Changed from Bromine to chlorine I think

[Andfor65]

My wife was getting itchy skin in our hot tub.  We tried a number of things and eventually figured it might be a sensitivity to Bromine (she does not have the reactions in public hot tubs)

we were advised to empty our hot tub and refil as it is the only way to change to from bromine to chlorine

we used a pipe cleaner (AHH SOME) and drained the tub.  We refilled with fresh water (having removed the old filter) ran the jets and drained.  For good measure we again refilled the tub ran the jets and drained.

then we refilled the hot tub, put in a brand new filter and balanced the water and sanitized with chlorine.   We were told this should do the trick.   We were also told that any amount of bromide or bromine left in the tub would turn our chlorine into bromine.   Not being a chemist I was not sure how far to take this,  Would one molecule of bromine/bromide undo the whole change over.  If that the case and i wear shorts in a private bromine tub and then into a public chlorine tub would the public tub become a bromine tub.  If it is indeed this finicky how can i tell if i have successfully made the change?

[castletonia]

Your good.  The minimal amount of water left likely wouldn’t have enough bromine to register.  Technically, you probably didn’t need to do the purge or change the filter. 

[gmdodt]

I've considered doing this and actually have Ahh some on hand, but have not used it yet.  My first shot was going to be to run ahh some, drain, and then spray water in each jet hole and such and drain any residual water.  Use bromine again, to make sure it was a biofilm issue or something (we bought the tub used but put a new filter in). 

If I am still having issues after that, I figured I'd swap to chlorine.  I just like the convenience of the spa frog inline system with the bromine cartridge and mineral cartridge.  I know that now make chlorine cartridges, but I reuse the bromine by opening them up and putting bromine tabs in them. I don't think there is a product out there that I can do the same thing with chlorine tabs because most dissolve to fast.

It sounds like you drained the tub three times, that seems a little excessive honestly.  I was only going to do it once, maybe twice max.  That's a heck of a lot of water!

[Livefast]

Hey i had same problem last fall.  I got super itchy with bromine.  Drained tub thinking i did something wrong. Tried again..... couple weeks in and same thing.  Drained and tried again.  Made it about 4 weeks that time. Finally switched to chlorine. No more itch.  Seems like u did a great job of making sure you got it all.  I drained and blew out the lines changed filter and i was good.