Welcome to our forum.
It’s kind of high still and I would wait until it’s down around 5ppm to get in, but I don’t think it would actually do you much harm unless you have a problem with chlorine. If you had it that level long term I think it could cause dry skin and such but it will come down quicker if you use it as it will have more to work on. As to switching to bromine, I personally would switch to dichlor from the trichlor the old owner was using. Trichlor breaks down to fast in hot water and is the reason you are getting the high readings. Once you switch to bromine the tub will be a bromine tub until you completely drain it and flush it. You can go from chlorine to bromine but not the other way around as the bromine will convert any chlorine to bromine I am told. Dichlor only comes as a granular product and would need to be added daily, bromine you can get as a pill for your floater and in theory you don’t have to check and add it every day. My experience with bromine is I was fiddling with the adjustment every day anyway as it was hard to keep stable and I had an inline bromine dispenser and also tried a floater. There is a product called @ease that fits a frog floater or inline that is a chlorine and is slow breakdown that I have used. If I was going that route I would use that over bromine.What I like about Dichlor is I add it after we go in at night and by the next night it has done its job and the level is down to like 1-2ppm my tub is the same size as yours and I use 1 tablespoon most of the time with 2 people in the tub for say an hour or less. We shower first and don’t use swimsuits that have been washed in soap. If we have guests I adjust the amount kind of by experience and then test the next morning if I’m not sure. I use dichlor until I reach 50ppm CYA / stabilizer. And then switch to Walmart cleaning bleach the cheap stuff and 1/3 cup = 1 tablespoon of dichlor roughly. Doing that the stabilizer stops climbing and makes the tub easier to keep in line. Little stabilizer helps a lot not so good. I use test strips made by Clorox and they measure all I need. There is also a phone app that lets you track how you are doing I used to use. I would turn up your temp a little we live right up on Lake Erie and can see Canada on a clear night, and this time of year I like 103 she likes 102 and I really wish tubs adjusted half degrees. 100 will feel a little cold I think. The hotter water seems to burn off the chlorine a little faster as well.Keep in mind I’m not a pro just a guy like you that 4 years ago had no idea what I was doing also. It gets a lot easier once you get going and I only test now about once a week as I know where its at just from experience. At first I was testing a couple times a day and going crazy. Welcome to the forum lots of good advice here.
Welcome my Canadian Friend! Ontario I assume? More of the chemical experts will be a long soon, but from my memory most people say TRI-chlor in a dispenser is a NO-NO for a hot tub.Good luck.
I would stop trying to adjust alk until bromine level comes down. It's my understanding that high halogen levels can affect the accuracy of those tests.
Vince,Just kind of skimming along here and I'm very new to all this as well. I've had my 400 gallon tub set up and going about 9 weeks and using bromine also as we took over the chems from the orig owner. As I had read, building up the bromine bank can take a bit but I have had a few ups and downs with the level (my own doing and experiementing with settngs), yet it seems pretty easy / non critical. Other reading; Min 2 ppm, recommended range of 3 to 5 and max of 10 ppm. As first set up, I wasn't sure why the other owner had a floater and the spa frog that is build in /in-line so I probably doused the tub with more tabs than needed but it work out fine as I tested and keept track of the level and did have the floater in there. The shock additive (as needed per bather load) "wakes it up" as well.One thing I found along my path of gaining info or making a file and printing up stuff I don't want to try committing to memory just yet is a write up of tips and simple realtionship of the chemistry by "Nitro" and another as ref by him - "Hottub Hillbilly" or something like that. Both seem to be vauled and respected resources and clarify some things while creating a tip list that really hones in on the basics. Keep an eye out for them on a search and I will add that Nitro does ref another link as for specifics on bromine whereas he covers chlorine. I think Hillbilly does the write up to zero in on bromine. It really filled a void for me as I'm always looking for the simple of how-to's or explanations and his list is good for the examples of- if this, do that and making sure the one or two key levels are good before trying to hit the other targets.2005 Marquis Reward S.A. / 240v w spa frog mineral/bromine @102*f
Author
Topic: New Hot Tub Owner Slowly Figuring It Out? (Read 5630 times)
