New to Hot Tubs - new Sundance Maxxus

[cyendrey]

My wife and I finally purchased a hot tub/spa after wanting one for many years.  Having had back surgery a couple of years ago, hydro therapy was the deciding factor and the reputation of the local dealer.  So we're the proud owners of a new Sundance Maxxus and so far we're loving it (two weeks).

However, being something of a geek (and fighting it), I've some concerns on water chemistry.  Currently using the Sun Purity mineral and adding Renew and a dichlor additive occasionaly.  Ph has drifted up since the start up so had to add PH decreaser for the first time since startup yesterday.

The test strips show MPS/Chlorine at the low/safe range (although it stayed close to zero when starting out).  However, chlorine smell is still occasionaly a problem and my wife has complained on a couple of occasions about her eyes burning.  I saw the ads for the EcoOne system and it seems almost too good to be true.

Any thoughts?

[TwinCitiesHotSpring]

first things first...ditch the test strips as your main way to test your water...test strips are fine for a "quick and dirty" check to make sure you have chlorine in the water before a soak, but for balancing the rest of your parameters (alk, calcium, pH) you want accuracy and strips do not provide that...Taylor K2006 is a good drop test kit for a fair price and is a MUST for new spa owners imo...

MPS/shock is more of a skin irritant that chlorine could ever be...this could be the cause of your wife's itchy skin/eyes, I also have sensitive skin and only shock once a week

if your pH is consistently "creeping high" than your Alk. is too high....Alk. is a pH buffer so Alk. must be proper (75-100ish) to prevent pH creep..again you will need a good test kit to get baseline numbers so you will know how to adjust accordingly

I wouldn't use any of the "non-chlorine" "chemical free" "all in one" or whatever fancy marketing terms you want to use systems, certain ones are ok in certain instances but remember there is only 4 EPA approved systems to maintain a spa...chlorine, bromine, baqua spa, silver ion/mps anything else is just to get your $ because in the end you will use one or more of the above with it anyways, so save yourself the $

[wmccall]

Welcome to the forum. Nice first tub.

[cyendrey]

Thanks, we've been using it heavily over since it was delivered.

I'd thought I seen a bit of sheen on top of the water in certain light, so this evening I added some Leisure Bright and Clear which is supposed to be a long chain polymer/floculant to help get out suspended solids/oils.  Oh. my. God....

It worked as advertised; with the jets/air running it quickly picked up the suspended oil/etc and we had the 'nicest' floating scum particles/rings form in every back water section of the tub that it could settle in.  Used a strainer to capture the floating islands of scum and every few minutes wiped down the ring that grew in the calm sections of the tub.  Finally it seemed to get the worst out and stopped developing new ring/scum deposits.  I left it on with just the circulation pump to capture the rest over the next 24 hrs.

The really good news is that when I turned off the pumps, the water was almost invisible it was so clear.  It seems to me that a scum ball, or some other device to capture the natural oils that come off of folks is going to be necessary since the surface typically isn't going to get pulled through the filters.