Hot Tub Forum
Original => Hot Tub Forum => Topic started by: jons on November 07, 2015, 03:52:05 pm
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I need some help. I've been battling what I believe is paper mold in my hot tub for the 5th straight week. I've ran one dose of spa purge and 4 doses of swirl away plus I have been snaking fish tank air line hooked to my water hose in an attempt to flush the jet lines. I've also super shocked and super chlorinated with the granules and it's getting better but the last two weekends I've flushed about the same amount of paper mold out of the lines. I know this is an old topic and I'm ready to try swirl away followed by adding Clorox and see if that will finally knock it out. The problem is I can't figure out how many gallons of bleach to use. My tub is only 225 gallons. Please help, I feel like I'm in the 15th round both fighters need a knock out to win.
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I don't think you need Clorox if you've been using a lot of granular chlorine. I would use a really heavy dose, 1/2 cup of granular chlorine. Sometimes when the pipe-mold/bio-film gets really bad it can take 2-3 drain and fills to completely get rid of it. You might try run some more purge/Swirl-Away through the plumbing again. Also, let the Swirl-Away run through the plumbing for an hour, and also let the chlorine run through the plumbing for an hour. Make sure the diverter valves are turned in all directions so that you get it through every plumbing line.
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On the spa purge and swirl away I've followed the directions to the letter. I do believe that it's working however this must be a very bad case of paper mold because nothing is completely getting rid of it. Due to my work schedule I'm unable to do anything during the work week however on the weekends I am purging per the directions, draining, refilling and still seeing the paper mold. This is both Saturday and Sunday. Today made my 5th consecutive weekend of this routine. During the work week I am super chlorinating, leaving the filter in and keeping my fingers crossed. Like I said, it's getting better but I've seem to have hit a wall where there was no noticeable difference between todays purge, empty, refill and last weekends purge, empty, refill.
Will using a very high dose of bleach for an hour do any good? Will it cause any harm to the tub? My wife has rheumatoid arthritis and the hot tub is a blessing for her during the colder months. In fact it's really the only reason why we bought it several years ago.
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Try some Ahh-some cleaner, it may work a little better. http://www.ahh-some.com/tubs.php
I let my tub go and used it with a large dose of chlorine and it cleaned the pipes very well. I did 3 doses to my tub because of how long I let it go, you may need to do the same too. I would also let the ahh-some sit overnight letting whatever is in it break up the water mold and as it removes layers the bleach should kill it.
You can use bleach if you have been using dichlor, actually if you drain and refill and use bleach without stabilizer it is actually more potent and corrosive as well but 1 hour should be OK. I agree that you need to turn every knob , let diverters sit open to one side for a short while 5-10 minutes then the other side for the same amount of time make sure you don't leave it to a certain side, run the air as well ... run pumps for the hour as well make sure that all the jets are open as well.
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Here's a thread from a few days ago that might help you (http://www.whatsthebest-hottub.com/forum/index.php/topic,19152.0.html). My reply on this thread was reply #3. I laid out what my dealer told me to do and it worked quite well. One thing to note was the PH. My dealer was pretty insistent that I needed to lower the PH to get rid of the bio film. Good luck with it.
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Sorry, also meant to second what Vinny said about Ahh-Some. To my knowledge, it's the best cleaner on the market.
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What are you doing to super chlorinate? How much chlorine are you using?
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To super chlorinate I've been using 1 cup of chlorinating concentrate every 2-3 days during the week. Saturday morning I use swirl away per the directions and drain the tub. I remove all the jets and snake the plumbing with fish tank air line hooked to my garden hose. Yesterday was my 5th straight weekend of performing this process and I'm still getting paper mold out of the lines when I snake them with the air line.
I've read about Ahh-Some but unfortunately nobody in my area carries it so I'll have to order it. What should I do with my tub until next weekend? I've noticed that some of the paper mold is thicker and has longer strings while other is much smaller and almost completely translucent. Are the smaller more translucent pieces new growth? I've been concerned about the possibility of new growth due to only having two days a week to work on this problem.
Thanks for all the advice.
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It may be possible that the amount of stabilizer being added with the chlorine concentrate is affecting the chlorine, this is assuming that you are using dichlor and not any other type of chlorine. You won't have that with bleach so it may be more effective and cheaper.
I think Leslie's Pool sells Ahh-Some and I bought mine from eBay but I'm sure other places online sell it as well..
Are you cleaning your filters in between cleanings? They can get pretty nasty as well. I would also devote an hour a day adding bleach and running the pumps. I don't know if you read Quickbeam's post (I haven't) but maybe follow that. If that doesn't work, use enough dichlor to get to 30 ppm and then use bleach instead of chlorine granuals. Thus will add enough stabilizer in the water to not make the bleach very corrosive and that much stabilizer won't counteract using the bleach for an extended amount of time. As was mentioned PH does affect how chlorine works, lower PH makes more killing ions available, higher PH makes more neutralizing ions available. I would also not assume that the chlorine that you added at 8 am is still in the tub after any given time, test the water, I have had chlorine last less then 20 minutes and I have had chlorine last for days ... So please don't assume anything is "normal".
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I just read Quickbeam's post ... Do that! :)
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I'll follow Quickbeam's advice. I've not been testing the water since I've been draining it every weekend so I'll start doing that as well. I've always used Spa Guard chlorinating concentrate which is sodium dichloro. We've never had a problem like this until this past winter when I hurt my knee running, had an operation to fix the problem, and about died on the operating table. By the time I was done rehabbing my knee it was summer and I noticed this problem but didn't know what it was. I drained the hot tub since we don't use it during the hot summer months without killing all of the paper mold, that appears to have been a very bad mistake.
Our tub is an Hawkeye Eclipse. It's only 225 gallons. It's only got one filter and yes I have been cleaning after each water change. I've got another bottle of swirl away, it does work some. As I've said this makes my 5 consecutive weekend of trying to correct this problem. Should I purge the tub again today with the swirl away or would I be better off to wait until the Ahh-Some arrives and hit it hard next weekend? If I wait until next weekend what should my plan of attack be for the water that's currently in the tub? Thanks again for all of the advice.
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My thoughts ...
If swirl away is in the water now then leave it in there for today, check the chlorine level (assuming you can differentiate between free chlorine and combined chlorine) and keep it on the high side - over 10 ppm. Depending on the PH, drop it down to below 7.2 (do this before hitting with a high chlorine amount), and run the tub. Check it about an hour later for chlorine and need be add more, check it in the morning as well. When I say add chlorine, use bleach at this point, 2 cups of bleach should give you over 10 ppm chlorine ... It's about 1 ppm chlorine for every 100 gallons. Make sure you do this every day until the ahh-some comes in or next weekend, empty the tub, rinse, drain, fill up, add the ahh-some and go from there.
The swirl away should continue to eat away at the gunk, the high level of chlorine should kill the gunk, the running of the jets should scour the pipes. With it in 24/7 it should at least keep everything at bay. Next weekend you have a new weapon that will hopefully work and just use bleach as chlorine just don't keep bleach in it for very long periods of time do to its corrosiveness. Be prepared to buy a new filter once this ordeal is over. Another thing if the funds are there buy a sump pump to make emptying the tub quicker, make sure if you have a drain plug that you let the highly chlorinated water run through it as well. If the water doesn't clear up and you are running into another weekend add 30 ppm of chlorine granuals to get stabilizer in the tub and then use bleach as chlorine during the week.
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This can be a really frustrating, time consuming process. I really do think if you use Ahh-Some, then bleach, with your PH lowered it is your best bet. Again, as I laid out in my earlier post.
Please also let us know how you make out and what finally does work for you. And once again, good luck with it.
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Vinny,
I'll do as you said until the Ahh-Some arrives then I'll do as Quickbeam suggested. Just to be sure, drop the PH below 7.2ppm then keep the free chlorine at 10ppm. I have no problem getting a new filter however I was advised by my local dealer to not use the filter with the swirl away in? By the way, their advice didn't work, guess the paper mold was worse then they thought. I've got a sump pump but unfortunately it passed away during this process and I haven't replaced it yet.
Thanks again for all the help. As Quickbeam said this IS a very frustrating process. I just hope the warmish weather holds out for one more weekend!
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When going for the kill push the chlorine up a lot - I would venture to say 50-100PPM, I have been known to dump 1/2 gallon bleach into 400 gallons ... I doubt anything that can be killed by chlorine will survive that. But I wouldn't keep that up for a week, keeping your free chlorine up past 10 PPM will keep the chlorine high enough that if it is being affected by the stabilizer (which I really believe it could be) at least you may be able to keep the water mold under control. If you don't have the filter in - great just make sure nothing gets into the tub - that will introduce a whole another problem. And I would still get a new filter because it was in the water while the water mold was growing.
Once you dump the tub next weekend, fill it (you don't really need to heat anything if you are - maybe dissolve the ahh-some in warm water), adjust the PH to less than 7.2, add the ahh-some, get that going and with the pumps on and add in the bleach. Don't be shy with it ... 3 cups (24 oz) should give you over 50 PPM if you use the 8.25% bleach that's out now. As I said earlier - it'll be very aggressive due to no stabilizer and very corrosive if left in for very long. I would run the pumps an hour, drain , refill (run pumps again for a little while to flush out the ahh-some/gunk), drain, refill, add more ahh-some and see what happens with it reacting to the water mold. If you find gunk floating around then add the bleach again. Repeat. If you find that after the refill and running the pumps your water is clear then you might be OK. If not I would add ahh-some again, run the pumps every so often and add 10/15 PPM chlorine granules (check the chlorine level) and leave it overnight - run the pumps in the morning adding a killing dose of bleach, drain, refill and run pumps - see if anything new has developed.
For me the sides of my tub turned brown at the water line. ALSO - Ahh-some foams out the wazoo!!!! I had some pretty high foaming going on. As I said it took me 3x of doing what I recommended to get my tub to be pretty clean.
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Ahh-some works significantly better than swirl away. Swirl away is virtually worthless in this application, imo.
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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.
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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?
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Did you leave your cover off during the overnight treatment?
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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.
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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 :D
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.
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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?
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I think so, why?
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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 :D
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!! ;D
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.
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I ran the tub all night long with the Ahh-Some and bleach. This morning at 6am I added a bit more Ahh-Some cycled the pump on high for one hour then I added more bleach and cycled the pump on high for another hour. I drained the tub and got a decent amount of gunk at the water line. So far mine has always looked like chewed up paper I've cleaned everything off and currently in the process of filling the tub for the one hour bleach cycle.
I'm still concerned that I got a decent amount of gunk. I haven't seen any evidence of paper mold during this fill so keep your fingers crossed that it's gone. It was 31 degrees this morning and my fingers are still numb :'( I'd give anything if I had done this Ahh-Some process all night both Friday and Saturday but like they say hindsight is 20/20.
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:'( After the bleach only cycle I pulled all the jets to clean them. During this time I used my garden hose to force some water in the jets and out of all the jets I got 20 or pieces of paper mold >:( It's not the 50 or so million that I was getting before but it's still there.
I think I'm down for the count. :-[
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Good for you Jons. Sounds like you are on the right track.
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Just keep at it. The Ahh-Some dislodges the mold from the pipes and the high chlorine level mostly kills it. If you are getting less and less material out, then it's likely not growing anymore and you are in the process of physically removing every last bit of it.
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Thanks for the motivation. I wish my sump pump hadn't died. It's one of the cheap ones from Harbor Freight. I've had it for several years so I can't complain. The problem is when the float is vertical the GFCI trips. My guess is a short but I am open to all suggestions. I was going to disassemble it but the float looks tricky to get into and the manufacturer decided to use 3 way screws on the pump.
Because of my sump not working It'll be next to impossible for me to do a drain and clean during the week. Would it hurt/help to do another Ahh-Some treatment from now until Friday evening? I was thinking that if I can leave work early Friday then I could drain, clean, fill to flush, then fill again and do another overnight Ahh-Some treatment. If I'm still seeing gunk Saturday then repeat this process. At this point I'm about to believe the only way to kill the paper mold is with a stick of dynamite. :o
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You don't want to leave the Ahh-Some in the water longer than recommended. Otherwise, the gunk it dislodges can form a very hard residual on spa surfaces mostly above the water line that is very hard to remove. Basically, while the powerful surfactants work great to dislodge material that is on surfaces exposed to water, this same material when on the surface of the water and splashed up to spa surfaces above the water can dry out to something much harder to remove.
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I finally KO'd the paper mold :) I drained the week long Ahh-Some out of the tub after work yesterday, then filled, drained, and refiled. I added a cup of bleach and let the water temp come up overnight. I did what I believe was my 6 or 7th Ahh-Some treatment this morning starting at 530. An hour later I added 1/2 gallon of bleach and let it run for an hour. Then I drained, filled, drained again. I forced water into all the jets via a garden hose nozzle and saw ZERO evidence of paper mold.
I removed all the jets, placed them in a bucket filled with water and vinegar, let them soak, then washed them with clean water. I also heated up some water, mixed it with vinegar and cleaned the tub thoroughly. Chem geek, I did my best to clean the sides of the tub at the water line twice a day to help minimize the problem you spoke of. I sort of succeeded as I didn't have any hard gunk to remove however I did have a small gummy type layer of stuff to remove at the water line which the hot water/vinegar easily removed.
I plan on doing one more purge around the last week of December, about 5 weeks away. I'm off that week and IF anything is coming back hopefully I'll notice it by then and be able to quickly squelch it before it gets out of hand.
One last time I want say thanks to everybody for helping me fight and conquer the demon beast known as paper mold. I don't think I would have succeeded without you. Also thanks to the people who run this forum, without you none of this would be possible.
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Congratulations to you Jons,
Glad you are finally on the winning side of this. This thread should serve as a lesson to others about how important it is to keep your spa in good order.
It’s a long story, but some time ago I had shut my waterfall off and inadvertently left it off. Sure enough, I had some bio-film build up behind the waterfall. My situation wasn’t as bad as yours, but I learned a very valuable lesson in how much work it is to get rid of this stuff.
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Congratulations to you Jons,
Glad you are finally on the winning side of this. This thread should serve as a lesson to others about how important it is to keep your spa in good order.
It’s a long story, but some time ago I had shut my waterfall off and inadvertently left it off. Sure enough, I had some bio-film build up behind the waterfall. My situation wasn’t as bad as yours, but I learned a very valuable lesson in how much work it is to get rid of this stuff.
What is the best way to approach the waterfall? I've heard differing opinions.
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Congratulations to you Jons,
Glad you are finally on the winning side of this. This thread should serve as a lesson to others about how important it is to keep your spa in good order.
It’s a long story, but some time ago I had shut my waterfall off and inadvertently left it off. Sure enough, I had some bio-film build up behind the waterfall. My situation wasn’t as bad as yours, but I learned a very valuable lesson in how much work it is to get rid of this stuff.
What is the best way to approach the waterfall? I've heard differing opinions.
Leave it at least partially open. When your circ. pump is running, you want water coming out of your waterfall. With no water coming out of your waterfall, you will get a build up of bio-film. And as you’ve seen in this thread, it is a whole lot of work to get rid of it.
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I finally KO'd the paper mold :) I drained the week long Ahh-Some out of the tub after work yesterday, then filled, drained, and refiled. I added a cup of bleach and let the water temp come up overnight. I did what I believe was my 6 or 7th Ahh-Some treatment this morning starting at 530. An hour later I added 1/2 gallon of bleach and let it run for an hour. Then I drained, filled, drained again. I forced water into all the jets via a garden hose nozzle and saw ZERO evidence of paper mold.
I removed all the jets, placed them in a bucket filled with water and vinegar, let them soak, then washed them with clean water. I also heated up some water, mixed it with vinegar and cleaned the tub thoroughly. Chem geek, I did my best to clean the sides of the tub at the water line twice a day to help minimize the problem you spoke of. I sort of succeeded as I didn't have any hard gunk to remove however I did have a small gummy type layer of stuff to remove at the water line which the hot water/vinegar easily removed.
I plan on doing one more purge around the last week of December, about 5 weeks away. I'm off that week and IF anything is coming back hopefully I'll notice it by then and be able to quickly squelch it before it gets out of hand.
One last time I want say thanks to everybody for helping me fight and conquer the demon beast known as paper mold. I don't think I would have succeeded without you. Also thanks to the people who run this forum, without you none of this would be possible.
Good job jons!!!
Glad you won the battle. Ahh-some is awesome! I have used other cleaners in the past but will be using it after seeing what it did for my tub - Spring 2016 will be my tub's cleaning time :) They also sell filter cleaner as well if you need.
I know that you had no problems before your health situation so you have water care down OK. But if you see a problem (residue from this episode) hit the tub hard with chlorine and monitor the chlorine level and if it drops significantly keep it high until it stops.
Oh, magic eraser works great on the spa shell.
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Congratulations to you Jons,
Glad you are finally on the winning side of this. This thread should serve as a lesson to others about how important it is to keep your spa in good order.
It’s a long story, but some time ago I had shut my waterfall off and inadvertently left it off. Sure enough, I had some bio-film build up behind the waterfall. My situation wasn’t as bad as yours, but I learned a very valuable lesson in how much work it is to get rid of this stuff.
I used to freak out on my kids because they would go into the tub and leave a diverter on one side. A week later I would go to use the tub and I would be pissed that they "forgot". As a side note, they used to forget to put chlorine in after they used it ... you could have fried an egg on my head!
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Leave it at least partially open. When your circ. pump is running, you want water coming out of your waterfall. With no water coming out of your waterfall, you will get a build up of bio-film. And as you’ve seen in this thread, it is a whole lot of work to get rid of it.
OK, thanks. We have been closing the waterfall valve but leaving a little trickle coming out, which was what one of the Jacuzzi technicians advised us to do. Maybe I'll start leaving it open with a little bit more flow, after what you've shared. I guess there is no downside, or wear & tear issue, since the circ pump is running anyways, right?
Thanks again
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Leave it at least partially open. When your circ. pump is running, you want water coming out of your waterfall. With no water coming out of your waterfall, you will get a build up of bio-film. And as you’ve seen in this thread, it is a whole lot of work to get rid of it.
OK, thanks. We have been closing the waterfall valve but leaving a little trickle coming out, which was what one of the Jacuzzi technicians advised us to do. Maybe I'll start leaving it open with a little bit more flow, after what you've shared. I guess there is no downside, or wear & tear issue, since the circ pump is running anyways, right?
Thanks again
Hi Amy,
I think you're probably O.K. as long as you have some water coming out (as in a trickle), but because of what I went through with mine I err on the side of caution and leave a pretty healthy flow coming out. I really don't want to have to go through cleaning out bio-film again, and mine wasn't near as bad as what Jons (the OP) had. As for the downside of leaving more flow through the waterfall, only one I can think of is there will be a little more vapour on the underside of your cover. Hope this helps.
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A trickle is good enough, you just want the chlorinated (or whatever) water to flow through the pipes and replenish what was there. As long as you keep up with the water it will be OK.
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I think they may have been one of my problems, we never left the water valve trickling. You can bet the house that it's trickling now and will be from now on, lol. I wouldn't wish paper mold on my worst enemy.
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That may have been the most difficult water mold situations ever.
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Thanks all for the advice re: the waterfalls.
Congrats Jons on slaying the mold monster!! :)
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hey all new member here but just couldn't help joining the ahh-some party here. I've slain the biofilm monster with this stuff, and even tested a number of other products as well. ahh-some is the only one that is for real.
I also agree with the multiple purges thing. people have a tendency to expect that one purge will work miracles, but if the spa is significantly contaminated -- and biofilms do regenerate quickly and with vengence -- you will need several purges. I've said this before but the spa is not clean until you are running an ahh-some treated spa WITH FILTERS INSTALLED, and you see no material release. you have to purge first without the filters installed -- per label directions -- clean the filters outside the tub with a solution of ahh-some plus your favorite de-greaser. then when you have a squeaky clean spa dosed with ahh-some, put your cleaned filters back where they belong. In my case, I got a little more material released, which I was able to wipe up with a micro fiber cloth while the jets were running. drain the spa and rinse everything,, including the filters, as you would normally do.