Original > Hot Tub Forum
Newbie confused about chemicals (yes, I searched first!)
bud16415:
One more tip for newcomers to hot tubs that live in the cold north.
Mid winter is the worst time to drain and clean a tub. If you time it right get it done in the fall. If not I do a partial drain and fill mid winter if the water seems to be getting old. You don’t even need to shut the tub off to do this. I drain it down about a third and refill it and it is like turning the clock back a month or two on the water. You can’t do this if the water goes real bad as it sometime will if you don’t take care of it or push it too long.
I actually think if you were set up right to do a little drain and fill every week the water could last forever. I had a leaky pump last winter and didn’t want to fix it till spring so I added a inch of water every few days and it really stayed nice. Spring came and I did my first wet end pump swap. The pump cost me 80 bucks. I called the local guy and he said they only change pump and motor as they have bad luck with wet ends. He quoted me 800 bucks. I said thanks but no thanks. ;)
Red MC:
Good point about CYA and bleach. I generally refill twice a year and have never seen CYA increase much over that time. It does go up if I shock with a lot of dichlor, but then it seems to dissipate over time. These days, I rarely need to shock with chlorine, but it's a good idea to use bleach for that.
I did have a bad experience with adding CYA once. After this one fill, I was having difficulty maintaining the water, particularly keeping pH stable. I was advised that I should have CYA about 30 ppm, whereas mine was <10 ppm, so they sold me some granulated CYA and I added it. It just made things worse and I had to refill. It turns out the root of the problem was low calcium hardness. It was at 20 ppm! All previous fills were 60-100 ppm. Since then, I've always had calcium hardness increaser on hand when filling and I need it about half the time.
bud16415:
--- Quote from: Red MC on November 29, 2020, 02:07:52 pm ---Good point about CYA and bleach. I generally refill twice a year and have never seen CYA increase much over that time. It does go up if I shock with a lot of dichlor, but then it seems to dissipate over time. These days, I rarely need to shock with chlorine, but it's a good idea to use bleach for that.
I did have a bad experience with adding CYA once. After this one fill, I was having difficulty maintaining the water, particularly keeping pH stable. I was advised that I should have CYA about 30 ppm, whereas mine was <10 ppm, so they sold me some granulated CYA and I added it. It just made things worse and I had to refill. It turns out the root of the problem was low calcium hardness. It was at 20 ppm! All previous fills were 60-100 ppm. Since then, I've always had calcium hardness increaser on hand when filling and I need it about half the time.
--- End quote ---
That’s some great points and seldom gets talked about, that being the water we fill our tubs with (starting point) is not always the same. We are lucky our little town has a good quality treatment plant and most of the time our water is perfect. It Is taken from a local river though and I try not to fill my tub right after a hard rain fall. I don’t know what they treat with after these events or what it is but a normal fill leaves my water super clear with a blue sparkle. After these hard rains and start up chemicals added by me the water is clear with a green sparkle. Takes a couple weeks to go away.
Yes if you don’t get a CYA increase over 6 months stick with what works and if you do a chlorine shock bleach would be the way to do it.
xMeta4x:
Thanks for the replies everyone, glad I checked back! Is there a setting I'm missing to get emailed when you get a reply?!
I guess the message is not to use bromine!
The problem is that I have a lot of it right now...so until that's used up, I want to stick with it, then I'll probably switch to Dichlor as suggested.
I didn't add any more bromine (tablets or granules). I shocked it again, and the bromine levels shot up again, but not as high.
Today my bromine levels were zero, so I put 2 tablets in the feeder, and will check it again tomorrow. I plan to shock at the weekend, and see what happens to the levels then.
Otherwise, the water is clear, no problems there!
bud16415:
--- Quote from: xMeta4x on December 01, 2020, 11:52:33 am ---Thanks for the replies everyone, glad I checked back! Is there a setting I'm missing to get emailed when you get a reply?!
I guess the message is not to use bromine!
The problem is that I have a lot of it right now...so until that's used up, I want to stick with it, then I'll probably switch to Dichlor as suggested.
I didn't add any more bromine (tablets or granules). I shocked it again, and the bromine levels shot up again, but not as high.
Today my bromine levels were zero, so I put 2 tablets in the feeder, and will check it again tomorrow. I plan to shock at the weekend, and see what happens to the levels then.
Otherwise, the water is clear, no problems there!
--- End quote ---
When I switched over I took my unused unopened Stuff back and traded it for what I wanted.
Don’t get me wrong there are many people that do just fine with bromine and I don’t have a clue how they do it
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