know that you won't be using the tub for at least a day or two - hit it with 10 PPM or more chlorine.

I don't know how you measure the amount of chlorine in the tub and how you measure free vs combined chlorine but if you get the chlorine smell that means that you have combined chlorine. If you can't measure the combined chlorine then when you get that smell use non chlorine shock. Keep tabs on how quickly or not free chlorine goes away; if it goes away really quickly then you have an issue that the chlorine is trying to fight - you should have a reading of 3 PPM chlorine 20 minutes after putting in the dose, anything less is no good.

I would also plan to use ahhsome the next few times you change your water - just so you can continue with the clean up of the pipes unless you're 100% satisfied that your problem is gone. The only thing it adds is the fill, run pumps, drain and refill ... and maybe a little scrubbing of the shell.

[jons]

I think I'll just stick to doing the overnight treatment.  I've already got the filter in and figured it would be best if I leave the cover off, just wanted to see if that's what you did.  I'm going to use a vacation day tomorrow, hopefully they won't fire me     

We've had this tub for 5-6 years and this is the first problem what we've encountered.  My wife is the one who's in charge of the water maintenance.  She has only used the test strips and to be honest I didn't know there was a different way to test until I stumbled onto this forum.  My job is the cleaning of the tub and filter maintenance.  I've always drained the water every 3 months, cleaned the filter at least once a month and replaced it every 6 months.  When I hurt my knee we both neglected our duties for several months and like I said, early this summer I drained the tub and flushed it out the best I could and didn't refill since we weren't using it.  Maybe we were lucky this hadn't happened sooner?

With any luck the paper mold problem will be finished off tonight.  I'm always off from work during the last week of December and I figured it would be a good time to do another Ahh-Some treatment and general cleaning of the tub.  Once we are back into our normal maintenance routine I plan on doing the Ahh-Some every water change, as far as I know it can't hurt. 

Thanks again for all of the advice. 

     

[amy2421]

Is there anywhere near you that can do an in-depth water sample test (not just for PH/Alkaline/Chlorine) to test for organisms, like they do for drinking water?

[jons]

I think so, why? 

[Vinny]

I think I'll just stick to doing the overnight treatment.  I've already got the filter in and figured it would be best if I leave the cover off, just wanted to see if that's what you did.  I'm going to use a vacation day tomorrow, hopefully they won't fire me     

We've had this tub for 5-6 years and this is the first problem what we've encountered.  My wife is the one who's in charge of the water maintenance.  She has only used the test strips and to be honest I didn't know there was a different way to test until I stumbled onto this forum.  My job is the cleaning of the tub and filter maintenance.  I've always drained the water every 3 months, cleaned the filter at least once a month and replaced it every 6 months.  When I hurt my knee we both neglected our duties for several months and like I said, early this summer I drained the tub and flushed it out the best I could and didn't refill since we weren't using it.  Maybe we were lucky this hadn't happened sooner?

With any luck the paper mold problem will be finished off tonight.  I'm always off from work during the last week of December and I figured it would be a good time to do another Ahh-Some treatment and general cleaning of the tub.  Once we are back into our normal maintenance routine I plan on doing the Ahh-Some every water change, as far as I know it can't hurt. 

Thanks again for all of the advice. 

   

You were taking care of the tub fine before your situation happened and you ran into this problem. Things happen and unfortunately you need to set your priorities in order ... If anything ever happened to me nobody here (wife and sons) would know what to do with the pool and tub ... I guess that's why I'm still around! LOL!! 

I have told a story where one of my son's friends went into my tub and swore she got hot tub rash, my son was in there with her and he got nothing. Can I swear she didn't get the rash from bacteria - no; do I think it wasn't from bacteria - kind of but I have no proof either way. I have had my sons use the tub and forget to put chlorine in it; I open the tub a couple of days later and it is nasty!!! Heck, I stopped using the tub for a couple of years and left the water in it - that was my ahhsome cleanup job.

I really do hope for your sake - it's done. It is a lot of work and frustrating to not be able to use something you really want to. And if it relieves problems and can't get the therapy you need/want - it's even worse!

Good luck tomorrow! Please post again either way.