White Water Mold and Decontamination

[Cajun_McChicken]

Hello!  I'm having a water chemistry and decontamination problem that I'm hoping for help with.
My tub:
Divine DL 1040 from Costco
440 gallons
Usine 3-step bromine as detailed on this site.
 
The backstory:
I forgot to maintain my water balance and sanitizer levels for about a month back in May/June, so of course it was nasty when I finally opened it up.  I superchlorinated overnight, drained and rinsed the tub and shop-vacced as much water as possible out of the lines (there are 120-something jets and 4 pumps in the tub so I didn't get it all, of course).  I chose not to refill it at that time since I live in CA and we have the drought and all so I left it covered for the entire summer with periodic openings of the cover to let in fresh air.
 
The problem:
I refilled the tub last weekend and shocked it up to 20 ppm FC, but it was down to 0 ppm after 2 days and I noticed what I later determined to be white water mold after running the jets.  Here's how I've tried to treat it:
-superchlorinated to probably 100 ppm FC, ran the jets for an hour, let it sit for 3 days.
-neutralized down to 10 or so ppm FC
-treated with Ahh-some and let sit overnight with the filters floating around in the ahh-some water as prescribed by the manufacturer
-drained the tub and scrubbed the gunk off with lysol wipes and bleach cleaner then rinsed with a hose
-refilled the tub, balanced the water, but the sanitizer demand was high and the white water mold came back.
-superchlorinated to probably 75-100 ppm FC again, ran the jets for an hour, let sit overnight
-treated with Ahh-some again and got way more gunk and a ton of foam that didn't come out the first time (note: I didn't neutralize the sanitizer this time)
-soaked the filters in filter cleaner overnight separate from the ahh-some treated tub this time
-ran the jets all day with the tub putting out mountains of foam and dripping gunk on the sides of the tub and the surrounding plants and lawn
-drained, scrubbed the heck out of it with ahh-some water, rinsed and refilled.
-rinsed and replaced the filters and balanced the water, I can see no evidence of the WWM so far but...
-now the same amount of concentrated bleach that had been elevating the FC by 2.5 ppm is only raising it by about .4 ppm and as soon as I added the bleach and turned on the jets I got a mountain of soap foam (much different in appearance than the foam from the ahh-some superchlorination treatment, these new bubbles are large and have a soapy appearance and feel to them)

Does anyone have ideas about what is going on with my tub or what I should do now?
 
Thanks!

[Tman122]

You've created a monster!!!! This thread needs professional advice, chemgeek?

[Vinny]

Did you use the ahh-some with the chlorine?

The soapy residue may be from the filters being cleaned in filter cleaner. Whenever you use cleaner then you need to rinse the filters very well and once you think you have them cleaned - rinse them again. after rinsing with a hose,  I tend to use a bucket, put the filters upside down (threads facing up) push the filter underwater quickly and pull it from the water quickly - I do this a few times change the water and do it again.

If you can keep the free chlorine up for a few days, try running the jets with air and using a pool skimmer scoop the foam out. Once you get the foam out try shocking the tub with non chlorine shock. It is possible that the chlorine is being eaten up by trying to burn out the stuff in your water.

[Quickbeam]

The instructions my dealer gave me when I ran into some biofilm issues were as follows:

1. Add 1 tsp. per 100 US gallons of Ahh-Some and run the jets for 30 minutes.

2. Add about 4 to 5 cups of bleach.

3. Lower the PH of the water to below 6.8 (with dry acid).

4. Run the jets for at least 4 hours.

5. Drain the spa. Wipe down all surfaces as best you can. Clean or better yet replace the filters.

6. You might need to repeat steps 1 and 2 and 3 multiple times if the amount of biofilm is excessive.


When we had the problem with our tub, I followed pretty close to this procedure and ended up doing the entire process three times.  With the filters I just took them out and left them in the tub to soak in the Ahh-some and bleach as the jets were running. If I remember correctly, it took two or three days to complete all this. At the end of each day I would put some sanitizer in the tub just to try and keep the biofilm from coming back. I didn’t bother with balancing the water until my last fill. And just before my last fill (after I drained the tub the last time) I wiped the complete inside of the spa with vinegar and water. This process did work to get rid of the biofilm.