Part 1: Here’s what I’ve figured out about maintaining hot tubs by reading the forums. You need:
1. Hot tub Flush cleaner, order bottles of two from ebay, about 30 bucks, use ˝ of one bottle for 400 gallon HT.
2. Bottle of 8 % bleach NaClO (sodium perchlorate) for a couple things, maintaining chlorine levels after dosing it with dichlor granules, more on that later, and wiping down the hot tub, use bleach for sterilization after flush cleaner and drain, you refill and then sterilize with bleach after shocking with potassium peroxymonosulfate (MPS).
3. NaHCO3 (bicarbonate, or arm and hammer baking soda from the grocery), to adjust alkalinity levels. Also, you can use Alkalinity up crystals from hot tub store, which is exactly NaHCO3 same as arm and hammer baking soda.
4. Indicator strips, with 4 pads on each strip, indicating alkalinity, pH, hardness and chlorine level. Get those online or hot tub store.
5. Potassium peroxymonosulfate crystals, available at hot tub store or Walmart, also known as “shock”. This attacks the organic compounds in the tub, skin cells, lotions, deodorants, toe jam, urine, ect, it does not sterilize.
6. Muratic acid, available at hardware stores, this is HCl or hydrochloric acid, for decreasing or lowering pH. Also, you can use pH down at the hot tub store crystals, but this is not pure acid, that stuff also adds a bunch of unnecessary sulfate salts.
7. Sodium carbonate, Na2CO3, also known as soda ash or other common names. You can get that on ebay, 5 lbs is a lifetime supply for about 15 bucks. You adjust the pH up with that, increase pH, you can get it on line or at hot tub store under the name pH increaser.
So, the general procedure is, get it in your head and this is most serious, you HAVE to completely drain the tub 3 or 4 times a year. Seems like a waste, so water the lawn with it. 400 gallons is about 45 minutes running the garden hose. You dump in a half bottle of flush cleaner, and run it over night or at least for a 4 hours. Drain the tub by siphoning it out with the garden hose, put the hose in the tub, run the water, then disconnect at the spigot and move it quickly into the yard where you want water the lawn. Keep the hose below the level of water when you move the disconnected end. When water is siphoned off, you’ll have about an inch of water left in the tub. The easiest way to get rid of that is with a shop vac. You remove the shop vac filter, and the shop vac suctions up the remaining liquid. Then you wipe down all surfaces including the tub cover with a solution of bleach and dish soap, then rinse with the hose and siphon/shop vac out the soapy water out, repeat rinse until all the bleach soap is gone. You have to continuously dump out the shop vac went it fills up. (continued in part 2)
