Hot Tub Forum
Original => Hot Tub Forum => Topic started by: jmauceri on October 07, 2015, 04:47:40 pm
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I have a 2008 Marquis Epic with the Spa Frog System. I use my tub every day and after trial and error I found my water would balance well if I shocked (non-chlorine) every time I used the spa. After some time I realized my Ozonator wasn't working. I said "ah ha! that's why i have to shock daily to keep by bromine levels where they should be". So I replaced the tube style stock ozonator with a Del Ozone MCD-50 ozonator and figured life would be good. Well the opposite seems to be. Unless I shock daily my bromine levels read zero! Before knowing this, and after a few days of not shocking, my water started getting cloudy. What's up with that? I thought ozone helped reduce chemical use. I'm going through more shock than ever!
If a chemical genius could explain this to me I would greatly appreciate it.
FYI Spa Fog at setting 4 and PH, Alkalinity and CH at the middle of the spectrum.
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Did you ever add sodium bromide to create a bromide bank? If not, then the ozone has no bromide to convert to bromine. Eventually your addition of bromine may build up a bromide bank, but initially you need to create one.
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Wow, I had no idea. Thank you so much. Why wouldn't marquis include that little tidbit in their startup instructions for the Spa frog system with the ozonator?
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Sorry to be a pest, but would the Spa Frog Jump Start pack of Sodium Dichloro-s-triazinetrione provide the base bromide? I'm due for a routine water change, so I'm wondering if I need to still add the sodium bromide to the new water.
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No
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After some time I realized my Ozonator wasn't working.
How did you know your ozonator wasn't working? I've often wondered about that with our spa. I know there's a stream of water coming out of the outlet, but how does one know that the ozonator is actually doing anything?
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After some time I realized my Ozonator wasn't working.
How did you know your ozonator wasn't working? I've often wondered about that with our spa. I know there's a stream of water coming out of the outlet, but how does one know that the ozonator is actually doing anything?
A few different ways. First, the O3 message on my display would only stay on briefoh. Second, there was no glow from the ozonator itself. After I replaced it, is completely obvious because I can now smell the ozone.
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I want to give an update to this thread. Chem Geek was dead on with his advice. I performed a water change and I used the Spa Frog Starter packet along with Sodium Bromide. It's been over 4 weeks now and my water has been crystal clear from the beginning and I'm now only shocking one a week with the ozonator running well.
Chem Geek, thank you so much for the advise! I still don't understand why the manufacturer wouldn't recommend the Sodium Bromide.
Regards,
Joe
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There are lots of things about pool water chemistry that manufacturers either don't know or don't tell. However, most do recognize that for a bromine system one usually starts out by creating a bromide bank by adding sodium bromide. That was a pretty lame mistake for them. Most don't understand the chlorine/CYA relationship and many don't understand the TA/pH relationship. There are good ones that do understand these things; you'll find them on this forum.