Shocking help please

[Snowjob]

Hi,
we have a J470 with Bromine.  It is at a weekend cottage so we use a floater with Bromine pucks in it.
According to the instructions from the dealer, and the side of shock bottle we are supposed to shock once a week or 'after heavy bather load'.

The bottle (Jacuzzi Brand Chlorine free Shock MPS I assume) says to add 4 caps or 100 grams of shock

When I add the shock, as expected the Bromine levels blow off the chart ie >20 PPM for a good 20 hours, then they are down to over 10 ppm

So the problem is, if we show up on a Friday night, after being away for about 2 week, and use the tub, usually 3 people, and then shock it, we cannot use it on Saturday as the Bromine level has not dropped low enough yet.

So my questions are;

1) what is a 'heavy bather load' is 3 Adults in a 400 gallon - 6 person tub a heavy load?.....possibly if it were summer and they were all covered in sun screen / oils, but even so I would ask they shower first.
2) I am thinking about only shocking on Sunday before we go home, then it will have at least a week to level out - any obvious issue with this approach?
3) If I were to use less shock would the Bromine level out quicker?  Or would that not allow the process to work correctly?

thanks

[bradleyabell]

Hi,
we have a J470 with Bromine.  It is at a weekend cottage so we use a floater with Bromine pucks in it.
According to the instructions from the dealer, and the side of shock bottle we are supposed to shock once a week or 'after heavy bather load'.

The bottle (Jacuzzi Brand Chlorine free Shock MPS I assume) says to add 4 caps or 100 grams of shock

When I add the shock, as expected the Bromine levels blow off the chart ie >20 PPM for a good 20 hours, then they are down to over 10 ppm

So the problem is, if we show up on a Friday night, after being away for about 2 week, and use the tub, usually 3 people, and then shock it, we cannot use it on Saturday as the Bromine level has not dropped low enough yet.

So my questions are;

1) what is a 'heavy bather load' is 3 Adults in a 400 gallon - 6 person tub a heavy load?.....possibly if it were summer and they were all covered in sun screen / oils, but even so I would ask they shower first.
2) I am thinking about only shocking on Sunday before we go home, then it will have at least a week to level out - any obvious issue with this approach?
3) If I were to use less shock would the Bromine level out quicker?  Or would that not allow the process to work correctly?

thanks

1. The more people in the tub, the quicker the bromine is used up, but this would depend on the amount of time spent in the tub.
2. Should be fine as long as bromine doesn't drop to 0 while in tub.
3. Yes, sometimes I only throw in 1-2 tablespoons of MPS as 4, like you said, brings bromine levels up too high sometimes.

[bud16415]

Very similar to my experience with bromine. I’m told bromine is held in a bank in the water and converts back and forth with shocking so after shocking you get this huge release as it returns back to active bromine.

If I had your usage pattern I would leave the floater in during the week. On the weekend I would first thing test the water and if the level was ok do nothing. If it was a little low I would add a half table spoon of dichlor. If it was real low I would add a tablespoon. Then use the tub a half hour later and as much as I wanted all Friday night. Saturday morning I would do the same thing and again Sunday morning. When I left it on Sunday for the week I would shock it leave it open for half hour pump running on clean cycle then drop the floater in and close it up.

Heavy bather load is hard to measure as there are so many factors. If I had to guess I would say showered or not showered double the bather load factor for not showered, if nude or with swimsuits double it again with swimsuits. If it is summer and hot out and your tub is set to 95 or winter and set to 103 double it for 103. Then there are kids. Real little kids shouldn’t be in the tub but people take them in anyway. Young kid just don’t follow hot tub rules, nuff said double them to play it safe.

After a while you just get a feel for it. I started out worrying way too much about higher sanitizing levels. I now have found I would rather be in slightly over sanitized water than under sanitized.