Water Disaster, starting over

[jemez]

We have a new Sunrise hot tub (delivered Friday) and the first fill went badly. I filled it about 2/3 with softened water, 1/3 with well water. Yesterday morning, first off I noticed a bit of a film on the inside the next morning which made me panic a bit. I called dealer, he recommended starting with alkaliity + Ph adjust, and some stain and scale remover. I measured using test strips. & the alkalinity was high, Ph high, so I put in a bit of alk-reducer, and a bit of Ph reducer (amts based on my volume), and some spa-glo. After I did this the water got cloudy, and by this morning looked horrible & didn't smell great.

So, I'm draining now & starting over. I had something like this happen once before with an old tub, when the water was tested and according to the measurements I was told to put in a LOT of alkalinity reducer, I always assume that was because they told me to put in much too much, but this time I put in a small amt of the reducer & it seems to screw up my water again. Any recommendations on how to start over?

[Tman122]

What are you using to sanitize your water?

[jemez]

Bromine. I don't think the sanitizer was the problem, since it got cloudy before it was used. I did always use CHlorine before (old tub), but since I was supplied with bromine supplies I decided to use them.

[Tman122]

You need to sanitize first thing. If you are adjusting the balance on the water it should be sanitized. It's possible that the water used for testing (residual in the pipes) made the water funky.

[jemez]

OK, thanks. I have a 2-stage product called Bro-Boost and Zap that is supposed to be for the bromine pre-treatment, I'll start with that. I'm suspicious that somehow that Alkalinity reducing product has some issue with my water though, since the only times I've seen my water get cloudy have been the two times that I've used it, most of the time I've just used the Ph Down product.

The good news is that there's new water in it now (100% well water, but my well isn't too hard) and I have a courtesy call from my dealer tomorrow to install the cover lifter and help check the water.

[Dr. Spa™ Ret.]

Have you ever had your well water tested for dissolved metals?

[jemez]

I have had it tested, there were no dissolved metals measured. At the time the recommendation I got was to use the Alkalinity reducer, since the alkalinity was high, but the recommendation was for a very large qty which resulted in cloudy white water. yesterday I used less of the alkalinity reducer, and my water got cloudy again, but not as bad as before. Today new water looks sparkling clean, but alkalinity and Ph are a bit high.

[Tman122]

Leave the Alk and PH a bit high for a while. Your Bromine will slowly drive them down. See if they are high in a couple weeks but stay on top of your sanitation.

[jemez]

I have another question about water care, hopefully some of the experts can answer.

It had taken me a while to get my bromine level up, so I've used a couple of treatments of a liquid bromine booster (brome-boost) that is followed 5 minutes later with a packet to activate it (?) called zap. I assume the Zap is some sort of shock, the instructions say to use weekly.

Since I'm out of these packets, I'll want to use something to shock. I've read that you can shock bromine with regular laundry chlorine, and I've also read never to mix chlorine and bromine. Any opinions on this?

[Flyonthewall]

with well water a pre filter might be a good idea.  i like the flexibility a soft water mix can give if you have hard water in the well.  might have been something in the pipes too.  i've seen a higher than normal amount of new spas lately needing flushing due to test water.

[Tman122]

I have another question about water care, hopefully some of the experts can answer.

It had taken me a while to get my bromine level up, so I've used a couple of treatments of a liquid bromine booster (brome-boost) that is followed 5 minutes later with a packet to activate it (?) called zap. I assume the Zap is some sort of shock, the instructions say to use weekly.

Since I'm out of these packets, I'll want to use something to shock. I've read that you can shock bromine with regular laundry chlorine, and I've also read never to mix chlorine and bromine. Any opinions on this?

I liked to shock Bromine with MPS (non chlorine shock) peroxymonopersulfate or whatever it is.

[Sam]

I have another question about water care, hopefully some of the experts can answer.

It had taken me a while to get my bromine level up, so I've used a couple of treatments of a liquid bromine booster (brome-boost) that is followed 5 minutes later with a packet to activate it (?) called zap. I assume the Zap is some sort of shock, the instructions say to use weekly.

Since I'm out of these packets, I'll want to use something to shock. I've read that you can shock bromine with regular laundry chlorine, and I've also read never to mix chlorine and bromine. Any opinions on this?

Shocking a bromine spa with chlorine is ok.  You wouldn't want to mix the 2 directly though.  I probably wouldn't use bleach, though I've heard others say it is ok.  It has a pretty high PH.  I would personally use di-chlor.  As stated above, you can shock with MPS which works great.  If you are having water quality issues, dichlor will do a better job of clearing it up.  If your water is fine and you are just doing a maintenance shock, MPS is probably the better choice.  When I had my tub, I kept both on hand.

[jemez]

Thanks all for the help. This morning I finally have clear water & bromine at the right level (I measured with sticks & took a sample to a local shop). My alkalinity & Ph are a bit high (170), but I'll deal with that gadually to see what happens on its own. I did find out from them that they don't test for metals, so the # I saw on my old report was meaningless - maybe that's why the alkalinity reducer (citric acid) made my water turn cloudy/opaque. As it happens, the citric acid is now the only Ph reducer they have, but home depot has the same dry-acid chemical I've used before for this & that my water likes.

I've found that a lot of the chemicals don't tell you what's in them, just brand names, but at Home Depot I found MPS, I'll try this for shocking for a while.