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I was looking for test strips and found one that's 7 way. It covers Total Chlorine, Total Bromine, Free Chlorine, pH, Total Alkalinity, Total Hardness and Cyanuric Acid (Stabilizer).Will that take care of everything I need to check? In the past I only checked Bromine and pH, I just learned that there's both total and free chlorine and now I have to research that too. I'm feeling a little overwhelmed by all the information on spa maintenance.
In answer to your question how much dichlor to use, that will be dependent on how much use, how many people, filtration, and many other things. THe problem with dichlor is it needs to be added daily as it precipitates out, evaporates, etc. I would recommend looking alternative products and reducing chlorine demand, check out a product called H2OFiX ... The company's (Water Pure Technologies Inc. / Their main focus has been water purification in 3rd world countries, helping villagers have access to safer water. They recently came out with a patented hot tub product. It has copper silver ions, a calcium inhibitor, stain and scale inhibitor, ph anchor all engineered into one product. It reduces the amount of chlorine (dichlor) needed and they have a 100% money back guarantee. It eliminates needing to buy 3 to 5 other products as well. I know one thing I would not use any other product ... I've tried them all through the years, in my opinion this works better than any other. I will mention that the head of their research department is one of the leading chemical engineers in the world and is chairman of the chemical engineering society, which is the face to the nation in education.